Yoyotech Warbird i3
Not supersonic
Warbird PC proves to be a sitting duck
According to the dictionary, ‘warbird’ is a term for a vintage military aircraft. Fans of vintage military aircraft will be disappointed with the Yoyotech Warbird i3, as indeed will fans of yoyos. But if you’re interested in a reasonably priced desktop PC with a daft name, read on.
This is one of a few computers currently stocked in Game stores – a very welcome development. It’s rare to find desktop PCS in the shops, and the ones you do see tend to be from big international brands, whose specs often lag behind what you can get online. The Warbird i3 is by no means a high-end configuration, but its Intel i3 processor and Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050Ti graphics card are at least from their makers’ latest ranges.
Yoyotech’s logo and the Warbird branding are the only markings on the mid-sized desktop tower case, which has a black matt finish and a large window to reveal the blue-white LED- illuminated innards (see image below). No doubt, conscious that their work would be on show, the assemblers have done a very neat job, and it’s easy to see there’s room for expansion too, with a second PCIE x16 slot and three more PCIE x1 free, two extra memory slots, two empty 2.5in drive bays and one 3.5in, plus dual M.2 sockets for fast SSDS. The full-size ATX motherboard has an overclock- ready Z370 chipset, so more ambitious upgraders could replace the i3-8100 later with something a lot more powerful.
The fourth basic PCIE x1 slot is taken up by a Wi-fi card, a handy inclusion that we don’t often see in desktop PCS. It’s only 802.11n, so for regular use you’d want to cable your router to the Gigabit Ethernet port or add 802.11ac, whether internally or via USB 3.0.
There are no ports faster than USB 3.1 Gen1 (5Mbps), but plenty to go round, including two on the front panel. One HDMI, one Displayport and one DVI-D output should cover all your monitor needs.
Although the i3 is a bottom-of-the-range processor, we’ve mentioned in previous reviews that this eighth-generation quad- core version is surprisingly capable, and our tests confirmed that the Warbird would suit a full range of general home and office tasks, including a bit of photo editing, as well as 3D gaming at Full HD resolution. With 4GB of its own memory, the GTX 1050 Ti graphics card will also help any compatible creative programs, like video editing.
There’s no SSD fitted, however, only a 1TB hard drive. We were pleasantly surprised to find this was around 50 per cent faster than many others, but that’s still well under half of what you’d expect from any SSD.
Similar money would buy a PC like the Wired2fire Talon (£833 from www. snipca.com/30015) with an AMD Ryzen 4 six-core processor, 16GB of memory, 6GB GTX 1060 graphics and an SSD, for about twice the overall performance. Even limiting your choices to the high street, the Acer Predator Orion 3000 (£799 from Currys www.snipca.com/30012), see our review, Issue 544) pairs the GTX 10950 Ti and a hard drive with a faster six-core i5. So although the Warbird i3 is a great little PC, you could do better.
Not a bad desktop PC – it’s just that rivals do things better for the same price