Origin Genesis (2024) Review | PCMag

When you build your own PC, choosing and putting your parts together can provide a genuine sense of enjoyment and, eventually, accomplishment. Still, even as far as the hobby has come, choosing and installing the right parts can remain overwhelming and time-consuming. That problem is at the heart of what drives many PC gamers to custom PC builders like Origin PC to build their dream desktop PCs. The 2024 Origin Genesis (starting around $4,100; about $6,754 as tested) is a dream, to be sure, one of the punchiest and priciest models in the category. With an impressive array of hardware and water cooling inside its magnificent (and mondo) Corsair 6500X chassis, the Genesis does a lot to make good on that price. But even leading on performance charts doesn’t make the nearly $7,000 price tag look any smaller. Well-funded performance enthusiasts will find lots to love with the Origin Genesis, and since it largely outperformed the Editors’ Choice-award-holding Falcon Northwest Talon, the Genesis is next in line to hold the trophy in cost-no-object gaming rigs. Just hold on to your wallets!

Design: Touring a Custom Water-Cooled Corsair 6500X

Our Origin Genesis arrived in the mid-size Corsair 6500X chassis that shows off the internals with two windowed sides. As you might have figured, Origin and Corsair (Origin’s parent company) partnered to provide high-quality, attractive-looking parts options, including chassis, cooling, and power supplies. Inside the 6500X, you’ll find plenty of room for any configuration, including AIO or water-cooling solutions (also from Corsair).

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

If the sizeable squared-off chassis isn’t your favorite, Origin builds Genesis desktops using several other Corsair PC-case options, including the 5000D and 7000D in the Airflow series as well as the 5000X (base and signature), 5000T, and 7000X models. You can get most of these in black or white to match whatever build theme you’re going for.

The Corsair 6500X is a large (18.9-by-12.9-by-19.5-inch) dual-chamber chassis with a squared-off design. It affords brilliant, unobstructed views of your system behind the tempered-glass side and front panels. While “Airflow” isn’t in the name (unlike some other Corsair cases), you’ll find plenty of dedicated mounting points for radiators and fans to help keep even the most potent configurations running in spec.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The front of the 6500X is simple, with just the tempered-glass window and a metal face on the right side. It’s simple yet elegant and designed to show off the internals. If you’re concerned about airflow (you shouldn’t be), you can always get the 6500D Airflow, which allows for three fans up front.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The I/O panel is on top of this chassis, presenting four Type-A ports (USB 3.2 Gen 1, 5Gbps) and a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-C port. In addition to the USB connectivity, you’ll find the power and reset buttons and a headphone/mic combo jack.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

On the back of the case, you’ll see eight total slots for expansion, as well as space for vertically mounting your video card. (The vertical-GPU zone is unused in our test configuration, with our liquid-cooled RTX 4090 in the motherboard slot.) For our configuration with the Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero motherboard, the rear I/O consists of 12 total USB connections: three Type-C ports (two 40Gbps Thunderbolt Type-C, one 10Gbps Type-C), and nine other Type-A ports (five 10Gbps, four 5Gbps). You have plenty of USB connections by count and speed.

Also found on the rear I/O are the 2.5GbE and Wi-Fi 7 connections, the audio stack (five analog and one S/PDIF out), an HDMI output to use with the integrated graphics, and finally, reset CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons. Other, less-expensive motherboard options will change this configuration.

Using the Origin Genesis: Lean Liquid Machine

Accessing the internals of this case, should you want to adjust this advanced build, is incredibly easy with the 6500X. At the bottom of the windowed side panel, at the front of the chassis, pull on the bottom of the pane to swing open the hinged glass. The door opens wide, yielding full access to the internals. Inside the vast chassis are nine Corsair iCue Link RX120 white RGB fans to get air through the radiators and keep the system running cool, even with high-power parts like our Intel Core i9-14900K and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. (For more on the cable-slashing iCue Link, see our test build with Corsair’s iCue Link parts.)

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Although you can’t see it from the front, the second chamber in the 6500X has room for up to four additional hard drives (two 2.5-inch and two 3.5-inch). The primary chamber has plenty of room for the largest of motherboards (up to Extended ATX) and graphics cards. Fitment and wire management are not a problem with the cavernous insides of this cubic mid-tower case.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Our test system came with the fastest GPU currently available on the market, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, and it’s water-cooled as part of the Corsair Hydro X LCD iCue Link cooling system. The LCD screens on the reservoir and CPU block are informative and serve as neat accent pieces. Origin did an excellent job of managing the wires and water-cooling tubing and pathing inside, which gives it an immaculate look. (The tubing is soft in this case, but you can get rigid tubing for extra.) The iCue Link ecosystem, by design, helps reduce cabling by letting the system assembler run short cables in series between many of the components.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The Z790 Dark Hero inside works with a blazing-fast PCIe 5.0 x4-capable M.2 socket (four others in PCIe 4.0 x4 flavor) and four SATA ports, so plenty of storage options are available. The Dark Hero also has two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics cards and an additional PCIe 4.0 x4 slot for further expansion.

If you’re an audio buff, the setup contains a flagship-class audio solution and a DAC for headphone use. Other high-end features on the Dark Hero motherboard include integrated Wi-Fi 7 for ultra-fast wireless internet and a 2.5GbE Ethernet jack. In short, it’s an incredibly well-equipped motherboard, though you are paying a premium for it (as you would at any boutique shop) compared with other options.

Be aware that different motherboards have varying connectivity options. Whether it’s fewer or less-speedy USB ports, fewer M.2 sockets, and so on, be sure you know your requirements when selecting your motherboard so you aren’t left wanting after a significant purchase.

Testing the Origin Genesis: Flagship Hardware Eats Frames for Lunch

The 2024 Origin Genesis is one of the fastest desktop gaming systems we’ve tested. Sadly, we don’t have a direct comparison here, as the Acer Predator Orion 7000 has a Core i9-13900KF and an RTX 4090, while the other systems that may have an i9-14900K “only” have an RTX 4080. In graphics-heavy tests, this awesome prebuilt rig beat out most systems. Since the processors are so close performance-wise, often depending on cooling and how the motherboard is configured, seeing a difference on that front was more challenging.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.

Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene. At the same time, Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. We then use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The elite Origin Genesis PC and its flagship-class components charged through our primary tests with scores matching similarly equipped systems like the Origin Chronos V3, using i9-14900K processors. Any difference you see was likely related to thermal management and how the motherboard configures the power limits out of the box. But overall, Origin PC and the Asus ROG Z790 Dark Hero extracted as much speed as possible from the CPU, video cards, and storage in these tests, helped in no small part by liquid cooling.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

For gaming desktops, we run both synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, the more modest Night Raid (suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and the more demanding Time Spy (suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We then run two OpenGL exercises, rendered offscreen by the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which allows for different native display resolutions; more frames per second (fps) means higher performance.

Our real gaming benchmarks are those built into F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege, tested at higher resolutions and quality settings than on gaming laptops. These three represent simulation, open-world action adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games. We run Valhalla and Siege twice each at Ultra quality (at both 1080p and 4K), while F1 2021 is run at 4K only, with and without AMD’s and Nvidia’s performance-boosting FSR and DLSS features turned on.

Here again, we saw the high-end hardware going to work either outpacing or matching similarly set-up systems. As configured, the Genesis is an easily 4K-capable or high-fps 1080p or 1440p machine. If your build plans don’t include a 4K monitor, save some money and configure your model with a less expensive graphics card. You can also save money going for an air-cooled RTX 4090 with a negligible performance difference in gaming.

Verdict: Pretty, Powerful, and Predictably Pricey

When building a PC on your own isn’t an option, your only choices are to do without or to have someone make it for you. Boutique builders are plentiful, so standing out in that crowded market is challenging. The Origin Genesis in our lab is one of the most powerful gaming systems we’ve tested, presenting prospective buyers with flagship-class hardware and an impressive aesthetic. Even if you don’t like the big, sharp-edged, and glassy chassis, Origin PC and Corsair have options. Performance from this system was as expected, matching or slightly beating out similarly equipped models. Know that you’ll get the full performance regardless of high-end or less-expensive components.

Our only complaint was that the large chassis and nine-fan configuration were noisy out of the box under heavy loads (including gaming). A simple fan curve adjustment through the intuitive iCue software (also doable in the BIOS) tamed the fan speeds, keeping noise to a minimum. (More critical: Temperatures stayed in order after the adjustment.) The other concern is price. Although Origin PC’s pricing compares well with the boutique-PC competition, you’re still paying a premium for the convenience of a PC built and tested for you. For those who can’t DIY or don’t have the time for that, using a service like Origin PC to get a professional-looking and fully compatible machine is priceless and worth the price of admission. For that and to outperform the previous category leader, we grant the 2024 Origin Genesis our Editors’ Choice award in the exorbitant cost-no-object gaming category.