The monster on my desktop

Editor’s note: The following is a post from Ben Rudolph, The PC Guy.

In a world of razor thin ultrabooks, tablets and convertibles, is there still room for a massively powerful traditional desktop PC? The mad scientists at Origin PC think so. And I think they’re right.

For those of you not familiar with Origin PC, they’re a high-end custom gaming PC manufacturer based in Miami that specializes in building completely customized, super-powerful gaming desktops and laptops, including the totally off-the-wall Big O, a mini-fridge-sized PC that’s half monster gaming rig, half liquid-cooled Xbox 360.

hardware 

A few months ago, I picked up a full-size Origin Genesis desktop. It’s a monster: overclocked 3rd-generation Intel i7-3370, 16GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM, 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD OS drive with a 2TB Barracuda data drive and screaming fast EVGA GTX 680 GPU, all hooked up to a EVGA Z75 motherboard. It’s the fastest, most powerful, best-built system I’ve ever owned.

WEI SCORE

As beefy as my system is, Origin can go way bigger. 4-way SLI with EVGA GTX Titans? Check. 2TB of RAIDed SSD storage? Sure, why not. 32GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM? Of course. It’s a hardware nerd’s playground; you can literally get anything you can possibly think of in a PC. The downside? It gets pricey. Origin Genesis systems start at $1900 and go way north from there. But like I always say, you get what you pay for.

desktop

So why buy something this big and this hefty? If you’re a gamer, the answer is obvious – you need a powerhouse to run today’s highly demanding games at full quality. If you’re a regular user though, there’s a lot to be said about a powerful, solidly-built desktop to serve as “home base.” This is the PC on which I keep all of my family photos, videos and other important files (with the key stuff backed up to SkyDrive, of course), and the place I go to if I have a lot of intensive work to do. For example, when I have a major presentation to complete or an article to write, It’s just more ergonomic for me to work on a full-size keyboard, with a full-size mouse, on multiple displays, rather than do it all on my laptop. And gaming? Well, that’s a no brainer – nothing matches a multi-monitor experience on a desktop.

If you’re in the market for a high-end gaming machine or an investment desktop to be your digital hub, you can’t go wrong with Origin. You can find them online (and build your dream system) at www.originpc.com.

(NOTE: Big thanks to EVGA for outfitting my Genesis with such an awesome GPU and motherboard!)