To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more
The Ginger 6 G6 Ultra i70 is a well-made system that uses one of Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors, the Core i5-3570K. It’s a fast processor in its own right, and here it has been overclocked to a speed of 4.5GHz, producing an overall score of 134 in our benchmark tests. We’ve seen faster overclocks on the processor, but this is easily powerful enough to run any modern application.
The graphics card is particularly impressive. It’s a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 and its performance means that the Ultra i70 is eminently well-suited to gaming. We got an average frame rate of 108fps in Dirt 3, and a frame rate of 45fps in Crysis 2. With two DVI ports, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort, there are plenty of connection options. It can also handle triple-monitor gaming and works with compatible 3D displays and glasses.
The supplied monitor, an AOC 2436VWA, only has DVI and VGA inputs, but it’s a decent screen with a variety of colour modes. It also has a built-in single-port USB hub, which could be handy if you prefer to keep your PC on the floor.
There are three USB ports on the case’s front panel, one of which is built in to an excellent memory card reader that can handle everything from microSD to xD cards. The front panel also has the usual audio I/O.
At the back, the Asus P8Z77-V LX motherboard has six USB ports, only two of which are USB3. The motherboard also has a PS/2 port, an optical S/PDIF audio output and three 3.5mm audio outputs on the back, alongside a Gigabit Ethernet port. We’d have liked more connections, but it covers the basics.
Inside, you’ll find three unused PCI slots, one usable PCI-E x1 slot (the other’s blocked by the graphics card in the main PCI-E x16 slot) and a second PCI-E x16 slot, which actually runs at x4. The motherboard’s equipped with two 4GB memory modules to provide 8GB of RAM. There are two vacant slots for easy upgrading, and the motherboard can handle a maximum of 32GB of memory, but 8GB should be enough for most users.
Only two of the six SATA ports are in use. They’re actually the only two SATA3 ports on the motherboard, as the other four are SATA2. Although most systems at this price have a small SATA3 SSD system drive and a large hard disk for storage, Ginger6 has opted to include only a standard hard disk. In its favour, it has a massive 2TB capacity, but we did miss faster SSD boot speeds. The other port is occupied by a Blu-ray reader/DVD re-writer drive. There’s plenty of room in the case to add extra drives, with five spare 31/2in bays, including an external one, and three unused 51/4in drive bays. The case itself is attractive and solidly made It isn’t the quietest system around, but the dull rush of air from the fans isn’t annoying.
The G6 Ultra i70 comes with a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse set, both of which are decent products.
It’s hard to choose between many systems in this price range, but the G6 Ultra i70 is a great PC, particularly if your primary interest is gaming. For gamers, it’s a close choice between this PC and the Wired2Fire Diablo GTX.
