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Origin PC Goes Mad With Discounts on Titan-Z Systems

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 26 comments

Origin's new promotion brings you a lot of value for your money, though it is still a lot of money. We suspect Origin PC wants to go bankrupt.

Origin likes high-performance PCs as well as 4K. In order to push 4K adoption a little more, the company has announced its new 4K < $4K Nvidia BattleBox Titan Z promotion.

The included lineups are the Chronos-Z series, the Millenium-Z and the Genesis-Z. The idea behind the 4K < $4K is that you can get a 4K-capable gaming system for just under $4000, but there's some very strange marketing going on here. The systems themselves aren't really all that remarkable beyond carrying a Titan Z, and we were already able to order these a while ago. The differences now, and why this is newsworthy, is because of changes to the branding and pricing. Previously, these configurations would easily cost in excess of $5000.

The three offers that Origin has in store for you are the following: a gaming PC equipped with a GTX Titan Z for less than $4000, that same PC with a 4K monitor for slightly more, and a deal where you pay the full price for that same gaming PC, but you get a second Titan Z for free. Doing the math, you’ll realize that you’re getting more hardware than you’re paying for. This might not be entirely clear for the first deal, but for the last deal it is; you’ll pay around $5500 for a system with two GTX Titan Z’s – in retail, two Titan Z’s alone will cost you about $6000, and then you’ve still got to buy the rest of the PC.

Of course, many of you will question the use of a GTX Titan Z in a gaming machine in the first place, let alone two, but you can’t deny that it is scary to see hardware being sold for less than it is worth. If you are in the market for a GTX Titan Z, this deal might be worth pouncing on since you’ll get very good value for your money.

One thing often forgotten about these systems is that many folks are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of having a system built for them, along with a warranty on the entire system rather than on individual parts. They might not be for everybody, but there certainly is an audience for prebuilt gaming systems.

We're not entirely sure how Origin PC is financing this promotion. Either they have a deal with Nvidia, or they are taking a loss on purpose. A potential possibility is also that Origin PC bought up way more GTX Titan Z's than it sold, and that this is a way of getting rid of leftover inventory. We've reached out to Origin PC about this for comment.

On another note, Origin PC is also launching a trade-in program for Alienware-branded laptops from Dell. If you have one of these and wish to buy an Origin PC system or the new EVO15-S laptop, you can sign up for the trade-in program, and Origin PC will deduct the value of your old Alienware notebook from the purchase price of your new system.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

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Top Comments
  • 12 Hide
    DragonFireXY , August 11, 2014 11:37 AM
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a gaming video card is either stupid or stupid rich.

    Fixed it!
  • 10 Hide
    Ben Van Deventer , August 11, 2014 11:10 AM
    ...Maybe banking on tech websites to blast their promotional offer all over the web and look like a bunch of regular Good Guy Gregs is cheaper than traditional advertising tactics?
Other Comments
  • -2 Hide
    kawininjazx , August 11, 2014 11:06 AM
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a video card is either stupid or stupid rich.
  • Display all 26 comments.
  • 10 Hide
    Ben Van Deventer , August 11, 2014 11:10 AM
    ...Maybe banking on tech websites to blast their promotional offer all over the web and look like a bunch of regular Good Guy Gregs is cheaper than traditional advertising tactics?
  • 12 Hide
    DragonFireXY , August 11, 2014 11:37 AM
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a gaming video card is either stupid or stupid rich.

    Fixed it!
  • 3 Hide
    utengineer , August 11, 2014 11:52 AM
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a video card is either stupid or stupid rich.


    Or they are professionals and their technical needs are significantly different and more demanding than gamers/enthusiasts. Maybe the Titan-Z is over-priced, but a $3000 Quadro/Firepro is not over-priced. But, I get your point....a $3000 GPU for gaming, or bragging rights, is somewhat a little absurd. Yet, $3000 to some people(like me) is like $300 to a wealthy person.
  • 2 Hide
    hoofhearted , August 11, 2014 1:24 PM
    Once I get that 7 figure income ...
  • 1 Hide
    airborne11b , August 11, 2014 1:31 PM
    This sale is insane. I went through their pricing and for a full system, OS and all, it's about $5800 for nice cooling, case, high end CPU, 1200 watt psu, more than enough ram and 2x titan Z's, a 240GB SSD,..... that's a really awesome deal.

    2x Titan Z's are 6k alone on newegg. If you estimate that the rest of the hardware, build cost, warranty, etc and software comes up to a $1200 - $1500 value... that leaves about $4500 for 2x Titan Z's.

    Not bad at all. Ya it's pricey, but it's really not THAT bad. $6k for a PC, if you keep it for 2 years would come up to $250 a month. That's chump change to most people.
  • 6 Hide
    wiyosaya , August 11, 2014 1:32 PM
    I would not necessarily think they are going to go bankrupt because of this. The margins on high-end stuff, in general, are bound to be high. I almost would not be surprised if each Titan Z costs them about $1,500 or so.

    OTOH, maybe they are trying to dump their stock because the Titan Z's are not selling.
  • 2 Hide
    Ben Van Deventer , August 11, 2014 1:47 PM
    Quote:
    This sale is insane. I went through their pricing and for a full system, OS and all, it's about $5800 for nice cooling, case, high end CPU, 1200 watt psu, more than enough ram and 2x titan Z's, a 240GB SSD,..... that's a really awesome deal.

    2x Titan Z's are 6k alone on newegg. If you estimate that the rest of the hardware, build cost, warranty, etc and software comes up to a $1200 - $1500 value... that leaves about $4500 for 2x Titan Z's.

    Not bad at all. Ya it's pricey, but it's really not THAT bad. $6k for a PC, if you keep it for 2 years would come up to $250 a month. That's chump change to most people.


    It's still terrible "frames per second" value: why pat yourself on the back for spending $4500 on two titan Z's... when you can spend $1340 for two 780 Ti's, which still deliver 87% of the performance at 30% of the price.
  • 3 Hide
    n00dl3 , August 11, 2014 2:03 PM
    Because they were dumb enough to buy a few and still have not sold a single one...
  • 0 Hide
    fkr , August 11, 2014 3:58 PM
    well ebay is selling titan z for 2500. you may be able to piecemeal this deal out and make a profit. i am not taking the risk but it seems plausible
  • 0 Hide
    chaosmassive , August 11, 2014 8:17 PM
    Toms can you make a review for Titan Z already? pretty please...
  • 0 Hide
    pxl9190 , August 11, 2014 8:51 PM
    Hopefully by the time one receive the machine Nvidia still hasn't announced the GTX880.
    Otherwise those who think of selling the extra Titan Z on ebay would have a very hard time fetching a meaningful amount....
  • 3 Hide
    bmdc , August 11, 2014 10:10 PM
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a video card is either stupid or stupid rich.


    Despite all your downvotes, I think you're right. you can get two R9 295X2's for the same price as a Titan Z and absolutely dominate it in performance. Not only that, from every benchmark I've ever seen an R9 295X2 beats a TitanZ for half the price.
  • 0 Hide
    bmdc , August 11, 2014 10:10 PM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a video card is either stupid or stupid rich.


    Or they are professionals and their technical needs are significantly different and more demanding than gamers/enthusiasts. Maybe the Titan-Z is over-priced, but a $3000 Quadro/Firepro is not over-priced. But, I get your point....a $3000 GPU for gaming, or bragging rights, is somewhat a little absurd. Yet, $3000 to some people(like me) is like $300 to a wealthy person.



    Until you find that your workstation app plugins dont work on it because its not a quaddro.
  • 0 Hide
    airborne11b , August 12, 2014 1:11 AM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    This sale is insane. I went through their pricing and for a full system, OS and all, it's about $5800 for nice cooling, case, high end CPU, 1200 watt psu, more than enough ram and 2x titan Z's, a 240GB SSD,..... that's a really awesome deal.

    2x Titan Z's are 6k alone on newegg. If you estimate that the rest of the hardware, build cost, warranty, etc and software comes up to a $1200 - $1500 value... that leaves about $4500 for 2x Titan Z's.

    Not bad at all. Ya it's pricey, but it's really not THAT bad. $6k for a PC, if you keep it for 2 years would come up to $250 a month. That's chump change to most people.


    It's still terrible "frames per second" value: why pat yourself on the back for spending $4500 on two titan Z's... when you can spend $1340 for two 780 Ti's, which still deliver 87% of the performance at 30% of the price.


    There are always diminishing returns when you go higher up the GPU ladder. But it's not like these things are targeting just gaming performance. They're clearly a gaming and professional hybrid card.

    Obviously they lack value in terms of pure gaming, but if you're a professional who would utilize these things to their full potential, and want it to game on the side, they certainly have some value then, especially with such a dramatic markdown of about $1500 over 2 cards.
  • 0 Hide
    Ben Van Deventer , August 12, 2014 7:31 AM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Quote:
    This sale is insane. I went through their pricing and for a full system, OS and all, it's about $5800 for nice cooling, case, high end CPU, 1200 watt psu, more than enough ram and 2x titan Z's, a 240GB SSD,..... that's a really awesome deal.

    2x Titan Z's are 6k alone on newegg. If you estimate that the rest of the hardware, build cost, warranty, etc and software comes up to a $1200 - $1500 value... that leaves about $4500 for 2x Titan Z's.

    Not bad at all. Ya it's pricey, but it's really not THAT bad. $6k for a PC, if you keep it for 2 years would come up to $250 a month. That's chump change to most people.


    It's still terrible "frames per second" value: why pat yourself on the back for spending $4500 on two titan Z's... when you can spend $1340 for two 780 Ti's, which still deliver 87% of the performance at 30% of the price.


    There are always diminishing returns when you go higher up the GPU ladder. But it's not like these things are targeting just gaming performance. They're clearly a gaming and professional hybrid card.

    Obviously they lack value in terms of pure gaming, but if you're a professional who would utilize these things to their full potential, and want it to game on the side, they certainly have some value then, especially with such a dramatic markdown of about $1500 over 2 cards.


    The 'markdown' that you're so hung up on / excited about is just the absence of the original artificial 'markup' that was in no way ever linked to actual performance.

    Again, you can get almost 90% of the performance (in any scenario) by spending LESS THAN A THIRD of what these two Titans would cost you.

    You sound like a girl who's so excited that her new $300 shoes were marked down from $900! What a bargain! -_-
  • 0 Hide
    Mcgovern , August 12, 2014 10:29 AM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a video card is either stupid or stupid rich.


    Or they are professionals and their technical needs are significantly different and more demanding than gamers/enthusiasts. Maybe the Titan-Z is over-priced, but a $3000 Quadro/Firepro is not over-priced. But, I get your point....a $3000 GPU for gaming, or bragging rights, is somewhat a little absurd. Yet, $3000 to some people(like me) is like $300 to a wealthy person.


    So what your saying is hey everybody look at me I'm rich...supposedly.
  • 0 Hide
    Mcgovern , August 12, 2014 10:30 AM
    Quote:
    This sale is insane. I went through their pricing and for a full system, OS and all, it's about $5800 for nice cooling, case, high end CPU, 1200 watt psu, more than enough ram and 2x titan Z's, a 240GB SSD,..... that's a really awesome deal.

    2x Titan Z's are 6k alone on newegg. If you estimate that the rest of the hardware, build cost, warranty, etc and software comes up to a $1200 - $1500 value... that leaves about $4500 for 2x Titan Z's.

    Not bad at all. Ya it's pricey, but it's really not THAT bad. $6k for a PC, if you keep it for 2 years would come up to $250 a month. That's chump change to most people.


    6k for a PC....You still live in your parents basement don't you?
  • 0 Hide
    Mcgovern , August 12, 2014 10:32 AM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Anyone who spends $3000 for a video card is either stupid or stupid rich.


    Or they are professionals and their technical needs are significantly different and more demanding than gamers/enthusiasts. Maybe the Titan-Z is over-priced, but a $3000 Quadro/Firepro is not over-priced. But, I get your point....a $3000 GPU for gaming, or bragging rights, is somewhat a little absurd. Yet, $3000 to some people(like me) is like $300 to a wealthy person.


    SO what your saying is hey look at me I'm supposedly rich.......
  • 0 Hide
    sixsamuraisoldier , August 12, 2014 11:00 AM
    R9 295X is same speed or faster for half the price....
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