There's a lot of issues involved in that, so not the easiest to explain, but here's some of the things:
(RAM)
- 16GB is really the minimum I'd get for any PC at this point and one of the first things you would notice slowing things down, so I consider it prudent to just start out with 32GB.
- DDR4 RAM is really cheap, the difference between 16GB and 32GB can be very small, so we're talking maybe £25? Some 16GB kits are barely much cheaper too (e.g. £5 or £10 between them).
- 4 sticks puts more load on the memory controller which can have stability and performance issues, e.g. lower the speed and need more volts.
- 4 sticks is more likely to snag the cooler (as you noted).
- 8GB sticks are often nerfed nowadays (16Gbit with only 4 memory chips), which lowers performance.
- 4 sticks of memory is not something guaranteed to work, even if you buy the same model (they may change the memory chips on them).
(Graphics)
- The Intel IGP (especially on 11th/12th gen, or later) is pretty powerful and has good optimisations for media and encoding/decoding that can rival expensive GPUs.
- GPUs are relatively expensive to buy, at least compared to RAM.
- The 1650 was a bit crap even when it was released 5-6 years ago, now it is very crap, so I consider it best avoided if possible.
- If a GPU really is required because of their usage, then a 3060 12GB is the minimum I'd be looking at. A 1650 won't cut it for those kind of features.
All that said, in the two specs you quoted, the 12500 is actually more expensive than the 12600KF (even though it lacks the 4 E-Cores), so the CPU+GPU option makes more sense than if they were priced the same.
The XT Pro is a better case and expandable to have a very powerful PC hosted inside, but I'm not sure having mesh everywhere and a glass side panel is the best idea in this context. I can imagine a cup of tea going on the roof or the glass side panel getting dropped and.. whoops. It also has no DVD drive, so you'd need to buy an external one.
The Z690-A is a nice board, to be fair and lots of expansion possible (e.g. 4x M.2 slots and 6x SATA ports).
The B760M Gaming Plus is also a nice board, would be ideal for the IGP option because it has 2x HDMI and 2x DP, but only 2x M.2 slots (not unusual for Micro-ATX) and 4x SATA ports.
They're both fine, no concern with either, though if you get the Antec case the MSI Z690-A would not fit.
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