Editors' note: Since this review posted, Intel announced a flaw in the Sandy Bridge P67 chipset used in this desktop. Click here for the details of the flaw, which affects certain data connection ports. As the hard drives on this system are not connected to the affected ports, we have no reason to believe that our performance results are compromised by the chipset flaw. If you order this system today, Origin will offer you several options, among them free shipping, labor, and parts replacement when the updated motherboards arrive from Intel. Intel has stated that the updated hardware will ship in the next four to six weeks.
Origin Genesis (Intel Core i7 2600K)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
This Origin Genesis gaming desktop was the first PC to hit our lab with Intel's new Core i7 2600K desktop CPU. Boasting impressive overclocking headroom and admirable power efficiency, this high-end quad-core chip sets a new standard for desktop CPU price-performance. We're also impressed with the desktop Origin has assembled around this chip. For $2,499, the Genesis outpaces older systems in the same price range, and even comes threateningly close to the performance of a $5,000 gaming desktop that uses the same new Intel CPU. We're also happy to see Origin maintain the commitment to strong build quality we saw in its debut last year. Be sure to compare prices for new Core i7s from the various boutique vendors, but short of a massive price disparity, we have no problem recommending the Origin Genesis for gamers and performance enthusiasts.
This incarnation of the Genesis is a more modest take on the Origin flagship line than the configuration we reviewed previously. Again, rather than being a full-tower, $5,000-or-so system, this Genesis comes in at $2,499, and it features a more manageable midtower chassis. The Lian Li PC-8NWX case looks clean enough, and a lockable, front-panel hard-drive bay provides convenient drive access with a touch of security. Inside, Origin's design shows most of the polish we expect in this price range. The internal hard-drive bays don't come with rear-mounted power and data cables, so you may end up with a cluttered interior if you add drives later, but for now, the inside of the case is clean and tidy, even with the large liquid cooling system inside.
At the end of that liquid cooling rig you'll find Intel's new Core i7 CPU, in this case the Core i7 2600K model. Like the 45-nanometer Core i7 chips before it, the new 32-nanometer Core i7 2600K is a quad-core CPU with both Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technologies. Hyper-Threading doubles the simultaneous processing capability of each CPU core, making the quad-core Core i7 effectively an eight-core chip when the workload calls for it. Turbo Boost, upgraded here to the 2.0 version, manages the clock speed of each of those cores, ramping up or slowing the frequency to achieve maximum performance per core, within the bounds of the system's thermal and power management limitations.
The difference between the two chips, among other things, comes down in part to transistor count. With the new 32-nanometer manufacturing process, Intel has been able to fit 995 million transistors on these new Core i7 quad-core chips, compared with 731 million on the larger, older generation of Core i7 CPUs.
You may also have heard about the Intel Insider feature that comes with Sandy Bridge. Intel Insider has brought some controversy with it in that the feature is designed with video content protection in mind. Various Intel media partners, like Warner Brothers Films and Best Buy's CinemaNow, have committed to making high-resolution content available to Sandy Bridge-equipped desktops on the strength of the Intel Insider content protection technology. Intel Insider will not prevent you from manipulating your existing video files, nor will it disable your ability to watch video content from other sources, but those sensitive to DRM issues have still cast a wary eye on this strategy. We like the fact that Intel Insider gives content providers incentive to distribute movies at higher quality, and more quickly than they might otherwise, but without being able to test it (the Intel Insider content goes live in February), nor with any indication of the larger market ramifications, we can't pass final judgment on it. We expect to hear more about Intel Insider throughout the year.
Intel has also built graphics processing into its new chips, which will come in handy on lower-cost desktops that don't have discrete graphics cards built into them. This Origin Genesis comes with a discrete card, so the built-in graphics core has no impact here. If you'd like to read more about Intel's Sandy Bridge Core i7 chips, we invite you to read these companion posts from CNET's Crave and News blogs.