Origin PC Millennium (2022) review

Buying a pre-built PC is the easiest way to step into the wonderful world of PC gaming. And with the general lack of availability of graphics cards these days, it’s also your best bet — unless you’re incredibly lucky, or willing to deal with scalpers. Origin PC is one of the better known vendors in the space, offering powerful PCs with an attention to detail that’s sure to make a buyer feel a little better about opening up their wallets.

The Origin Millennium is a fine showcase of what Origin can do, and delivers one of the best gaming PCs money can buy packed into a sleek, physically imposing (if technically mid-sized) chassis. It’s not cheap, and while you can step through a configurator to build a machine that’s in line with your budget, Origin charges a premium for their services. But if you absolutely must have the latest and greatest and are willing to shell out for it, you’ll find a lot to like here.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Price and availability

Our Origin Millennium review unit will set you back for roughly $5,184, as configured. That entry fee gets you a 16-core, 2.3GHZ Core i9-12900K paired with a 12GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB of storage on the Corsair MP600 Core NVMe drive, and another 2 TB of storage on the Samsung 870 QVO SSD. It’s all tucked into a Corsair 5000X case, powered by an 850 Watt Corsair power supply, and lit by Corsair’s iCUE RGB system.

The price you pay will depend on the options you choose in Origin’s configurator; the line starts at $2,484, at time of writing. The 3080 Ti makes up a significant chunk of the expense, and the CPU is Intel’s most potent offering: if the Millennium line piques your interest but you’re balking at the price, you could consider picking a few mid-tier components, and then upgrading the rest of the build at your own pace, from your own sources. Origin’s site estimates about 5-7 business days for delivery, though that timing will vary based on the options you choose.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Design

This PC hasn’t changed all that much from the Origin PC Millennium we took a look at a few months ago, opting for Intel’s wares over the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, and swapping over to a black finish. I dig it: dim the lights, and it’s almost understated. But there are customization options aplenty, from selecting the perfect GIF for the digital display that sits on the CPU cooler, down to choosing the colors that will cycle up and down the spines of the Corsair Dominator RAM. I keep PCs on the floor and don’t spend too much time ogling their well-lit innards, but the discerning RGB enthusiast should find quite a bit to work with here.

At 20.5 by 9.7 by 20.5 inches and just shy of 46 pounds, this “mid-tower” is a bit on the large side — especially in light of the Origin PC Chronos, or the Maingear Turbo. It’s also a bit louder than either of those machines: a great deal of the internal space is given over to fans, which keep temperatures in check but generate a persistent hum.

The noise isn’t all that distracting, though, and the included iCUE software tools can help you dial the fan speeds down to a level that meets your acoustic.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Ports and upgradeability

The Corsair 5000X case is cavernous, though the bulk of the unoccupied space is dedicated to the pulling and pushing air past the fans, including the vertically mounted 360mm radiator. This is great for keeping temperatures in check (especially for overclocking), or if you think you might need room for an open-cooling loop down the line. 

But it necessarily limits room for things like additional hard drives, which you’ll need to slot into predefined spots on the opposite side chassis. There are two free PCI slots on the motherboard, though you’ll have to find something slim enough to share space with the 3080Ti. You can always add a bit more RAM, though.

Port selection is a bit more generous. Up top, the combination headphone / microphone jack is joined by a pair of USB 3 ports, and USB-C port. The MSI MPG Z690 Force WiFi motherboard offers another 9 USB ports (4 USB 2, 5 USB 3), a USB-C port, 2.5GBe, and Wi-Fi 6 / Bluetooth connectivity, care of an antenna.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Gaming performance

The Core i9-12900K and GeForce RTX 3080Ti deliver a commanding performance, as expected at this price point. The usual culprits — Red Dead Redemption 2 (Ultra, 24.8 fps) and Metro: Exodus Enhanced Edition (Extreme, 35.7 fps) — failed to hit 60 frames per second at 4K resolutions when all settings were cranked up. I play at 1440p; in Monster Hunter: Rise, my reported framerates rarely dipped below 175 frames per second, and generally hovered well above my monitor’s 165Hz refresh rate. In Total War: Warhammer 3, pitched battles could see the frames dip down as low as 92 frames per second. In Cyberpunk 2077, they plummeted to a pearl-clutching 87 frames per second.

Sarcasm aside, these results are to be expected: this is the best hardware money can buy, after all. Of greater importance is the fact that the machine’s bevy of fans kept things relatively quiet throughout gaming sessions, for uncompromising performance that doesn’t roar like a jet engine parked at my feet.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Overall performance

When the work day inevitably begins, the Millennium’s complement of hardware is sure to make short work of most everything you throw at it. My photography-centric workflows revolve around Adobe’s resource-hungry suite of apps, which were easily sated by Intel’s 16-core CPU, and Nvidia’s juggernaut of a GPU. But this was also true with both the Origin PC Chronos and Maingear’s Turbo; synthetic benchmarks can help see how these machines compare.

The 5000X scored 18,096 on the GeekBench 5.4 Multicore benchmark, as compared to the Origin PC Chronos’ score of 10,707, or the Maingear Turbo’s 15,794. It completed our Handbrake video encoding test in 3 minutes and 22 seconds (Origin PC Chronos: 5:10; Maingear Turbo: 4:11). Finally, it saw a transfer rate of 1,023 MB/s in our 25GB file copy test (Origin PC Chronos: 1,089 MB/s; Maingear Turbo: 2,004 MB/s). The 5000X clearly dominates whenever the CPU is put to task, but when it comes time to upgrade, take a look at speedier storage options.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Software

The 5000X comes equipped with Windows 11 Home — you can upgrade to Pro for an extra $41. The only extraneous piece of pre-installed software is Corsair’s iCUE. You’ll need that check on temperatures, fan and pump speeds, and make any customizations you’d like. iCUE can feel a little clunky, serving up a dizzying array of data while burying actual, actionable controls behind a few clicks. But I’m the “set it and forget it” type, and tend to spend very little time inside apps like iCUE once everything is in order. If you like to tinker or at least remain aware of what’s going on there’ll be plenty of data to sift through, and while it runs in the background the app isn’t too demanding, hovering at around 1 - 2% CPU utilization.

Origin PC Millennium (2022) review: Verdict

The Origin PC Millennium is an impressive machine, delivering performance that’s well-suited for work and play. Of course this isn’t surprising: slot one of the fastest CPUs and GPUs money can buy into a case and you’re bound to crush benchmarks (and budgets). This PC isn’t technically isn’t doing anything you couldn’t build yourself (provided you can find a graphics card), but sometimes having someone else do the legwork, and being available to offer support if something goes wrong, can be worth the price tag. And if you’ve got room in your budget, the Origin PC Millennium makes a strong case for letting someone else do the work.