Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

12/7/17 Update: If you are considering upgrading this PC's video - IE adding a video card, (because it doesn't come with one. It has motherboard graphics) - avoid purchasing this. Your older video card from your previous PC will possibly not be recognized. The (possible) fix for this is to disable the on-board video in the device manager and then install your new video card. I did this and it worked for me but the PC BIOS option screen doesn’t come up anymore at boot up.. The other solution will be to get a UEFI compliant video card (mine old one was not)- but I can't confirm that. Most new cards are UEFI compliant. All this really shouldn't be necessary, because at the very least, it should be possible to disable the on-board video in the BIOS or the PC should work with older non-compliant UEFI video cards. Acer technical support has no clue about this and just tells me they are not authorized to provide support for third-party hardware. What? That is what the open slots on the motherboard are for! ************************************ This PC has some nice components. I took the computer apart to see what was going on inside. It uses an Intel 4 core processor (great) at 3Ghz. The processor was well seated under the heat sink/fan. Acer used thermal paste for good heat transfer. It has a Toshiba DT01ACA200 two Terra-byte 7200rpm hard drive (slightly faster then the 5200 rpm variety). It has two sticks of 12 GB RAM total. That's about an optimal level of RAM for most users. One stick is 8 GB the other is 4 GB. One is branded Kingston (a well known name in RAM) and AData. It’s recommended that PC’s use identical sets of RAM to avoid data errors (the blue screen, that is), but it hasn't been a problem so far. There is no PCIE video card on the motherboard. This PC uses Intel motherboard integrated graphics, which are always considered more limited compared to an add-on video card. Also, there is no DVI port on the back of the PC to connect to your DVI port on your monitor. You could connect your monitor using the VGA graphics port, but VGA graphics are low resolution. However, there is an HDMI port on the PC for better resolution (1280 x 1024 on my monitor) and it works well, but if your current monitor only has a DVI connector you will have to buy a HDMI to DVI cable for $10.00. Most monitors have a DVI connector, but fewer have HDMI. The FSP Group Inc. power supply is 300 watts. This is a problem if you want to add a video card later. You are going to find many video card manufactures recommend a power supply of more than 300 watts, most especially if you are using gaming video cards. Many video cards also need a 6 pin supplementary power connector directly from the power supply which the included power supply does not have. There is 1 open PCIE16 slot where an add-on video card would go and there is one open PCIE1 for another add-on card (but not a video card). There is a SATA 3 port being used for the hard drive and a SATA 2 port being used for the DVD-RW. SATA 3 is the newest and fastest of the two. If you ever get a solid state drive, you will want to connect it to the SATA 3 port. If you want to add a second hard drive, you’re going to have to either disconnect the DVD drive and use its SATA 2 port or buy a PCIE1 SATA 3 add-on card and connect your 2nd hard drive to the port on the card. I added a second drive, but I chose to disconnect the DVD player and used the SATA port it was using. I have a USB external DVD player I can plug in if needed. By the way, there is plenty of space for a 2nd hard drive. The side of the PC slides off. Drives are removed easily with 4 screws. Keyboard and mouse are just fair. There are 4 USB 2.0 ports and 1 USB 3.0 in the rear and 2 USB 3.0 ports in the front. There is also a camera card slot in the front. Conclusion: I wish this PC had a video card. For this class of PC, it is really too much to ask the consumer to buy one and install it. An extra SATA port for expand-ability would be good, too. This is a OK computer for a web surfer only, but not for enthusiasts or anyone wishing to upgrade in the future.