AMD's future apu lineup that is on the horizon.

I wanted to have a discussion about AMD's plans for the FM2+ socket. I'm planning to build an mini-ITX APU rig based on their new apu lineup.

I'm looking at the 7850K, and thinking, Carrizo is around the corner and it, as far as I remember, still only has 512 shader units.

Do we know anything about what the improvements are going to be on these new Excavator cores? I know I shouldn't have to say this, but no one tell me to go Intel, I've given them (and Nvidia) far too much of my money and I thought I would go for an AMD APU solution as my budget no longer allows for Intel level pricing.

I've seen few discussions on other tech forums, so I thought I'd start up a fresh discussion here. I was hoping AMD would sell us the cut down console parts (the Xbox One and the PS4 apus) to use in our desktops, I guess thats down the road as Microsoft and Sony might not appreciate them doing something like that so soon. I still wish we could have those parts to put into desktops sooner, but its probably years away and by that time, those APUs will not be as relevant due to much more powerful ones being available, and they might very well be put into upper mid range and high end laptops by that time.

Its so aggravating to me, but seeing it from these cold corporations' point of view, I see why, but I disagree entirely with them.

So, all that said, how do mini-ITX boards deal with minor overclocking? An example would help, so let's say I bought the 7850k and some decent 2400mhz ram (8 or 16gb) and I overclocked the apu very mildly from 3.7ghz to an even 4ghz. Is such a thing considered a safe overclock for a small form factor build?

Would I need to buy some aftermarket all in one liquid cooler and if so, what is generally recommended? I've heard Corsair helps you out if one of their liquid coolers destroy your parts, do they still do that? I've also heard they have made setting them up fairly easy, in some cases you don't have to mess with the backplate, which is great.

I'm not looking to do anything right away, so my budget is flexible to a point, but due to being burned by spending tons of money on fully equipped atx rigs, I thought I would go the more small form factor budget/htpc route.

Why would you choose an APU over a discrete GPU? Unless it's for budget reasons.

I did an APU build for my mother about 3-4 months ago. I really enjoyed setting it up and it had a lot more power than I gave it credit for.

@Arthas045: Yeah that's kind of why I want to go this route and for me its more cost-effective/reasonable to turn down or off settings like anti-aliasing than spend more money while I wait for the next apus to come out.

I also quite enjoy the thought of a small form factor PC as all I've ever worked with has been full tower gaming rigs full of powerful hardware ranging from the lower tier (right above consoles) to the high end (twice to three times the power of consoles) all of which for years the game developers/publishers basically ignore, even if their game is bundled with the part, like video cards. I may actually go with one of Fractal Design's cases as they seem well received and well engineered at least from a price standpoint, maybe Lian-Li for the all aluminum, but I just wonder if its worth the extra cost to go with an all aluminum case.