ZenMonkey

Thanks for the link. That answered my question. For anyone else who doesn't already know, the answer is:  No. The max boost is pretty much the most you can ever expect to see from the chip w/o LN2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXbCdGENp5I

This is the video about the temperature scaling

The cooler master Q300L or Q300P might fit your bill. It can comfortably fit a 240 rad in the front and a 120 rad in the back.
A 240 rad will fit up top if you don't have tall RAM getting in the way.
Their specs don't officially support a 240 up top, but I tried it out in mine and it fits.
 
http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mini-tower/masterbox-q300l/

Well you can chuck the Evolv mATX out the window then. That has by far the worst cooling of the 4
 
Meshify Mini C has the best airflow and the best balance everywhere of price, build, aesthetics and size. Honestly most of these cases (aside from the 240) are all about the same size, the in win 301 being the smallest

Sizes:
Aesthetically, I love the H400i best but as you mentioned, the added price tag of that "dumb" smart hub is probably not worth it unless you cant live without the look of the case.
 
Personal Preference
1. Mini C
2. H400i (smart hub holds back it's competitiveness)
3. 301c (Air flow isnt the best, but it's still doable)
4. Air 240 (old case, no TG)

@ZenMonkey
 
I ordered this: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353063
And was quite pleased with ease of access, space layout, air flow and price tag.
Comes in red as well and I thought the quality (for the price tag) was quite good.

techspot.com

Older games can also be a pretty big issue for Ryzen, and ultimately why I switched.
 
Heroes of the Storm uses the very-dated Starcraft 2 engine (released in 2010), and the 8700K gets around double the performance I had on my 4.0 GHz R5-1600X. I never dip below 144 fps on the 8700K, but I could see as low as 60 on the Ryzen 5. I say "low" because I use a 144 Hz monitor and I can see when the framerate dips.
 
Guild Wars 2 is another game I play a lot (released in 2012). I upgraded my CPU, an i7-980X at 4.0 GHz, because I was tired of getting around 20 FPS in world events like Claw of Jormag and Tequatl, only to find that the Ryzen was pretty much in the same ballpark. Around 20 FPS or so. My 8700K? 40 FPS on a full map (~150 people), and over 60 fps otherwise. Elsewhere in the world is 144+ easily.
 
Newer games, especially AAA titles, play just fine with Ryzen+ (Ryzen+'s latency improvements can help a lot in games that were initially hit heavy by them, like PUBG), but optimization across indie games and older titles can be annoying. I have no doubt it'll be better in a few years, but I or anyone else can't say when.
 
I make it sound like doom and gloom, but Ryzen+ really did improve upon things for gaming. It just isn't highlighted as much in the AAA games everyone benchmarks since they all mostly play fine with Ryzen anyway these days.

Here are a few from Gamers Nexus, tested with a GTX 1080 Ti so still some scaling from faster CPUs: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3288-amd-r5-2600-2600x-review-stream-benchmarks-gaming-blender/page-3
 
Techpowerup with a GTX 1080, notice how much closer and bunched up the CPUs are now, classic GPU limitations that you mentioned earlier: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_5_2600X/14.html
 
Overall the 8600K is still a bit faster even at 1440P, especially with a 1080 Ti and both overclocked to their limits, as GN's results show. If you are a competitive gamer, I would personally just get the 8700K if you can afford it, otherwise the 8600K would be a solid 2nd choice. An overclocked 2600X is no slouch, but doesn't quite catch the Intel chips in outright gaming performance, even at 1440P.

I run a 1700X and 8700k. In benchmarks you're likely to find in an article or Youtube video I see what is seen in those comparisons. The real difference comes in when looking at titles from small developers that are not covered in those comparisons. That's when the 8700k shines and Ryzen has anything from minor to major issues. 

For a written review and comparison:
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Ryzen-7-2700X-and-Ryzen-5-2600X-Review-Zen-Matures/1440p-and-4K-Gaming
 
Note that it is not the 2600X but the 2700X.

get the best single card solution that fits your budget, some games run the same or worse with SLI, no games run worse on a faster card

That was a really informative article.

How fast a CPU can operate is solely based on its architectural design at the hardware level. The biggest factor is what the slowest stage in the execution pipeline is, and at that point you have two options to deal with it:
Optimize the step This is harder than it looks Split the step into more steps This has to be done before any real hardware has been made, because it requires architectural changes. Intel posted a blog related to this topic that is a good read: https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2014/02/19/why-has-cpu-frequency-ceased-to-grow

Core size would not matter - A53s only clock to around 2GHz while ARM A7X designs clock at 2.3+GHz.
Die size matters as the larger the die the more likely a frequency limiting fault will occur in the chip.

Oh, man, where to start.
 
There are a number of possibilities here. CPU architecture design and process node quality are two places to start; Intel's 14nm is a highly mature process at this point, while Zen was AMD's first crack at it and Zen+ is their first crack at 12nm. As for node quality, well, Intel owns the fabs that make its chips, like AMD used to. AMD now contracts out its fabrication to GlobalFoundries and Samsung, companies which may not have the same fabrication quality as Intel's fabs do. There's a reason Intel dumps so much dolla-dolla into those fabs.
 
It's also probably a function of the way the architectures work. Zen is a multi-core module design connected via the Infinity Fabric, while Coffee Lake is just a monolithic CPU die like we're all used to.

I bought a Synology DS418Play and installed Plex on it by downloading the app from the Plex website and manually installing it, which I read was the suggested method. Then I hooked it up to my network via both network ports, and uploaded a 4k video to test, which the description says it can handle: it actually says it can handle two at the same time. Then I went to my 4k TV, which is hooked up to my XBox One S as a media server. I launched the Plex app on my XBox and played the video. It played for about 30 seconds, then buffered for 3-5 seconds, then played for about 30 more seconds, and repeated. I watched about 10 minutes of the video to see if it would get better, but it didn't. I then tried my phone, which is only 1080p so the video was downsized, and the same thing happened, so I thought maybe it was the wifi and plugged my XBox into my router physically, but the same thing happened.
 
Are there some settings I can tweak to make this work, or should I just return the thing for false advertisement?

There's no software tool that I know of. As far as I know, you need a meter like https://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU to get an accurate real-time measurement.

Without knowing every piece of hardware he has in his system, I'm assuming a stock intel cpu fan, 2-3 system fans, and one hard drive in addition to what you've mentioned, so I'll say it should be enough, but I can't guarantee it if he has other devices using power and/or his power supply isn't 80+ rated. Best case is it works fine, but he shouldn't expect high boost clocks, and definitely no overclocking.

I like this read
https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/58037/how-yellow-color-is-formed-using-rgb-color-model
 

Red yellow blue (or cyan magenta yellow) are only the primary colors for paint or other materials, not for mixing colored light. The rules for which colors combine to make which other colors are different for lights compared to inks. For example if you mix all three primary colors (RGB) in an additive system, you get white, whereas if you mix all three primary colors (CMY) in a subtractive system (like ink or paint), you get black.
 

It is true. All the power the 1050 Ti needs is provided by the PCI-e slot it's plugged into. Because it's not a power hungry card and only requires 75W, it should be good to remove the 625 and replace it with the 1050 Ti. However, the 625 OEM is only a 29W power draw so it depends on how tight Dell was with the PSU. Best thing your friend can do is open the side and see how many watts the PSU supplies.

The pump is just big enough to work as it is now,Adding to it like a res would probably kill the pumps pressure.Honestly a aio is not built very good and most have a aluminum rad to them.I would rather spend the money and go full custom loop you get better parts and it will work a lot better for a long time.

I've been following case trends for the past year or so, and they're all moving to tons of RGB with tempered glass sides to show off everything, and it's forced me to think to myself "Am I the only person who doesn't care about color coordination, RGB features, and cable management?"
 
Just give me a solid box with enough space and good ventilation and I'm happy. I don't care how it looks, I only care how it performs. Now, I'll admit that at first I was cool with an RGB accent here or there, but it's become kind of ridiculous in my opinion.

2013


 
2015


 
2017


 
Yup, I'm getting old too. 
 
As much as I like the high-end stuff, I just don't want my PC to shout "look at meeee, I'm a high-end gaming machine !!!!!1!!" anymore.  There's still a crazy good gaming rig inside that R5 though. 
I even went as far as to put my new monitors on monitor arms because their feet were too gamer-y. 

have you noticed the stock base clock is really low?
guess why, thats the frequency where the cpu has the tdp measured , and because most boards will automatically set your cpu's boost to all cores, that cpu will need a much better cooler than those 95w intel claims