Origin PC Chronos: Two GeForce GTX 780 Tis In A Mini Gaming Cube

Origin PC Tweaks The Chronos For Better Performance

Origin PC is more than a skilled system builder; it’s also great at branding. Beyond the case's logos, the CPU cooler, and an included black T-shirt, the company’s Nexus software is a logoed version of the Xfire gaming client.

The tweaks extend to Origin PC's work with Asus' motherboard firmware. Its overclockers increased the multiplier range of Intel’s 3.5 to 3.9 GHz Core i7-4770K to 4.2 through 4.7 GHz. Adaptive voltage mode makes its 1.325 V setting a maximum, where the actual voltage reported by CPU-Z under eight threads of AVX-optimized Prime95 pushed it to only 1.28 V.

It's important to us that the systems we review be representative of what our readers get as well. Originally, Origin PC's website showed a 4.4 GHz maximum overclock available to customers. Then it was 4.6 GHz (still 100 MHz under our review machine). We talked with company representatives, though, who let us know this was a typo and should have been 4.7 GHz all along. As of this writing, you should be able to configure a Chronos through Origin's online configurator that exactly matches the beast cranking away in our lab.

Origin PC also gets its logo on EVGA’s vaunted Precision X overclocking utility, which it uses to push those two GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics cards to a 1026 MHz base clock rate, a 1078 MHz GPU Boost setting, and GDDR5-7400.

Origin PC doesn’t charge for graphics card overclocking, but does cover the cost of replacing parts if anything goes wrong. Its $269 free-shipping warranty extension to three years is starting to look more like a bargain.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
  • envy14tpe
    But that price tag. Yikes!
    Reply
  • sbudbud
    Price is stupid, kill it with fire!!!
    Reply
  • Kingpin007
    great one would love to have one... if i had the money
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    Ouch, that is expensive!
    Loving the small form factor and performance though.

    How loud does this system have to get to handle all that heat?
    I am guessing that it will be pretty noisy; probably the biggest downside to putting so much performance in such a small package.
    Reply
  • bemused_fred
    21+73=94.That's a 94c peak CPU temp! Jay-soos! I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing.....
    Reply
  • Crashman
    12551434 said:
    Ouch, that is expensive!
    Loving the small form factor and performance though.

    How loud does this system have to get to handle all that heat?
    I am guessing that it will be pretty noisy; probably the biggest downside to putting so much performance in such a small package.
    Nope, it's quiet. The reason it's quiet is that it uses GeForce 780 Ti's. They use what's probably the best GPU cooler ever devised.

    12551444 said:
    21+73=94.That's a 94c peak CPU temp! Jay-soos! I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing.....
    Ah, but 17+73=90. It never reached max fan speed :)
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    12551478 said:
    Nope, it's quiet. The reason it's quiet is that it uses GeForce 780 Ti's. They use what's probably the best GPU cooler ever devised.

    Quiet, powerful and a small footprint.
    That is a great combination in my book :)
    Reply
  • Zeh
    I'd rather not have a 1 TB SSD. It's expensive as it is and 256gb is more than enough, at least for me. Heck, I have a 60gb and I'm fine with it.
    Reply
  • quilciri
    I have a pair of 120gb ssd's in raid0, and it's nearly full with about 1/4 of my steam library, I'd like a 1tb ssd, but really don't want to shell out for one. the Hybrid drives are looking prety good, though. I'm suprised, with all the other money they dumped into this system that the storage drive wasn't a hybrid.
    Reply
  • larsoncc
    The internals are just amazing. Look at how beautifully compact it all is. I bet it's surprisingly heavy for its size; those 850W power supplies have some heft to them.
    Reply