UPDATE: The hard disk is slow, so I think many will want to add an SSD. And many will want 16GB of RAM, or at least to know that they have that option. If you think that you might want to upgrade, you should be aware that this PC was not designed to be user-upgradeable; ASUS Support recommends that you get a "registered technician" (?) to upgrade your RAM or add an SSD. Opening the case will not by itself void your warranty, but if you damage something it will. That's the same as any other computer, but it will not be so easy to make the upgrades on this PC (particularly RAM), increasing the likelihood that you will inadvertently break something.

8GB of RAM is probably enough for a lot of people, and should be enough if you are only using this for gaming (for software development you might want more).

I'm going to attempt the upgrade myself, but you should think twice before doing so; more info following the original review.

------- The original review follows -------

TL;DR This succeeds at being an affordable yet fairly performant gaming computer.

OK, we all know that you can get a faster gaming computer than this. ASUS is trying, with this machine, to hit a target giving users good gaming performance with reasonable limitations at an affordable price. If you are a hard-core gamer for whom every millisecond counts, you know better than to look in this price range.

So, how does it do? I downloaded PassMark PerformanceTest 9.0 and ran it. Here are the results:

Overall: 2380.3 (but it would be much better with an SSD)

CPU: 6568.7 (60th %ile)
2D Graphics: 708.9 (72nd %ile)
3D Graphics: 8028.8 (92nd %ile)
Memory: 2002.4 (67th %ile)
Disk: 638.2 (25th %ile)

DISK

Let's just get this out of the way: the provided disk, which spins at 5400 RPM, is slow. I'm guessing that most people will throw in an SSD (in the provided M.2 slot); you can get the 525GB Crucial MX300 for under $150. You could store videos on the provided disk and put everything that matters to performance on the SSD. Note that the M.2 slot is SATA, not PCIE. I suspect that it will take the 2280 form factor but haven't verified that yet.

GPU

Note that the 3D graphics performance is 92nd percentile. The 1060 is a very competent graphics card, and for most games that is what will matter most. However, note that this is the 3GB version of the card, not the 6GB version (graphics are not upgradeable, by the way). And the two versions actually differ in more than how much memory they have: the 3GB version also has 10% fewer cores (1152 vs. 1280) and fewer texture mapping units. GamersNexus reports that the 3GB is generally 6-7% slower than the 6GB for play up to 1080p, but fps can dip hard for 1440p.

So, if you want higher resolution than 1080p, you probably don't want this PC. But if you are OK with 1080p, you have a fairly kick-ass graphics card.

For software developers doing CUDA parallel programming, the "CUDA compute capability" for the 1060 is apparently 6.1 (which is very good).

CPU

The Core i5-7300HQ is a mobile processor, but unlike other mobile i5s it is true quad core. No hyperthreading, but four real cores are definitely better than 2 hyperthreaded cores. Clock rate is 2.5 Ghz, (3.5 turbo). This is a pretty decent CPU, but not great. It is not as strong a CPU as the 1060 is a GPU, but for most games it's the GPU that matters more, so the balance is probably OK for gaming.

RAM

It comes loaded with 8GB of 2400 MHz RAM and is upgradeable to 16GB. Note that 2400 MHz is faster than what you commonly find in affordable PCs (e.g. 2133 MHz), so ASUS went the extra mile here.

OTHER

You get a generous four USB 3.1 ports, the latest standard, which is a big upgrade over 3.0. And a couple of 2.0 ports for slow peripherals. The connectors are all type A, not the newer type C. It's a minor thing, but I wish they had made two of the 3.1 ports type C.

The HDMI ports are 2.0, so they can drive 4K at 60 Hz (vs 24 in HDMI 1.4).

The small fan (fans?) in the case run constantly, even at idle. They are not loud, even during game play, but you will definitely hear them.

It is not at all obvious how to open the case to install additional RAM or an SSD; This is not my first rodeo, and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I have contacted ASUS customer support and will update this when I get a response.

So there you have it. If you want decent 1080p game play but don't want to lay down an obscene amount of money for it, this system might fit the bill.

-------- What I have learned about doing the upgrade yourself -------

I decided to go ahead and install additional RAM and an SSD on my own. I'll share my experience to save others some trouble.

First of all, there is a tag stretching across the seam which you will break if you attempt the upgrade, to remind you that you are risking voiding your warranty. You'll have to break that tag.

To open the case, you have to remove the four rubber feet on one side of the case; you'll find the screws underneath. Fortunately the feet are not glued in. The screws are deep in a tube, so you cannot get to them using a screwdriver with interchangeable heads; you'll need a dedicated small Phillips screwdriver. Once the screws came out, it still didn't open -- I had to twist a knife in the seam to pry the case apart.

Be careful not to yank the wires connecting the power switch to the motherboard.

Underneath that outer case you will find an inner case; there are more screws all the way around the perimeter. There are also four interior screws with faint triangles next to them in the black plastic; don't mess with those -- they are holding the disk drive. If you undo those four screws, the disk will fall onto the motherboard.

Once you've got that off -- carefully, again, because of that wire to the power switch -- you have exposed the M.2 slot. It doesn't jump out at you, but it's in the lower left corner (assuming you have the text so you can read it), marked M2_TYPE_M. It looks like there is plenty of space for the 22x80 form factor boards. I'll probably get this 500GB SSD:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LXPD2WB

Unfortunately there is more work to do if you want to upgrade the RAM (which I do); you have to remove the GPU cooler, the big honking thing kitty-corner to the M.2 slot. I haven't succeeded in doing that yet.

This is not your typical RAM upgrade. :)

Also, I went to crucial.com to find out what RAM to order. The site does not yet have info for this PC, so I ran their scanner to let it figure out which RAM to use. It said that crucial.com does not have RAM that is compatible with this PC. That seems unlikely.

That's as far as I've gotten; I'll add more info when I get a chance to work on this again.

I bought this machine as a dedicated machine for an Oculus Rift I was given as a gift. I wanted something that could fit in our living room for a TV we had there, and the idea of a gaming PC that is the size of an Xbox really appealed to me. Since I'm not a hard core gamer, I had no idea how important the performance was, though I knew a machine needed to have some base level of capability - and I hoped that the oculus certification would be sufficient.

Overall the machine has met my expectations, but with some important caveats. The biggest issue is that the Hard Drive SUCKS and actually died on me on the 31st day I had this machine (i.e. no Amazon returns). To date, ASUS has STILL not responded to my support request and has been totally useless on this front. Even before the hard drive died, the performance of the machine was really lackluster if anything involved the disk. I disabled all of the AV and other unnecessary services on it which helped somewhat, but the machine felt like a dog.

Ultimately I started getting boot errors because of the Hard Drive and so I went ahead and bought a Samsung SSD for the machine. Adding the SSD was not easy as there are no instructions on how to disassemble the case. Once I got it in there, it was not that hard to get it to work, however I am quite tech savvy and know what I'm doing on this front. Because the old hard drive had died, I had to completely reinstall the OS and reconfigure the machine for Oculus/gaming use. Once all of this was done, the machine screams. It boots in < 10s, game load time is awesome, and performance in VR was as it was before the hard drive failure.

I still don't have feedback from ASUS support and would generally say this company is not a service oriented company so buyer beware. If you are capable of doing your own tech support, you're fine. The machine does not seem to allow for field upgrade of memory, though I didn't totally disassemble it to confirm this. It does seem to be sufficiently cooled so during heavy VR sessions, I've not run into problems, but I do think it would be better to have another 4+GB of RAM.

[REVISED REVIEW]

I'm updating my review after ASUS got back to me on the issue of the failed hard drive. The 1TB Drive failed after 30 days, started showing SMART failures and performance was unacceptably slow. ASUS responded by asking that I return the machine to them and they would investigate the issue. I informed them that I had fixed the issue by replacing it with an SSD and I requested that they simply investigate the 1TB drive itself, esp. since the machine is now working great without it. They refused to provide support unless I returned the whole machine in its original form. I let them know that this is a significant inconvenience, and they politely reinforced that this was all they were prepared to do.

To be frank, I can understand why they would want the whole unit, but it is very inconvenient and not consumer friendly. This is pretty much what I've learned you can expect from ASUS - decent products, crappy support, so if anything breaks, you are simply out of luck.

In the end, I would buy this PC only if you want the form factor, and only if you plan to replace the hard drive with something more performant and reliable. If you read the other reviews, the performance of the machine is sub-par because of the drive. On top of that, I would expect no support from ASUS and I overall would not expect that this is a very high quality product.

A small, unobtrusive and very quiet gaming PC for use with the Oculus VR. Lots of ports, easy installation & setup was smooth. I quickly replaced the internal 5400 RPM 2.5 inch hard drive (it is the primary bottleneck with this PC) with a Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB SSD. This PC now boots up almost instantly and the load time for the VR titles is greatly reduced.

Does not meet even the advertised specs - not exactly upgradable with an m.2 SSD without jumping through crazy hoops, and zero effective support from the manufacturer despite the best efforts of the support staff. Was fortunately able to get help from another purchaser on newegg, but even then the SSD is SATA capable only. Hard drive is abysmally slow and handicaps the machine.

It does look nice and is small, so there are at least those upsides.