Razer may be grabbing all of the attention at CES with its futuristic look concept Project Christine, but Origin PC has a modular design all its own, and it's ready for the real world now.
Boutique PC maker Origin PC has developed its own custom-designed chassis, built to be highly customizable and future-proof. Made for housing custom gaming rigs and workstations, Origin PC's new Millennium and Genesis PC cases offer a level of expandability and customization that blows past any product I've seen.
Designed from the ground up to offer an unheard of level of customization, the new cases feature dozens of touches that allow PC builders to customize their rig exactly as they like, with room to reconfigure parts, replace and add components, and even upgrade from the mid-tower Millennium to the full-tower Genesis with the addition of a lower expansion bay portion of the Genesis is the Millennium mid-tower chassis.
The lower expansion bay adds enough room for up to 24 2.5-inch hard drive bays, or room for a massive liquid GPU/CPU cooling system with twin 360mm radiators. The expansion adds just over 4 inches to the 2.44-inch height of the Millennium mid-tower, with the full-tower Genesis standing 25.26 inches tall.
Inside the regular tower, which is the same between the Millennium and Genesis designs, there are plenty of features for PC builders. Despite the mid-tower dimensions of the Millennium, there is room for even a server-grade XL-ATX motherboard. Multiple component orientations allow you to shift from a standard ATX configuration to a 90-degree vertical mount, or invert the standard mounting from right to left. You can even opt for both, with an inverted 90-degree orientation. And these options don't top out with the number of components; all options support up to 4-way SLI configurations.
All of the cases parts are designed to offer a maximum number of options and configurations, from the door panel on the front of the case, which can be mounted to open right or left handed; to the side panel windows, which can be swapped to one side of the tower or the other; or the air vent filters, which can be switched from the top to the back or the bottom of the tower.
The frame itself is made from server-grade steel, and Origin's Variable Mounting Technology (developed for this product) offers an absurd number of options in attaching everything from the motherboard to individual components. Thumb-screws hold it all together, with room for cables and cabling. The tower also features integrated carrying points, tool-free side panel access, and integrated Kensington locks for securing the tower in work environments or LAN parties.
The tower features integrated fan controls, with a manual speed control dial and a push-button automatic fan controller on the front of the case. Joining the fan controls are four top-mounted USB 3.0 ports and jacks for a headphone and microphone.
You have the option of installing nearly anything inside these beastly cases, but Origin also offers the towers pre-built, with customizable configurations offering up to 4-way SLI using the latest Nvidia graphics cards, quad- and hex-core Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, with up to 64GB of DDR3 memory, hand-picked for overclocking. Inside the Millennium chassis there are eight 2.5-inch hard drive slots in addition to the primary OS drive. With the expansion bay reconfigured for storage, you could equip your rig with as many as 33 drives. The towers are also customizable on the outside, with three stock colors (black, white, and red) and an array of custom paint options.
The new Millennium and Genesis PCs are now shipping with the new chassis design, with the Millennium starting at $1,629 and the Genesis at $1,849, with more expensive models available in custom configurations and colors. Origin PC will cover both products with its standard one-year part replacement warranty and lifetime labor. Because they are made for customization and expansion, you are free to reconfigure and tweak the system as much as you like without voiding the warranty.