ASUS G20AJ-US009S Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz 8GB DDR3 1TB HDD + 8GB SSD DVD±RW Windows 8.1 Desktop PC (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I purchased two of these as platforms for games from Steam for my sons. I had put together a list of components to perform my own custom build, something I have quite a lot of experience with, but found it hard to beat the combination that ASUS puts together with the G20AJ series of computers. My biggest hurdle was to overlook that it runs Windows instead of Linux or (the unavailable) SteamOS, but the machine itself is quite impressive.The heart of this machine is the NVIDIA GTX-760 Ti graphics card. After I had gone through four hours of Windows setup (yes, it takes that long to remove the free trial anti-virus, update 75+ Windows patches, add Norton ant=virus, update the NVIDIA graphics drivers, create a Restore thumbdrive, and establish your first system revert backup) I asked my son to load the most hardware-challenging game from the Steam library. That turned out to be Mirror's Edge, something that only ran on our XBox, not on the previous system and a NVIDIA GS card. Well, this box ran rings around the XBox version, and both my sons were singing the praises of this system (and, in that, this card).You can get this as an i3, i5 or i7 and many recommend the lower chips as more cost effective because the GPU does all the work. I have custom builds of all these chips, and I wouldn't invest this kind of cash in anything less than an i7, otherwise you'll be turning off anti-virus and wondering why things seem sluggish.The one real flaw in this system is the 1TB hybrid drive. Windows really needs to be served from an SSD, and there is no excuse for not providing both an SSD for the operating system and the hybrid 8GB/1TB drive for games and their data. The unit has two 2.5" slots, but adding your own drive voids the warranty. There are also two memory slots, but adding to the second memory slot voids that warranty, too. I think that tells you they don't think the case is designed for you to split it open. After all, it has dual colling fans for the non-graphics side and heatpipes. I have read it's a bit of a pain to split and work on, but once opened things seem fairly well laid-out.I'm a system builder, so I might not buy something like this for myself, but for the kids, and with the intent of keeping them out of things, this would be perfect with an SSD boot drive and a second stick of memory. Oh, and maybe the GTC-980. Only kidding on the 980.

If you are thinking of buying this i7 model over the i3 model because you want the best version of this G20 desktop, there are much better versions available that will also run more reliably. For starters, there's the G20AJ-B11, with a 2TB hard drive, 16GB RAM, and GTX960 graphics for around $100-200 more. There's also the G20CB line that have win10 preinstalled, 2TB, 16GB, and GTX970/980.I bought this desktop with the mindset of trying to get the best SFF desktop and to prove the poor reviews wrong. Instead, I found the true source of the problems everyone have been encountering. First, you have to realize that there are two different HDMI ports to the desktop: one for the dedicated graphics card and one for the integrated one. Upon first boot of this desktop, you have to plug your monitor into the integrated port, but neither of the two graphics cards (integrated/dedicated) will work. You'd have to manually reboot the computer once, after which the computer will run from the integrated card. At this point, after you get everything set up and check on the status of your graphics through "GeForce Experience", you'll notice that the desktop isn't detecting your dedicated GPU; you need to restart the computer. After you restart the computer, both graphics cards will fail again, and you'll have to manually restart the computer another time, and this time the computer will finally switch to the dedicated GTX card (make sure that at this point you've switched HDMI ports). One thing to note is that the G20AJ-B11 does not have this problem, and boots from the dedicated card the first time.Upgrading this desktop to win10 was a pain, as you had to update the BIOS to the latest version first. Problem is, the updater software that comes with the desktop is buggy and can ruin your BIOS (some people have been saying that their computer randomly restarts - I had this problem). If you do a bit of googling, the correct way of upgrading the BIOS is a completely separate process. The better versions of this desktop come with the new BIOS already installed, so there is no hassle.The only thing that this desktop has going for it is the hybrid 1TB drive, but in the end, all of the hassle isn't worth it. Do yourself a favor and get the latest version. I hope Amazon will realize this at some point and start selling them.