We’ve been waiting almost a year for it to happen...and it finally did. Origin PC, a newcomer to the boutique-PC world, founded by former Alienware employees, has bagged the benchmark-breaking banner from the $7,000 configuration of Maingear's Shift that we looked at in late 2009. At $6,699 in our test configuration, the Genesis certainly isn't your everyday desktop, but it sliced through our suite of tests like a ninja with a good eye and a bad temper.
Considering the system’s spate of high-end components, its stunning performance is to be expected. Like most boutique systems, though, you can pick and choose your parts. Our Genesis build came stuffed with an Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition six-core CPU overclocked to 4.5GHz. Mated to that was 6GB of 1,600MHz DDR3 memory and a boot “drive” that consisted of two 50GB OCZ Vertex2 solid-state drives (SSDs) in a RAID 0 configuration, which splits the data across two drives for increased speed. Talk about silicon lighting! (There’s also a 1.5TB mechanical drive for storage, but they’ve become so passe lately.)
However, the Genesis’ pièce de résistance is its graphics subsystem. Not content to go with a pair of high-end cards, Origin tucked three of EVGA's 1.5GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 boards inside. Despite a sextet of very, very quiet fans that Origin calls "Noiseblocker Multiframe High-Performance Ultra" (how's that for hyperbolic nomenclature?), the main components are all water-cooled. And a whopping 1.5-kilowatt SilverStone Strider power supply keeps the whole joint jumping.
To say this collection of PC parts whizzed through our demanding set of benchmark tests with ease would be a gross understatement. Our productivity tests, which represent the typical tasks that most demanding computer users perform on their PCs, didn't faze the Genesis in the slightest. Our 64-bit Cinebench 10 test, designed to take advantage of multicore processors, saw the Genesis score a rather astounding 35,156 against the previous champ, Maingear’s Shift, which managed "just" 23,404. To give some perspective here, the mainstream Gateway DX4840-15 ($849, as of November 2010) turned in a score of 10,363 in this test. Clearly the Genesis' overclocked six-core CPU is a performance powerhouse, but it helped the system turn in more impressive numbers as well.
The Genesis took just 1 minute and 22 seconds to convert our 3-minute test video in our Windows Media Encoder 9 test, while the Maingear Shift needed 1:38. Sixteen seconds may not seem like much of a difference, but if you're working with lengthy HD-quality videos, expect the disparity to increase drastically. The Genesis also converted our 11 MP3 test tracks to AAC equivalents in our iTunes test in a mere 1 minute and 51 seconds, compared with the Shift’s 2:05. Again, 14 seconds difference might not seem like much, but if you're converting gigabytes of files, the time difference will increase substantially.
In PCMark Vantage, a compendium of tests designed to measure overall system performance, we saw the Genesis earn a score of 24,339, while the Shift came in just a bit behind here, with 23,404 (both in 64-bit mode). That mainstream $849 Gateway tower? It garnered 8,472 on the same test.
But while the Genesis' productivity performance is record-breaking by a fair bit, it's gaming performance that these high-end machines are really built for. Last year's Maingear Shift was certainly stunning in that department, packing three ATI Radeon HD 5870 cards. But the folks at Origin have the benefit of a year's worth of PC-component progress at their disposal, and so were able to pack in a trio of more-powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 cards, which certainly don't disappoint.
In 3DMark Vantage, a synthetic benchmark that measures a PC's graphics acumen, the Genesis scored 106,252—our highest result ever achieved on Vantage's Entry setting—against the Shift’s 52,674. Skipping over the two intermediate modes and jumping to the Extreme setting (the level that these beastly PCs were built for) saw the Genesis continue its dominance, scoring 29,662 against the Shift’s 20,663.
Moving on to real-world DirectX 10 gaming, the two systems were fairly matched at resolutions of 1,680x1,050 and 1,920x1,200 in Far Cry 2, which has its own benchmarking program tucked inside the game. It wasn’t until we stepped up to the 30-inch-screen resolution of 2,560x1,600 that the Genesis pulled away, scoring an average frame rate of 206 frames per second (fps) to the Shift’s 170fps.
Unfortunately, our DirectX 11 benchmark test, Heaven, wasn't available back when we first reviewed the Shift. Still, the Origin’s performance level is unmistakable. At the test’s lowest resolution, 1,680x1,050, the Genesis pumped out 96.6fps. Jumping to the maximum resolution, 2,560x1,600, saw the Genesis’ frame rate fall, but only to 51.6fps. Considering this is the most demanding gaming test we run, and a single GeForce GTX 480 graphics card turned in just 23fps on this test at the maximum resolution, the Genesis' score here is stunning.
Performance aside, whoever came up with the concept of good things coming in small packages might want to rethink the issue as it applies to the Genesis. It’s not often that record-breaking performance results come from a small-form-factor PC, and that’s certainly not the case here. In fact, the Genesis rolled up to our door as 118 pounds of extreme technology packed in a 34x32x17-inch wooden crate. Our UPS guy, a veteran deliverer of many a hefty PC, noted, “This thing is really packed well,” as he transferred the Genesis into our care. That vocal validation from a packaging professional should give you some assurance that your high-end PC investment will arrive in one piece. Of course, almost anything can happen when shipping a large PC full of heavy components, but Origin certainly isn't skimping when it comes to packaging.
That said, we suggest you invite your friends over to watch with envy as you unpack this behemoth—after all, you'll likely need some help. Even uncrated, the Genesis case itself measures 24x9x24 inches (HWD), and is still a lot to handle. (Besides, with extra people standing around, you'll have more eyes to notice the expansion foam stuffed inside the case that needs to be removed before you can power up the Genesis.)
Inside the case, thanks to the three double-wide graphics cards, PCI-card-expansion options are essentially nonexistent. Technically, there's a free PCI Express x1 slot, but while the slot is visible, unless the card is as thin as they come, it won't fit next to the bulky graphics cards.
There is, however, room for two additional 5.25-inch external drives, two 3.5-inch internal drives, and one 5.25-inch internal drive. A second optical drive, to complement the PC's existing 12x Blu-ray burner, might be a smart upgrade if you burn a lot of discs. The 40-in-1 flash-card reader poking through the front panel should suffice for your varied flash-card needs.
External expansion options certainly aren't lacking. The Genesis has a drop-down panel up front that reveals three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, and connections for a headphone and microphone. Around back, you’ll find the usual analog/digital connections (here, supporting 8.1 integrated audio), as well as four more USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire port, and a powered eSATA port to keep you connected to a plethora of devices.
So, for the moment at least, the Maingear Shift has been toppled as the all-out performance king. Origin has certainly earned the benchmark-buster label with its impressive Genesis tower. It's a stunning performer with top-of-the line performance. We'd prefer slightly more spacious SSDs as the boot drive, but you can configure those, along with most other components, at the Origin PC site before buying. But the battle of boutique builders is never over (so long as enough well-heeled consumers keep buying these beasts, at least), and a new, upscale 2010 version of the Maingear Shift has also just arrived on our test bench. We can only wonder, for the moment at least, whether the Genesis will retain its well-earned purple reign.
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