First, I am extremely tech savy.  I purchased my unit used and refurbished from a different reseller. onto the detailed and lengthy review.  worth the read though.CPU:I wanted a Ryzen APU based small form factor with an optical drive.  This is it.  It comes with the better athlon gold 3150u APU (CPU+GPU combined chip)  it has 2 cores with SMT (AMD's version of hyperthreading, where the computer operating system and most programs thinks the CPU has 4 cores instead of two), which while not as good as a real quad core CPU, it is good enough for daily tasks and saves on power over the quad core cpu.  It is quicker by 20% over the 3050u Ahtlon silver, which is also found in small form factor PCs and all in ones and in a lot of cheap AMD laptops.  the Athlon silver is marginally slower in clock speed (2.3ghz), but does not have the SMT, so it acts like a dual core only, and that's where the 20% difference in performance comes from between these two sibling CPUs.  This athlon gold is very very similar to performance and specification to the socket AM4 AMD athlon 200GE and 3000G cpus.  AMD seems to be in the habit of making a lot model names between  processors that are nearly identical, making it even more difficult to understand what you're buying and the differences between one CPU and the next.  Due to the chip shortage, the 200GE and 3000G are currently price gouged at twice their MRSP, making this little HP computer a bargain when you think the CPU otherwise would have cost $90-$120 to buy separate.  Albeit the only issue with this computer is you can't really upgrade the processor because it is soldered onto the motherboard.  one point for the AM4 socketed variants.GPU:Since the CPU is also the graphics processor (GPU), the Athlon gold cpu in this computer is also superior to the weaker Athlon silver.  The Gold has 3 graphics compute units, whereas the silver has only two, which gives the Athlon silver 3050u the distinction of having the wimpiest iGPU AMD currently offers in all of these Ryzen variants.  Each compute unit has 64 shaders (a graphics term, and generally the more shaders the better it can perform in 3d games).  This computer has a total of 192 shaders. Thats not much, but the silver, having one less compute unit, only has 128 shaders.  that's a big difference, and explains why this gold processor has a 30% improvement in games compared to the silver. To put this in perspective though, most desktop and some laptop AMD APU chips have anywhere from 5 to 11 compute units depending on the APU, so the 3 graphical compute units on this Athlon Gold are still pretty wimpy compared to the more power hungry mainstream chips.Hard Drive:The best thing about this cheap desktop is the M.2 solid state hard drive.  It's speedy, even for M.2 drives. It's the faster version 4x 8.0GT/s. This is not yet common in a bargain PC and makes a huge difference in the perceived speediness when the computer boots up and when launching applications, and decompressing files.Memory:The tragic flaw on this computer however is that it is configured in SINGLE CHANNEL MEMORY.  it has 8 GB of memory, which is sufficient and better than the current 4gb standard in the cheapest computers, but it's just one ram stick, and no 2nd ram slot available  to add another.  HP saved a couple dollars by not soldering on a 2nd ram slot.  The CPU is capable handling dual channel memory (running two stick of ram), but the motherboard makes it impossible to do.  You've been warned. This won't make a lick of difference in everyday use outside of gaming, but if you or your kids want to game with this computer, IT WILL SEVERELY REDUCE THE POTENTIAL PERFORMANCE OF THE INTEGRATED GRAPHICS, about 50% reduction in the theoretical performance.  This is unfortunate, because the only real reason to get this computer over the same one with an intel chip is because of the superior integrated GPU.  In single channel memory mode, it bottlenecks the GPU so badly that its performance is no longer superior to the Intel option, but more on par with it now.  So, no benefit in gaming on this computer specifically as compared to a Intel celeron g or pentium g or Core i3 HP slim tower configuration with intel integrated graphics.  However, those systems from HP in the small form factor configuration probably also are similarly hampered with a single memory slot configuration, meaning that because they are all gimped, this is still probably the best of the lot, but that's not meant to be a compliment.  Of note, there is a Lenovo IdeaCentre 3 slim factor desktop out there that looks a lot like this unit, and is probably a twin to this.  I suspect a joint venture on the development of this platform, or a common manufacturer outside of both companies making the boards for them.  PC mag did a review of both of these computers, and it included motherboard pictures on both reviews.  the Lenovo version has the 2nd memory slot, but comes with the slower Athlon silver 3050.  bruh...The rest:The rest of the computer is fine. It's got plenty of USB ports, and all the front ones are USB 3.0.  no USB-C, but I'm a luddite and don't need those right now.  The DVDrW drive is flimsy and loud and slow as any laptop style 24x drive is (compared to the old full size desktop optical drives that back in the day screamed at 52x speeds) and will not tolerate a 5 year old to load discs into it, but with gentle care and paying attention to mounting and dismounting of disk media, it should be ok.  I'm just happy one can still get an optical drive in 2022, as I predict in another year that won't be the case anymore.  I'm old now but I still like to rip my CD collection or have old software on DVD.  Ancient, I know.  the keyboard and mouse is low end fare, but serviceable up to the point they break.  Then go out an get a decent keyboard and mouse.Rants:The heatsink attempting to cool this already lower power cpu is a joke. It might just be a recycled fork.  the variable rpm cooling fan for the cpu is also unnecessarily small (60mm when an 80mm could easily fit according to my eyeball calculations), which creates more cooling fan noise and increases the pitch to annoying levels (it raised nearly a whole octave in pitch from warm idle to load cooling). this could probably be remedied by replacing the heatsink and fan but i have not looked into it yet. it is not attached to the motherboard in a traditional manner and might even be glued on.  CPU temps are 46-50C at idle and will hit 65-75C under load.  This is a 15 watt at best CPU.  There should be no reason to let it idle at 50C and load up to 75c.  This could lead to premature solder joint wear and crashing in the future after 2-3 years of heatcycling.  You'd think that because one is buying a desktop, they can finally be rid of those laptop thermal problems, but it looks like HP found a way to keep the fun alive with this one.  Thanks HP! (sarcasm)  On a side note, the Lenovo ideacentre 3 slim tower uses the exact same heasink/fan configuration, so maybe it's not HP's fault.  It could have been preinstalled on the motherboard from the motherboard manufacturer.Summary: With DDR4 ram, the speedy M.2 hard drive, and the athlon gold faux quad, it makes for a superb office computer and it will out multitask you.  Its wheelhouse is in the mundane and it gets an A+ for the ability to get boring repetitive work accomplished.  The integrated graphics is top notch for anything that isn't gaming, with hardware acceleration for almost every video codec known to man at this time.  For example, youtube videos are covered by the integrated graphics and the cpu will sit idle while they play, meaning you can surf the web or type a document and have that youtube clip running in the picture-in-picture mode without any lag on the system.  That's nice.  It's probably also essential.  Otherwise how will you ever get all those boring things accomplished without some distraction?