Origin PC Millennium: 3-Way SLI And A 4.6 GHz Core i5

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After a long hiatus, Tom's Hardware returns to consumer desktop reviews with Origin PC's Millennium. Can three GeForce GTX 660 Ti cards and an overclocked Core i5 handle gaming at 5760x1080? We want to know if this elegant box is worth its $3,000+ price.

CyberPower Baseline System And Benchmarks

Since this is the first desktop Tom’s Hardware has reviewed in quite a while (you can expect more soon), we don’t have a whole lot to compare the Origin Millennium build to. System builder CyberPower graciously sent us one of its more compact systems to serve as our new performance baseline.

A $918 configuration of the LAN Party Evo Mini with a single Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card, our baseline system is in a different league than our test configuration of the Origin Millennium. It also sports the same Core i5-3570K CPU as the pricier Origin system, although not overclocked. The LAN Party Evo certainly can’t keep up with the Millenium, which costs three times as much. But it does give us some sense of the performance difference between a sub-$1,000 system and a build that’s north of three grand. However, there are advantages to running a single graphics card and not overclocking your CPU, as you’ll see later on in our power testing.

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CyberPower LAN Party Evo Mini
ProcessorIntel Core i5-3570K (Ivy Bridge), 4C/4T, 3.4 GHz Base Clock Rate, 3.8 GHz Maximum Turbo Boost, LGA 1155
MotherboardASRock Z77E-ITX, Z77 Express Chipset
Memory8 GB DDR3-1600 (4 GB x 2)
GraphicsNvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1 GB
Storage1 TB SATA 6 Gb/s Hard Drive, 7,200 RPM
CoolingAsetek 510LC 120 mm
Power SupplySilverStone 600 W Power Supply
ChassisSilverStone SG07B
Optical8x Slim CD/DVD burner
Operating SystemWindows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit)
Price as Configured$918

To get a well-rounded sense of how our baseline and review systems perform, our test suite includes a battery of CPU-centric tests borrowed from our CPU benchmark suite (HandBrake, iTunes, WinZip, and Photoshop CS 6), along with gaming tests that should be familiar to readers of our graphics card reviews (3DMark 11, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City). We’re also testing the drive speed of the boot drive using Iometer, measuring both power efficiency as well as how loud the system is at idle and under load.

Matt Safford
Matt Safford

After a rough start with the Mattel Aquarius as a child, Matt built his first PC in the late 1990s and ventured into mild PC modding in the early 2000s. He’s spent the last 15 years covering emerging technology for Smithsonian, Popular Science, and Consumer Reports, while testing components and PCs for Computer Shopper, PCMag and Digital Trends.

58 Comments Comment from the forums
  • DarkSable
    So... no mention of the fact that you're paying for a lot of things you don't need? In it's head-to-head against the DIY rig, I'm noticing a LOT of parts that I wouldn't even consider spending extra money on.

    And they're getting those parts at a discount, so you're paying a lot of money for that tech line.
    Reply
  • EzioAs
    "This system’s starting price is a relatively modest $1,225. For that, you get a Core i3-2120 CPU, an AMD Radeon HD 7750 graphics card, and a 500 GB hard drive."

    Wow, talk about rip off...
    Reply
  • DarkSable
    9539987 said:
    "This system’s starting price is a relatively modest $1,225. For that, you get a Core i3-2120 CPU, an AMD Radeon HD 7750 graphics card, and a 500 GB hard drive."

    Wow, talk about rip off...

    Haha, yeah. That's about what I spent for an i5-3570k and GTX 670. I'll stick with my hand-builts and NOT pay $700 for a tech support who reads from a script.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    For this much price, i would add another $100 and get the i7-3770k. Those extra 4 cores will come in handy in apps.
    And probably get 2xHD7950. 2 card setups are easier to maintain than 3 card setups (drivers). And the compute capability of GCN is already legendry.
    Reply
  • amuffin
    2 680's would be a better choice.
    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... origin haz the good sense to put windows 7 in it...
    Reply
  • danielmunhato
    we just need now is a review with 3 7970´s vs 3 gtx 680 in full hd and beyond.
    Reply
  • Caspase
    mayankleoboy1For this much price, i would add another $100 and get the i7-3770k. Those extra 4 cores will come in handy in apps.And probably get 2xHD7950. 2 card setups are easier to maintain than 3 card setups (drivers). And the compute capability of GCN is already legendry.
    Those extra 4 threads. And I bet at stock it would lose.
    Why aren't temperatures shown? I was curious to see how an ivy @ 4.6 in a mid tower with 3 GPUs with modest cooling would fair...
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    Yeah, why no temperature measurement ? AFAIK, 4.6 on 3570K can get very hot.
    Reply
  • a 3000$ trash like a mac
    Reply