Origin PC Neuron (2023) Review: A Big, Burly Gaming PC For Discerning Enthusiasts

building a high-end gaming PC can be a lot of fun but it can also be a frustrating experience fortunately there's no shortage of Boutique system Builders ready to build a custom PC at a moment's notice one of those of course is origin PC who makes some really high-end builds including this neuron uh they're owned by Corsair so you'll see a lot of Corsair Parts in this configuration we're going to take it for a spin we're going to take a look at how it's built we're also going to take a look at how it how it's priced out and how that compares to doing it yourself I'm Ben Funk and you're watching hot [Music] Hardware all right this is normally the spot where you'd see a table of specifications we're going to build a neuron together and because it's off-the-shelf Parts completely standardized we'll also build this exact same list of components on Amazon to just see what kind of markup there is so we're on the origin PC website in an incognito window we're not logged into anything we're just going to go together and Shop pick the neuron here I will shop now and we will customize it because this is not a preconfigured system so we're using the 5000d airflow ours is black I like black better so let's do that the core I9 14900 K our motherboard is the MSI MPG z790 Edge Wi-Fi that's a mouthful now our memory is actually 7200 MHz but that it's not an option with this motherboard so we're going to go for the Corsair Dominator titanium just like we have 32 GB but we're going to stick to 6,000 just because it's not an option here right now but call origin and I'm sure that you can do this then for cooling we have Corsair h150i LCD there it is so our fans are the qx20 our graphics card is a GeForce RTX 490 and of course we're using Windows 11 home home our review units operating system Drive is a Samsung 990 Pro the storage Drive is actually a SATA SSD a 2 tbte Samsung 870 qvo and then the power supply in our unit is the Corsair RM 1200X shift which is an 80 plus gold unit it has all of the connectors on a fully modular power supply on the side instead of like kind of like the rear which makes it easier to manage cables now we did get all of the additional cables that aren't being used in our system in a box with the unit so you'll get all the extra cables so if you want to add something later on that's totally an option ours did come shipped in a wooden crate and so we will add to the cart and we'll see what our total is but it is $4,625 189 uh that is including the wooden crate it is free shipping uh because that's how origin rolls also if we back up for just a minute you'll see that this is based on uh current current deal that they've got going on 10% off which does include our unit uh so normally it would be 51 33988 now it's 4625 all right so let's go to Amazon and then this part you know shopping for PC components is fun but it can also be pretty boring so we're going to speed right on through this and we'll get to the cart okay so we're done shopping and here's our list that comes up to $630 now origin PC will build you the same PC for free basically with the same list of components uh 4626 4630 so there's not really a lot of a markup now we are on a 10% discount package for the build the the attention to detail that goes into the build it's really quite good they use just the cables they need they keep them nice and tidy they've configured the system well so for the price if your time is valuable and you don't want to spend your time building and you'd rather wait for them to do it and receive it honestly it's it's kind of hard to argue with the origin PC neuron is a big PC and that's mostly because the Corsair 5000d airflow in which it's built is also pretty huge when we look at the neuron from the side the only real branding we see is an origin logo in the lower right corner the fully glass side is actually tinted to reduce some of the light coming from the 10 total fans inside the case removing the panel is just a matter of loosening a pair of C screws and popping the side off using the tab let's take a closer look once we take off the side we can get a good look at all the air moving inside the system the Corsair h150i LCD has been programmed with an animated origin logo which is neat and the fins are fully RGB LED equipped the MSI z790 Motherboard has a lot of vrm cooling and full m.2 slot cooling as well even the Corsair Dominator titanium ddr5 memory has light lighting dominating the lower half of the main chamber is the GeForce RTX 490 with its three slot cooler and single 12 vhp WRR power cable below the motherboard shrouded from view is the RM 1200X shift power supply air flow in the case is configured as six intake fans in the front and side with three pushing air through the h150i LCDs radiator and one more exhausting from the back of the case that's positive pressure airf flow so dust should be kept out if any happens to sneak through the mesh over the intake fans around the front we can see that the 5000d airflow does not have any tempered glass or other solid surface as its name implies air flow is maximized and unimpeded thanks to the open front sides and top of the case on the other side of the neuron the mostly solid case panel has been custom painted by origin in blue and orange the three side case fans have plenty of ventilation as well we can remove this Side by removing a couple more captive screws and popping off the panel inside and behind the magnetically closed access door we can see the cable routing and available Drive Bays of the 5000d airflow origin PC took their time to ensure that cables are routed neatly and anchored by the included velcro straps all of the drive Bays have removable trays with a single thumb screw with room for a total of three 2 and 1/2 in drives and a lone 3 and 1/2 in Drive when we get to the rear of the PC it's obvious how much external connectivity the MSI MPG z790 Edge Wi-Fi has there are eight usb3 type A ports a USBC 10 gbit port and a 2x2 20 gbit USBC Port there's also analog and digital surround sound outputs two Wi-Fi antenna mounts 2.5 GB ethernet and display port and HDMI for the core I 9 14900 K in integrated GPU however as long as that GeForce RTX 490 is in the system we should be using its HDMI 2.1 port or three display port 1.4 ports and finally at the bottom we can see the power connector for the system now that we've taken a tour of the origin PC neuron it's time to start running some tests first up is browser bench. org speedometer 2.0 this real world test of various JavaScript Frameworks in a sample web app reports its score and runs per minute with scores averaging around 470 web browsing is smooth and responsive on the neuron cinebench is a CPU Focus rendering test based on maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine in both single and multi-threaded scenarios the neuron scored in line with our core I9 14900 K test bed with 2200 in single-threaded performance with a score of over 34,000 in multi-threaded blender is another popular rendering application and the blender rendering benchmark runs against three sample scenes again performance is as we expect with samples per minute scores of 250 in the monster scene 150 in the junk shop and 115 in classroom geek bench 5 is a synthetic Benchmark that tests against a variety of theoretical system loads in this test we saw a warning in the geekbench browser about an issue with timers on the system I also received this warning on a core i7 12700 K PC which was running it stock settings so maybe it's an issue with the newer Intel CPUs and the latest build of geekbench 5 the neuron was incredibly stable in our use so we don't think there's anything wrong PC Mark is the gold standard in productivity tests and in this instance the neuron acquitted itself very nicely with a score of over 9100 in particular the digital content creation score was quite high at over 16,600 that's due in large part to the GeForce RTX 490 in the system when we start focusing on on 3D graphics performance 3D Mark time spy is the place to start its direct X12 Benchmark is Pretty Tough when it comes to raster Graphics loads and the neuron Rises to the occasion its score of 33,000 is about what we would expect for this system 3D Mark Port Royal is a grueling rate tracing test that uses dx12 ultimates rate tracing again the systems GeForce RTX 490 comes to the rescue and it scores over 24,000 also the DirectX Ray tracing or dxr feature test in 3D Mark shows high performance this test uses a static 3D scene and moves the camera around to gauge how fast rrac Graphics can be rendered the neuron was able to push frames at around 137 frames per second finally it's time to talk about games and take our gaming PC for a spin Final Fantasy 14 end Walkers Benchmark is a good representative of how the complete game should run on this system with maximum settings and a resolution of 216 P it turned in a performance of nearly 190 frames per second on average and a low that was still up over 90 that's not really a challenge for the neuron the same is true for Forza Horizon 5 the open World Racing game from Microsoft much like Final Fantasy it ran at maximum settings and a UHD resolution and it scored nearly 170 frames per second in The Benchmark Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is the first R tracing test we ran with all of the game's graphical settings cranked to the Max and R Trac turned up all the way while frame rates were lower in this title it still averaged around 99 on this run and it's still silky smooth and it looks great the same is true of F1 2022 which uses rate Trace lighting for shadows and Reflections just like Guardians of the Galaxy this test was run at Max settings with rracing enabled at a 4K resolution resulting in right around 100 frames per second as well cyberpunk 2077 latest update uses Ray Trace Global illumination and this is where we need to turn on dlss with frame generation enabled and dlss set to the Quality setting the neuron was able to crank out an average of 75 frames per second in our test run it looks gorgeous of course and the GeForce RTX 490 runs it very well The Witcher 3 is an older title but it also got a rate tracing update that includes Global illumination when we use similar settings to those in cyberpunk with all the settings cranked and global illumination enabled but with dlss and frame generation turned on we got closer to 100 frames per second the extra Graphics juice that comes from the Next Generation update made it look really great and the neuron handled it really well finally remedy Allen wake 2 just launched on the epic game store you can read all about performance in our review over on hot hardware.com but this is our first look at the game with the GeForce RTX 490 just like before we turned all the settings up all the way enabled quality dlss with frame generation and went for a walk in downtown bright Falls performance was again really great in those punishing title with average frame rates hovering in the 90s in town I will say though that in the forest the frame rate dips but with average frame rates hitting the mid 70s it's still quite playable this way the origin PC neuron has a ton of cooling Hardware between 7 120 mm case fans and the fancy 360 mm all-in-one cooler there's just a lot of air moving thanks to the 5000d airflow case ventilation is really great but noise does escape from the system under load at idle it's barely registering above the noise floor on our sound meter in the low to mid-30s under load the neurons fans will spin up and down noticeably as the temperatures and loads change the loudest the system got was around 51 or 52 a weighted DB while playing Allen wake 2 once the temperatures would drop the fans would slow down and and they'd register noise in the mid-40s decel range power consumption on the neuron at idle is a little higher than we initially expected but when we thought about the fact that it does have 10 fans and those fans have 34 RGB LEDs a piece and the CPU Cooler has a programmable LCD it just started to make a little more sense power consumption at idol was around 120 watts according to our trusty kilowatt under a gaming load again while playing Allen wake 2 power usage bumped up closer to 600 watt with the occasional blip that went as high as 620 at Max overall the neuron has high powered gaming Hardware so this power consumption really isn't out of line all right now that we've taken the origin PC neuron for a spin and put it through its Paces what do we think this is a beast of a of a PC uh but a lot of that just has to do with the configuration that we were provided for review and what we could build in the configurator on Origins website I mean it's got a a core i 94900 k a GeForce RTX 490 the two fastest gaming components that you can buy basically uh lots of memory plenty of storage and a lot of expandability for storage the case is big and high quality and pretty heavy there are so many fans in this thing 10 in total counting the three on the all-in-one CPU Cooler and seven case fans the list of parts goes on and on which is is why the price is about $4,600 now building this exact PC yourself and buying the parts on Amazon doesn't really save you anything it's also about $4,600 now the good news is you don't have to spend that much money if you don't want the highest end gaming PC on the planet you can start with the base model which has a GeForce RTX 460 and Intel Core i5 13600 K and you can also go with AMD Parts there are a couple of radon in the configurator there's also several ryzen 7000 CPUs available with of course compatible motherboards that go along with them so you can build Intel AMD Nvidia whatever you're looking for and at least right now it's priced really competitively with doing it yourself now eventually that deal will probably end and the price will go up so the question then becomes is the margin worth it is this worth $5,100 well that depends on on what kind of Builder you are if you love to get in there and do it with your hands I'm not sure why you're watching this video if you're not comfortable doing that especially with a very high-end build and you want somebody to do it for you then origin will do it for you and they'll ship it to you in a big wooden crate to keep it safe and they will do a really phenomenal job in terms of cable routing and the clean look of the build uh they did a a really nice job here so uh you have to decide is that premium worth it and the only person that can answer that is you so this has been the origin PC neuron I've been Ben you've been great thanks for watching hot Hardware

Channel: HotHardware

Views: 2,300

Keywords: Origin PC Review, Gaming PC, pre built gaming PC, Origin Corsair, PC Gaming, Origin PC Neuron, Origin PC Neuron Review

Id: JajhlRyrOSA

Length: 16min 12sec (972 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2023