You know, all-in-one PCs don’t get nearly enough love. While ultrabooks are stealing the spotlight with their ever-improving performance and portability, AIOs have been quietly getting sleeker and more powerful. A lot more powerful, in fact. This morning, Maingear announced the Alpha 24 Super Stock
AIO, which boasts some solid desktop components. You might not need that big box of a computer on your desk, after all.

At minimum specs, the Alpha 24 Super Stock matches an Intel Core i3-3240 CPU with 8GB of DDR-1333 memory, and an
Nvidia GeForce GTX 650. A DVD burner comes standard, as does Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The system at these specs rings in at $1,349.
You can upgrade the components yourself, thanks to the Alpha 24’s thin-mini ITX chassis. But should you want to pump up the volume on the specs before it’s built and shipped, you can select an Intel Core i7-3770K processor, increase the memory to 16GB, pick up a 256GB Crucial M4
SSD and a 3TB hard drive, add
Bigfoot Killer Wireless technology, and swap the GeForce GTX 650 for a 680. Now we’re talking, eh?

Whatever guts you choose for the system, the screen will be the same: a 1920 x 1080 glossy touchscreen. And your OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Maingear is targeting the system at gamers who want the sleek look of an AIO as well as customers who want an HTPC (and Maingear offers a CableCARD tuner and a built-in HDMI-in port for that purpose). The system is available now.
Joshua Gulick
Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to
Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote
CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for
Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for
HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.