Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I came to the decision to buy the Alpha after a ton of research on machines in this price point. Let me be VERY clear -- You cannot build a gaming rig this good for this cheap, and frankly, with a couple light tweaks this thing punches well above it's price point. There are two things you NEED to do, for gaming, to achieve the standards I am referring to. 1. Upgrade to at least 8gb of memory. DO NOT buy the Alpha w/ 8gb as it is insanely more expensive, 150 or so dollars more. The memory is 20 bucks. You put it in yourself, and when I say it's very easy, this was literally my first time ever opening up and upgrading a PC. 2. You HAVE to play games in Console mode. So many videos benchmarking games, that are running on Desktop mode to run the streaming software and really underselling what this thing can do. The Console mode is tweaked to shut down background apps and put the power of the device right on the games. You can of course play games in Desktop mode, but trust me, you will see a noticeable difference. With this in mind, I have bench-marked the following games on Ultra w/ at LEAST 40 fps, which I consider playable. And 40 is the floor, on Ultra. Dark Souls 2 Far Cry 4 Diablo 3 Saints Row 4 Bioshock: Infinite Starcraft 2 NBA 2K15 And the current specs are capable of playing games like Star Wars: Battlefront on Ultra with 60+ fps. This game and Fallout 4 are on my radar, and the Alpha will be able to handle them both fine. All that power....for under 500 bucks. It's small, sleek and quiet. You obviously need to have or buy a keyboard, mouse and monitor to utilize the Desktop mode. It runs a full Windows. If you've been spoiled by Titan graphics cards and 4k, I don't even know why you would care about the Alpha. It was never meant to impress you. If you want to be able to play basically every game the PC has to offer on max graphics, on the cheap, while also acquiring a fully functioning windows PC, I implore you to take a long, long look at the Alpha. You will not find better value. I would also reccomend this machine to people who like consoles but are interested in the greater potential of the PC. Just play a game like Dark Souls 2 on your PS4, and then on Ultra on your Alpha. You will never go back to a console. It's easy to see why so much information is going around on this thing: equal parts not using it properly, and established products being threatened. Either way, I was a dude on a serious budget and this thing has blown me away.