Everything in the system is designed just so to make sure it can work together within a limited footprint.

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While overall sales dropped, the AIO gained ground, and manufacturers arent complaining about that.

But that comes with sacrifices that may haunt you a few years down the road.

In fact, the gap between the quickest and slowest systems is greater than ever before.

Even basic activities, like web browsing, become more demanding over time, so the performance of your PC at purchase can impact how long it will be useful.

Computers Are Bad For Games Full Of Desktops

As a result, the AIO market is full of desktops that have low-power versions of desktop processors, or even mobile processors inside.

According to Newegg, its most popular incarnation is 730 and packs a Core i5-4210U.

Thats a dual-core chip with a base clock of 1.7GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost of 2.7GHz.

Even at that low price, you can easily snag a Core i5 quad-core with a base clock of 3.2GHz.

Its not an exaggeration to say the traditional PC is twice as quick.

A thousand bucks will barely buy a quad-core all-in-one with a 1080p display, but the same price will easily net you a desktop with a Core i7 Quad, gobs of RAM and discrete graphics.

Todays computers last a very long time, but after four or five years many start to show their age, and thats especially true for systems that werent cutting-edge to begin with.

Almost every PC in the category has a ball grid array (BGA) processor.

A chip designed for BGA is soldered to the motherboard, so it cannot be replaced or upgraded by the user.

The same is almost always true of discrete graphics, if it was offered at the time the system was purchased.

While both tend to age better than a processor, they do eventually go obsolete.

A typical monitor sold a decade ago had a 19-inch display with 1,280 x 768 resolution.

Todays 1080p displays will seem similarly out of style in 2025.

A good pair of speakers can last a decade or more but most all-in-ones only offer mediocre sound, at best.

Most AIO systems ship with two RAM slots and a single hard drive bay, both of which are filled to capacity.

Upgrading means entirely replacing these components, which is more expensive and more of a hassle than adding additional a new hard drive or RAM an existing tower setup.

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