Origin's Genesis: Flagship Bling
by Dustin Sklavos on April 2, 2011 2:00 PM ESTBuild, Noise, Heat, and Power Consumption
Before anything else, it's really just nice to see a boutique builder opt for a quality case. It's true that I may harp on cases too much, but the enclosure can play a big part of the overall experience and it's the first thing you see when you get a new tower. None of the cases Origin offers their towers in are chintzy, and their close relationship with Corsair means access to nice cases like the Obsidian series or in the case of this build, the Graphite 600T.
The component choices across the board are strong and I can't really split hairs in those respects, but it looks like the Intel Core i7-2600K in this machine may have drawn the short straw. Even with the Asetek liquid cooler running full bore (and oh how it runs full bore), you'll see temperatures are really quite high compared to other machines. At first it looked like my old nemesis, the Viscount von Lazyoverclocking, was rearing his ugly head, but a quick trip into UEFI revealed a fairly tuned overclock, complete with offset voltage. If anything it just looks like this particular chip needs a healthy amount of voltage pumped into it to hit high speeds; it idles at a higher voltage than my desktop i7-930 does. Under those circumstances I'm not liable to ding Origin for this.
On the other hand, what I will ding them for is just how damn loud this tower is. The Graphite 600T's fan controller isn't the greatest in the world, but everything else in the case completely overpowers the noise of the two 200mm fans at high speed. Honestly, the culprit seems to be the Asetek 570LC liquid cooler, which draws all kinds of attention to itself and even seems to smother the coolers on the well-spaced GeForce GTX 560 Ti's. Most damningly, you'll see it doesn't have a whole lot to show for itself either.
Those peak temperatures on the CPU aren't horrible, but they're not big winners either, especially not for a Sandy Bridge processor. The voltage this i7-2600K requires to hit 4.5GHz doesn't really make up for the mediocre cooling performance of the Asetek cooler or the overpowering fan noise. And with all that voltage...
Yeowch. I'm still inclined to chalk this up to a bad chip. The idle power consumption is really out of character (although the two GTX 560 Ti's don't help), and under load it's downright brutal. iBuyPower's system may have a lower overclock ("just" 4GHz), but that seems to help it keep power consumption down. CyberPower's system has a 4.4GHz overclock and it still manages to keep idle power low by requiring 0.7V less to hit its overclock than the Origin Genesis does.
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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.