The Warbird 3570XTA is one of the least
expensive systems in our group test, and on looks alone you'd probably guess
that. However, this is a complete and solid-performing system out of the box.
The Gigabyte Luxo X10 system case includes
minimal cable management, and there are no perpendicular drive bays for easy
access. Oddly, its motherboard sits upside down.
Yoyotech
Warbird 3570XTA
An Arctic Freezer cooler has enabled
YoYoTech to push its 3.4GHz i5-3570K to an impressive 4.5GHz, equal to that of
CyberPower's liquid-cooled PC. It was still beaten by the Arbico and Dino PC in
World Bench 6, but it turned in a respectable 209-point score - an impressive
result for a system with 'only' 8GB of RAM.
YoYoTech has selected the same Asus
P8Z77V-LX motherboard as Arbico. It's a feature-rich board, but not as
enthusiast-friendly as the non-LX or Pro editions, which offer additional
features and superior overclocking assistance.
A PNY nVidia GeForce GTX 670 graphics card
delivered very good gaming performance in our tests. It's a little slower than
the Arbico's GeForce GTX 680, but a lot less expensive, enabling YoYoTech to
include a 23.6in Asus VS247H full-HD monitor and a wired mouse and keyboard,
yet still keep the price reasonably low.
Yoyotech
Warbird 3570XTA
Verdict: Offering
excellent value for money and strong performance the YoYoTech Warbird 3570XTA
is a costing just $1,803. The system case leaves a little to be desired, but
looks aren’t everything.
|
Information
Price: $1,803
Ratings
Build: 6/10
Features: 8/10
Performance: 8/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 10/10
|
Conclusion
Ivy Bridge chips don't overclock to the
same extent as their older Sandy Bridge siblings, yet they offer increased
performance as standard and at any given speed.
The processor speed isn't always a good indicator
of overall system performance in any case, so don’t jump at the chance to buy a
4.5GHz machine over a potentially faster 4.4GHz system.
For gaming systems, the graphics card has a
greater impact on performance than the processor. nVidia's GeForce GTX 680 is
the fastest money can buy, but the GTX 670 is significantly cheaper and only
slightly behind in performance.
Our group test covers gaming machines
costing from $1803 to $2352. If that's way out of your price range, you can
customise the specification to include a less powerful graphics card - often
the most expensive component in a desktop PC.
If you want all-out speed, Arbico's Elite
5357 OCX is unbeatable both in application performance and those crucial gaming
frame rates. It's one of the least expensive PCs here, but you'll need to
factor in the price of a monitor, keyboard and mouse if you don't already have
them.
If you love to upgrade and tinker with your
PC, CyberPower's Fang III Rattler offers by far the most impressive system case
in our round-up. With plenty of room inside and easy-swap drive bays, it’ll
prove a doddle to upgrade the components. It also comes with a superior Pro
version of Asus’ popular P8Z77 motherboard.
If you want the minimum spend, but crave
high performance, take a look at YoYo Tech’s Warbird 3570XTA. It comes in a
less impressive case and isn’t as easy to upgrade, but delivers great
performance and a full set of peripherals. Watch out for dust build-up over
time, though, as the 4.5GHz overclock is rather ambitious for an air-cooled
system in such a small case.
How We Test
Application performance
Core system performance is measured using
World Bench 6. This customised test suite runs several desktop Windows
applications with real-world workloads, mimicking how PCs are used on a daily
basis.
Results from 10 individual tests are
combined and weighted to produce a numerical score relative to a baseline PC.
Our baseline configuration runs a 2.4GHz
Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, an nVidia GeForce 7900 GS graphics
card, twin Western Digital Caviar WD3200KS hard drives in a striped Raid array,
and Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit. This PC scored 100 points in World Bench
6.
Gaming performance
We use two games to evaluate performance.
Stalker: Call of Pripyat was chosen for its DirectX 11.0 requirement and
simple-to-use benchmarking tool, while the older game Crysis remains
sufficiently intensive to stretch modern graphics cards to their limit.
We crank up the quality levels to 1080p,
then record framerates in Crysis at High, V High and V High (16x AA) settings,
plus Ultra in Stalker.
Transcoding performance
Because you'll often be working with more
than one video file format, we set each PC the task of converting a batch of
1080p Mpeg4 video clips for use on the iPad 2 and recorded how long it took to
complete. We use Cyber Link's Media Espresso software.
Overclocking
Because gamers demand the best performance
from their hardware, we allow vendors to overclock PCs in this category. We
require that any tweaked component is designed for overclocking, and that the
PC vendor offers a comprehensive warranty.
Power consumption
Overclocking and high-end graphics cards
can place considerable demands on power. We measure the power consumption of
the base PC unit and keyboard, excluding the monitors and speakers.
We set the PC to ‘High Performance’ mode in
Windows, ensuring that its hard drive won't power down mid-test. We then
measure the power consumption of the computer as it's sitting idle, since it's
important that graphics subsystems don't consume unnecessary power when they're
not driving games.
Next, we measure power consumption while
the PC is running Media Espresso.
Subjective assessment
We pay close attention to the physical
characteristics of each PC, its noise output and its build quality, delving
inside the case and taking note of the quality of components used, cabling and
airflow.
Good-quality peripherals are also
important, and where they are supplied we note the ergonomics of the keyboard
and mouse. Ordinary wireless keyboard and mouse combos are frowned upon,
whereas fast, responsive peripherals will impress.
Support
Differences in warranty terms can impact
our scoring. Long warranties are sought after, but we also look at the terms
and conditions - specifically, whether faulty systems must be returned to the
vendor at your own cost and if both parts and labour are included. Ensure the
vendor offers full software support and preferably a home installation for more
complex systems.
