Origin's Genesis: Flagship Bling
by Dustin Sklavos on April 2, 2011 2:00 PM ESTIntroducing the Origin Genesis
Now that we've been getting a fairly steady influx of desktop machines from boutiques, Origin PC is stepping into the ring by sending us their go-to flagship model, the Genesis. Origin is a boutique founded by former Alienware executives, and is relatively young compared to some of the other companies we've reviewed towers from. The Genesis is almost more of a brand than a flagship, but Origin is opting to put one of their best feet forward by sending us a configuration they're sure will do them proud against the competition.
After our pit stop with the iBuyPower LAN Warrior II, we're now back firmly in the realm of boutique desktop gaming towers. I should've known better when Kevin Wasielewski, the CEO, mentioned in his e-mail for me to contact him when the tower arrived with my thoughts on the packaging. Please try to ignore the mess, questionable taste in film, and mountain of additional hardware in the background needing my time and attention and get a load of this:
As I mentioned in the last review, I'm not a large man by any stretch of the imagination. So when the delivery man arrived in the morning and knocked on my door and asked me to help him bring a wooden crate up, I was understandably surprised. For scale, that's an Antec Mini P180 on the floor to the left of this 86 pound monstrosity. And what's inside?
As the proud owner of a Corsair Graphite 600T (the same case this Origin Genesis was built in), I can tell you that the packaging was decidedly American and absolute overkill, and I would've been more amused by it had I both the space and upper body strength to contend with it constructively.
| Origin Genesis Specifications | |
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite 600T with Side Window |
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-2600K @ 4.5GHz (45x100 BCLK) (spec: 4x3.4GHz, 32nm, 8MB L3, 95W) |
| Motherboard | ASUS P8P67 Pro Motherboard with P67 chipset |
| Memory | 2x4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz (expandable to 16GB) |
| Graphics |
2x EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB GDDR5 in SLI (384 CUDA Cores, 850MHz Core, 1701MHz Shaders, 4.1GHz RAM, 256-bit memory bus) |
| Hard Drive(s) |
Intel 510 128GB SATA 6Gbps SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200-RPM SATA 6Gbps HDD |
| Optical Drive(s) | Pioneer 12x BD-RE Drive |
| Networking |
Intel 82579V Gigabit Ethernet Bluetooth 2.1+EDR |
| Audio |
Realtek ALC892 HD Audio Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound Digital and optical out |
| Front Side |
Optical drive Card reader with USB 2.0 |
| Top |
Headphone and mic jacks 4x USB 2.0 USB 3.0 6-pin FireWire Fan controller |
| Back Side |
2x PS/2 Optical and digital out 2x eSATA 6x USB 2.0 Bluetooth 6-pin FireWire 2x USB 3.0 Ethernet Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| Dimensions | 10.4" x 23.3" x 20" (WxDxH) |
| Weight | 28 lbs (case only) |
| Extras |
Silverstone 750W Power Supply 12-in-1 Card Reader Asetek 570LC Liquid Cooling SATA Hot-swap bay Internal LED lighting |
| Warranty | 1-year limited warranty and lifetime phone support |
| Pricing |
Starts at $1,337 Review system on website at $2,549 |
Now that Intel has begun shipping fixed P67/H67 chipsets in earnest, Sandy Bridge is all over the place in boutique builds, and Origin's Genesis is no different. It sports an Intel Core i7-2600K, the weapon of choice for pretty much everyone these days, with a healthy overclock of 4.5GHz. Origin advertises being able to push this chip over 5GHz and given what we know of i7-2600K overclocking that doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, though you'll pay for the privilege. They keep the processor cool with an Asetek 570LC 120mm watercooling kit.
The other major player in the Genesis is the pair of EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards running in SLI. These cards both feature a mild overclock to 850MHz on the core, 1.7GHz on the 384 shaders, and 4.1GHz on the GDDR5 attached to a 256-bit memory bus. A pair of 1GB GTX 460's in SLI was (and to an extent still is) a price/performance king, and the two 560's hopefully should build on that.
Origin's remaining component choices are solid and top shelf: a shiny new Intel 510 128GB SSD is used as a system drive while the boutique favorite Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gbps hard disk handles storage duties. It's also nice to see a full 8GB of DDR3-1600 from a reputable brand, a blu-ray burner, and the SATA hotswap cage is a welcome nice touch.
Finally, everything is housed in Corsair's Graphite 600T, a case we've had the privilege of reviewing in the past, and powered by a respectable Silverstone 750-watt power supply. The 600T is no stranger to water cooling, but we'll see that not everything here is quite as good as it could be. Origin is also in a privileged position with Corsair and as a result are among the first to get their hands on the new windowed side panel which they make use of by illuminating the internals with strips of white LED lights.
What you'll want to notice are two components that aren't immediately available on the configuration page of Origin's site: the Corsair Graphite 600T and the SATA hot-swap bay. Origin will build systems by request in other enclosures, and the hot-swap bay becomes an option they can add alongside using the 600T.
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JarredWalton - Sunday, April 3, 2011 - link
And I've got an i7-965 Extreme that won't run reliably at 4.0GHz without excessive voltage. It's very likely in my experience overclocking that they needed the voltage boost to get 4.5GHz stable.I remember the old Celeron 300A days: "All of these can overclock to 450MHz just by changing the bus, and then you have the equivalent of a Pentium II 450 for less than half the price!"
Guess what? Between myself and a couple friends, we bought about ten 300A CPUs. One would do 504MHz (112MHz FSB), one more would run at 450MHz without trouble. Two would boot 450 but were unstable if you wanted the PC to run 24/7. The remaining six all topped out at 374MHz (83 FSB). I've seen similar things on a lot of "guaranteed overclocks" during the years, and never mind the "100% stable" overclocks I've had that started having problems after 6-12 months.
Actually, that last is one reason to buy a system from some place like Origin. If you get their 3-year warranty and the system overclock starts going AWOL after a year or 18 months, you're still covered. I've had at least five somewhat recent CPUs peter out and die on me after running apparently fine for a year or more. (Pentium D 820, Pentium D 920, Athlon 3200+, Athlon X2 3800+, and Athlon X2 5000+ all come to mind.) So basically, I support what Assimilator said, which is in essence: YMMV.
tsekh - Sunday, April 3, 2011 - link
As you said, yours is a i7-965. For the i7-2600k's, 4Ghz OC is like a walk in the park in gneral.erple2 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Sometimes, the park is filled with dog poo, however. So that walk isn't so easy to do without being very careful, and upping the voltage.Again, not all i7-2600k's will run at 4 GHz with stock everything. Statistics tells me quite well that you can't say "all" without testing every single last one out there. Which I'm pretty sure you haven't. Unless you're that jerk that broke into my house the other day to test my i7-2600K.
If you continue to claim how it's easy to do for "most" of these SB chips, then I'll continue to pick nits about how "most" or "many" or "almost all" does not equal "all".
Chris Simmo - Sunday, April 3, 2011 - link
@tsekhI have built 4 i7 2600K systems @ 4.8GHz and have been able to build them with as little as 1.28v peak and load line on regular as well, but yes there are difficult chips. The worst 1 has had to have 1.42v with load line on high. 4 aren’t very many, but they are fluctuating a bit in voltage with high overclocks applied. The CPU’s had all power saving features enabled too. All C states
I work for a little computer shop and our flag ship 'off the shelf' system uses a Sabertooth P67, 16GB RAM, 120Gb Corsair SSD, 2TB Storage drive, Bluray combo, a HD6970 in an Antec 900 2 case with a GW 900w PSU and a Corsair H70.
If the Asetek cooler is the OEM cooler, those temps don't seem to compare to the Corsair H70. Even on the 1.42v i7 2600k system under Linx load only got to 68c max Core temps (not package) I'm guessing there is something different somewhere then......May not have to do with the cooler, maybe aircon or something
BigBadBiologist - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
I'm not sure why, but the Rosewill card reader sticks out like a sore thumb to me.tipoo - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
Its brushed metal whereas everything else is matteheadbox - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
So what exactly is a computer boutique? A shop that assembles off the shelf parts? Does Origin manufacture anything original at all? And $2,000+ for a cheap plastic case with kiddie windows and bling lights? Wow... PC makers just haven't caught on yet.wumpus - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
If I really want to feel old, I'll just think about how long Alienware has been in business. I think back when I bought an 386sx from ALR, they actually designed the thing, and often had some of the fastest machines around (whitebox computers caught up within a year or so).KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, April 2, 2011 - link
The Corsair 600T is actually a really good case. What case do you suggest that they use? I personally have a hard time recommending much outside of the Corsair and Silverstone cases.rscoot - Monday, April 4, 2011 - link
Personally, I'm more of a fan of the Corsair 800D than the 600T.