Arbico HD6488 review

There are six SATA3 ports, two of which are in use for the hard disk and DVD-RW drive. There’s an unused USB3 header at mid-board, along with the usual selection of USB2 headers. The case’s front panel only has two USB2 ports on it, alongside the usual mic and headphone ports. The rear of the motherboard is better equipped, with four USB3 ports, two USB2 ports and a couple of PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports in addition to six 3.5mm analogue audio outputs and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

The motherboard has an FM2+ socket that’s designed to work with the latest AMD Kaveri processors. However, it’s fully backwards-compatible with FM2 processors such as the installed dual-core AMD A6-6400K, a last-generation Richland processor. While many older AMD processors perform similarly to their Kaveri successors in all but 3D graphics tests, the AMD A6-6400K is a bit underpowered. The 3.9GHz A6-6400K scored just 31 overall in our benchmarks, and did particularly badly in our multi-tasking test, gaining a score of just 19. That’s a lot less power and flexibility than we’d like from a home desktop.

The processor’s onboard graphics did a fair job in our Dirt Showdown benchmarks at High quality and a resolution of 1,280×720, averaging 31.7fps. However, the PC failed the benchmark at 1,920×1,080 with Ultra graphics quality. Happily, there’s a good selection of display outputs: HDMI, DVI and VGA.

The included 24in AOC E2495Sh monitor is a stand-out element of this PC. It’s rare to find a £500 desktop system with a 24in display at all, let alone one with two HDMI ports in addition to a legacy VGA port. We were pleased to find that the display had an excellent contrast ratio of 1065:1, although its black level was an unremarkable 0.23cd/m2. Colour reproduction was good, though, and our calibrator measured 90.8 per cent coverage of the sRGB colour gamut. This is great for a monitor included with a budget system. The display has a matt screen, but colours don’t look too muted.

The bundled mouse and keyboard are a comfortable wireless Logitech set. The mouse is oddly tiny, but the keyboard allowed accurate touch typing.

Despite an excellent monitor, the HD6488 is priced a little over the odds when you compare it to similar systems that use AMD’s newer Kaveri processors. The same money will buy you the Palicomp AMD Kaveri Evolution, which is much more powerful and also comes with a 24in display.