Yoyotech Warbird G2 review: High-spec gaming on a budget

We’ve tested a lot of PCs that have been spruced up with a spot of coloured LED illumination, but never one that puts on the kind of veritable light show as the Warbird G2 does.

First, there are the two front fans, which can be quickly switched between seven colours – either solid or given a few different effects – via a button on the front panel or the included remote control. Then, there’s the Gigabyte H270-GAMING 3 motherboard, which is dotted with individual RGB LEDs around the PCIe slots and CPU socket as well as having longer, thicker strips down the right edge and along the RAM slots. Even the graphics card, a 6GB GTX 1060 model from Asus, has a touch of white light shining out through the clear perspex side window.

Bright club

Having this many light sources could look horrible if they were mismatched, but since the case and motherboard LEDs can be set to your liking (either through the remote control or Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software), it’s not hard to get things looking nice and tasteful. At least, it’s not when the remote plays ball – ours seemed to have extreme difficulty in registering changes. The button on the case itself works fine, as long as you don’t mind cycling through the various colours and effects until you reach what you want.

Buy the Yoyotech Warbird G2 now

Fortunately, the Warbird G2 is much more reliable where it really counts. Its spanking-new Kaby Lake processor, the Intel Core i5-7500, is a step down from the overclockable Core i5-7600K that’s become our mid-range chip of choice, but you’d be lucky to find the latter in a system under £1,000. The Core i5-7500 does just fine for everyday computing, as demonstrated by our benchmark test results: 111 in the image test, 113 in the video test and 109 in the multitasking test, producing a balanced overall score of 111.

It doesn’t seem to hold back the GPU, either. The base model of the Warbird G2 includes the 3GB version of the GTX 1060, for £900, but our slightly pricier review model featured the full-fat 6GB version. This gives it great gaming chops even at 4K; Dirt: Showdown, running at Ultra settings with 4x anti-aliasing, averaged 118fps at 1,920 x 1,080 resolution as well as 55fps at 3,840 x 2,160.

Performance in Metro: Last Light Redux was also in line with what we’ve seen from other GTX 1060 systems. At 1,920 x 1,080, the Warbird G2 managed an extremely playable 50fps when running at Very High settings with all other visual effects maxed out, and while playing at 3,840 x 2,160 demands sacrifices, it’s still perfectly possible without ruining the game’s looks. At this resolution, we got 58fps on Medium settings with AF 4X texture filtering, Normal tessellation, and both SSAA and advanced PhysX effects disabled. That’s a huge leap from the 12fps it recorded with everything at maximum.

Switching things up

It’s worth noting, if you’re into gaming, that for a few tenners more you could get Yoyotech’s own Warbird RS C6 instead; this comes packing a considerably more powerful 8GB GTX 1070, as well as the older (but still slightly faster) Core i5-6600K processor.

Not that that Warbird G2 is a bad deal; in fact, it’s got an impressive set of bonus features (on top of all the lighting), such as integrated SD and microSD card readers and two fan speed selector switches. These can control up to three fans each, though tested on the pre-installed intakes, there’s not a great deal of noise difference between the high and low settings, so we just left them on high. However, there’s little to complain about on the connectivity front. The front panel’s two USB 2 and two USB 3 ports are good, but it’s the motherboard’s rear I/O panel that really impresses, with two USB 2 and four USB 3 ports, alongside one USB 3.1 and one USB Type-C port, plus Gigabit Ethernet. What’s more, two of the USB 3 ports are of the DAC-UP variety, so they can be used with high-end audio kit. The same goes for the C/SUB, rear- and side-speaker outputs, augmenting the standard 3.5mm audio jacks.

Expand aid

The internals is pretty decent as well. The two dual-purpose 3.5in/2.5in toolless drive bays are taken up by the existing storage, but you could add another three 2.5in drives if you wished, plus two 5.25in optical drives or controller panels. The motherboard’s two PCI slots are a bit old-fashioned, but there’s still scope for more modern upgrades with two PCIe x16 slots (one spare) and two PCIe x1 slots (both spare). We’re happy to see an M.2 slot as well, what with NVMe storage falling in price.

Buy the Yoyotech Warbird G2 now

Next to the RS C6 and Chillblast’s Fusion Hubble, the Warbird G2 isn’t quite the superlative system, but if you absolutely can’t stretch to the £1,000 asking price of those two PCs, this is a very respectable jack-of-all-trades alternative.