ORIGIN PC MILLENNIUM 4K Gaming Desktop Review

Introduction

We're taking a look at our first ORIGIN desktop. We've taken a look at numerous ORIGIN laptops and have come away impressed. Will the MILLENNIUM stand up to the high bar we've come to expect from ORIGIN?

A little background on the MILLENNIUM. This mid-tower gaming system is designed specifically for 4K gaming, and features three GTX 980s in SLI to reach that end. So, we're going to throw everything at it, including Futuremark's new 4K test.

We've gone ahead and retired Futuremark Vantage as it was getting a bit long in the tooth. Instead, we will be running the new 4K benchmark from Futuremark, as 4K is where gaming is heading - we just need 120Hz 4K monitors!

Let's go ahead and dive into this review with high expectations and see how the MILLENNIUM performs.

Specifications, Configurations and Pricing

The heart of the MILLENNIUM is an LGA 2011 Intel Extreme Core i7 5960X 8-core CPU. It features HyperThreading, which means the user has a total of 16 threads available. It's manufactured on the 22nm lithography and was just launched in Q3 of 2014. On its own, it will set you back around $1k, so you can see where we're going with this system.

Cooling the CPU is a custom watercooling setup. Our system is cooled by ORIGIN's Frostbyte 360 cooling, which is an all-in-one system featuring a 360mm radiator. We should see excellent cooling from this system, making overclocks quite easily achievable.

Playing the spine of our system, the ASUS X99-DELUXE makes its way into our system. This X99 system features ASUS' patent-pending OC Socket, dual M.2 x4 expansion slots, on-board 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and five PCIe x16 slots. On the IO panel, we have dual Intel LAN, 10 USB 3.0 ports, and 8-channel audio. Suffice to say, this board kicks ass.

Slotted into the four-channel DIMMs, four 4GB sticks of Corsair LPX 2133MHz DDR4 RAM provides a total of 16GB of RAM for the user. This follows my rule-of-thumb of 1GB per thread, though I certainly wouldn't mind having 32GB. Battlefield uses quite a bit of memory--6GB+--on my system, and games will likely only take up more and more RAM.

Here is where the overkill continues. We have triple 4GB GeForce GTX 980s in SLI, making for one hell of a graphics powerhouse. We even have NVIDIA's gorgeous SLI bridge used to connect up the cards, making the system one slick machine. The only downside is that the three cards are stuck right next to each other, restricting air flow and causing the fans to spool up more than should be required. We'll see how this affects the noise production a bit later in the review.

Power for this beast of a machine is provided by a 1300-watt EVGA Supernova 1000 G2 PSU. As you'll see on the power draw page, this should probably be upped to 1400-1500W.

Windows 8.1 64-bit is installed upon the 1TB Samsung 840 EVO SSD. Mass storage is provided by an ORIGIN approved 3TB hard drive.

The entire system is stuffed into a custom ORIGIN case, which features easily removable doors and a white theme, though really any color can be applied to the side panels. The case also features remote-controlled lighting that can produce a wide range of colors.

As always, ORIGIN offers highly customized versions of the MILLENNIUM, and configurations start at just $1500. This specific config will set you back an eye-popping $5,999.