Ginger6 G6 GTX460 Destroyer review

The G6 GTX460 Destroyer might sound like something you’d find at an arms fair rather than a PC shop, but it’s actually fairly plain looking with a case that’s more functional than flashy. Its Blu-ray re-writer adds a touch of class, though, and will be handy if you want to make large backups or author video productions to high-definition discs.

The case’s interior is properly finished so there’s no risk of removing shards of skin while fitting new components. Our only complaint is the wide mesh ventilation holes that make it easy for dust to get in. The system fans are remarkably quiet, so at least noise isn’t a problem. There are four 5.25n drive bays (one of them occupied) and six 3.5in bays, one of which houses a 1TB hard disk. There are two front USB ports and eight at the back. Two of those are USB3, and the motherboard also has one FireWire and two eSATA ports. There’s also a pair of PS/2 ports, co-axial and optical S/PDIF outputs and six analogue audio sockets for surround sound.

The Destroyer has an Intel Core i5-2500K processor, overclocked to 4.5GHz. It’s a little slower than some overclocks we’ve seen, but still managed a healthy score of 133 overall in our tests. The motherboard is an Asus P8P67 Pro, with eight SATA ports (four SATA II and four SATA III), two PCI slots, two PCI-E x1 slots and three PCI-E x16 slots. A graphics card occupies the top-most x16 slot, blocking access to a x1 slot in the process. The system has 8GB of 1,600MHz RAM installed, which uses up all four memory slots.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 graphics card has 768MB memory and VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs. Frame rates of 37.2fps in Crysis and 26fps in STALKER aren’t going to break any records, but you’ll still be able to play all the latest 3D games at fairly high quality settings. The Destroyer only has a 430W power supply, though, which is likely to struggle should you decide to add an extremely powerful graphics card later.

The Creative Inspire A500 5.1 surround speaker set is cheap, swamps you with cables and sounds a bit harsh, but it’s good for gaming and can kick out plenty of volume for its size. The Microsoft 3000 BlueTrack mouse and keyboard set are a classier affair – comfortable to use and with an high quality finish. The monitor, a BenQ G2222HDL, is a long-standing favourite of ours, with outstanding image quality and rich colours. However, we expect a 24in display when we pay almost £1,000 for a computer system. This one’s 21.5in size is disappointing.

The Destroyer is a great little PC, with a few features – particularly the Blu-ray re-writer – that many of its competitors lack. This and its surround sound speakers make the system a better all-round family multimedia PC than the snarling gaming rigs it’s up against at this price. Meanwhile, the one-year collect-and-return warranty is handy, but not outstanding. The Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire is a better choice for most people, with a more powerful graphics card and larger display.