Origin PC Neuron 4000X Review: A Powerful, Clean 12th Gen Gaming PC
Looking under the hood of the Origin PC NEURON 4000X, it's clear the system will be a bit on the power-hungry side. After all, it's running a top-tier Intel 12th-gen Core i9-12900K CPU paired to an ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti that is also overclocked, not to mention the plethora of fans and RGB lights inside its chassis. So, when we loaded the system up with an absolute torture test to evaluate power, thermals, and acoustics with a combination of Prime95 and Furmark, we were expecting a fair bit of draw. This test is representative of an absolute worst-case scenario, but we also took a peek at a more generalized gaming power draw use case as well, to see how this system fares under more typical workloads.
While under load, we also tracked the system's thermals. The thermal solution on board the Origin PC NEURON 4000X consisted of three 120mm Corsair QL iCUE RGB fans as intake, one as exhaust, and two more placed on the Corsair iCUE H100i Elite all-in-one CPU cooler.
Power Consumption, Thermals And Acoustics
When resting at idle, this Origin system pulled around 88 Watts, which isn't bad considering the amount of horsepower on tap here. Under a full load, however, the system pulls just a generous ~735 watts from the wall. While that's on the higher side, it's not out of line with similarly spec'd systems. Under a more traditional game loop of Metro Exodus on Ultra image quality settings, the total system power draw stayed in the lower 500-Watt range.
While under load, we also tracked the system's thermals. The thermal solution on board the Origin PC NEURON 4000X consisted of three 120mm Corsair QL iCUE RGB fans as intake, one as exhaust, and two more placed on the Corsair iCUE H100i Elite all-in-one CPU cooler.
In this stress test, the NEURON 4000X's CPU temperature ticked up to the 95°C mark during Prime95, with its CPU clock speed dropping to about 4.05-4.2GHz after about 15 minutes. Under the same gaming load as before we saw the thermals stay around the 83°C mark which is much more comfortable; something to keep in mind if long and heavy CPU loads will be part of the system's daily use case. The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, however, fared better. During the Furmark test, we saw the GPU crest 66°C on the core and its memory stayed at around the 75°C mark, which is impressive for the high thermal output of GDDR6X memory. Interestingly enough, the gaming run of Metro Exodus yielded essentially the same results for the GPU.
Overall, it's a solid showing for the NEURON 4000X including idle thermals as well, with the CPU sitting near ambient room temperature at 25°C and the GPU at the 42°C mark with its idle fan stop feature. In terms of acoustics, under a full gaming workload we measured about 42db at two feet from the front of the case, which is also rather tame and respectable for the amount of horsepower that's on tap here.
Overall, it's a solid showing for the NEURON 4000X including idle thermals as well, with the CPU sitting near ambient room temperature at 25°C and the GPU at the 42°C mark with its idle fan stop feature. In terms of acoustics, under a full gaming workload we measured about 42db at two feet from the front of the case, which is also rather tame and respectable for the amount of horsepower that's on tap here.
Cinebench R20 Benchmarks
With our power, thermals, and noise checks out of the way, we can move on to assessing general system performance. The first stop is Cinebench R20. This test is based on Maxon’s Cinema 4D modeling software that is used in movie production studios.
The Alder Lake-powered Origin PC NEURON 4000X jumps near the top of the chart in our Cinebench R20 tests. The combination of high clocks and Intel's latest Performance Cores in the 12th Gen Core i9-12900K put up some impressive single and multi-threaded numbers here, with the system finishing I only a hair behind the more expensive Falcon Northwest Talon Z690.
Speedometer 2.0 Benchmarks
BrowserBench.org's Speedometer test takes a holistic look at web application performance. This test automatically loads and runs several sample webapps from ToDoMVC.com using the most popular web development frameworks around, including React, Angular, Ember.js, and even vanilla JavaScript. This test is a better example of how systems cope with real web applications, as opposed to a pure JavaScript compute test like JetStream. All tests were performed using the latest version of Chrome.
The Origin PC NEURON 4000X absolutely tops the charts in Browserbench.org's Speedometer. Alder Lake's hybrid architecture is particularly well suited to lightly threaded, bursty workloads, and it shows in this test especially when paired with Windows 11 and the latest browsers. Keep in mind, we don't have all of these other system on-hand perpetually, and OS and browser updates can affect performance considerably in this test. Regardless, the latest 12th gen processors are obviously plenty fast for web applications and browsing.
PCMark 10 System Benchmarks
UL Benchmarks' suite of tests have been the go-to system benchmarks since the late ‘90s. We ran the Origin PC NEURON 4000X through PCMark 10, which is designed to gauge the system performance in everyday use case scenarios with GPU acceleration-enabled.
The Origin PC NEURON 4000X put up the best overall score of the bunch in PCMark 10. This is another showcase pointing out the performance benefit of Windows 11 when using an Alder Lake platform, as the similarly specced system from Falcon Northwest with Windows 10 fell quite a bit behind in terms of performance in this test.
3DMark Time Spy Graphics Benchmarks
3DMark is a synthetic GPU benchmark for assessing graphics (GPU) and physics (CPU) performance. 3DMark supports both DX11 and DX12, depending on the particular test being run, which makes it handy for testing GPUs of various performance levels. We used the Time Spy benchmark, 3DMark's DirectX 12 test, to push the Origin PC NEURON 4000X. This test has multiple presets, but the standard Time Spy test is fairly taxing and we have a plethora of reference data, so that's what we stuck with.
3DMark Time Spy also had the Origin PC NEURON 4000X finishing near the top of the heap. The ASUS RTX 3080 Ti and Core i9-12900K make for a potent combination, that should offer killer performance in gaming and graphics workloads. As we previously mentioned, the RTX 3080 Ti basically rivals the more expensive RTX 3090 and that will be a common theme through the rest of these benchmarks.
Middle Earth: Shadow Of War Game Benchmarks
Middle Earth: Shadow of War is a fun and beautiful title set in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe. To test the game's performance relative to other systems, we set the resolution to 2560x1440 and turned the visuals up to the Ultra preset.
This is a solid showing from the NEURON 4000X and right on par with the RTX 3090 system from Falcon Northwest.
Gaming at 4K is far more GPU bound, so the deltas separating the system are smaller here. Still, the new Core i9-12900K and custom ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has the chops to push the NEURON 4000X right up with the Talon at the top of the chart.
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Benchmarks
The finale in the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is easily the best-looking of the bunch. It's the latest installment in the series for heroin Lara Croft, driven with a revamped DX12 game engine. SotTR also supports visual effects like Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field, Dynamic Foliage, Bloom shaders, Tessellation and more.
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider benefits both from Alder Lake's newer, higher-performing CPU core architecture and its increased core counts. Couple the Core i9-12900K to an RTX 3080 Ti, and its impressive to see it continue to match the Talon in performance.
Metro Exodus Benchmarks
Metro Exodus is based on author Dmitry Glukhovsky's series of Metro novels that started with Metro 2033 back in 2005. That first installment in the series was followed by Metro Last Light and later, Last Light Redux. Like other games in the series, Metro Exodus follows a post-apocalyptic story line that takes place in the former Russian Federation. The game features advanced graphics and visuals and also supports NVIDIA’s RTX and DLSS technologies.
When run using its Ultra Quality preset at a high resolution, Metro Exodus is completely GPU bound, showing again the RTX 3080 Ti is on par with RTX 3090-powered rigs here.
Origin PC NEURON 4000X Final Thoughts & Conclusion
Origin PC has a history of delivering well assembled and solid gaming systems, and this tradition continues with the NEURON 4000X. The everything from the shipping container, to the combination of components used, and the software setup left an overall positive impression. Going with the Intel 12th-gen Core i9-12900K was no brainer, and equipping the system with an RTX 3080 Ti rather than the much pricier RTX 3090 was a solid choice to keep the pricing more attractive, while having minimal impact the overall system performance. The Corsair 4000 Series chassis is an excellent choice as well, however, with such a high powered system opting for the mesh front panel option might be a better choice to improve air-flow and keep CPU temps lower.
While the choice of components in this system does keep the overall cost down versus going all out with a 12900KS and RTX 3090 or 3080 Ti, the Neuron still commands a premium. At $4,797 it's still a costly investment, but not out of line for the components used, and the quality and care that Origin PC has put into building the rig and ensuring its safe arrival to customers. But, this configuration isn't the only available. Costs could be cut significantly by going with a lower tier CPU, like the Core i5-12600K or even a Ryzen 5 5600X, both of which still offer excellent gaming performance. There are also cooling and fan options that can further reduce costs. The biggest savings, however, would come by scaling back the GPU, though. Choosing an RTX 3080, for example, would result in a $664 reduction.
Overall, our time with this system has been quite pleasant from the start -- from opening the package, unboxing the well protected case, slipping off the fitted sleeve, and evaluating the system for the last few weeks. The cable management is top notch, the case is excellent, and while the components used are all off-the-shelfs parts, this system was obviously built and tuned by experts.
If there is anything to nit-pick about our particular component combination it has to be the front tempered glass panel and the "smaller" 240mm AIO cooler for the CPU. While the case and build are absolutely beautiful, we the solid front panel and choice of cooler helped lead to the higher than desired CPU thermals under load. Our recommendation would be to go for the mesh front version of the case and opt for the Corsair H150i Elite (with or without the LCD that's a personal preference) and the CPU will run cooler, regardless of workload.
At the end of the day, the Origin PC Neuron's asking price, while high, is a reasonable ask considering the expert build quality and premium experience, from top to bottom. While there is plenty of wiggle room within the lineup that could lower the sticker price, the configuration we were sent performs very well compared the other systems we put it up against. The NEURON 4000X even managed to trade blows with more expensive offerings, that packed an RTX 3090. So, with all that said, we can recommend the Origin PC NEURON 4000X, without hesitation.
While the choice of components in this system does keep the overall cost down versus going all out with a 12900KS and RTX 3090 or 3080 Ti, the Neuron still commands a premium. At $4,797 it's still a costly investment, but not out of line for the components used, and the quality and care that Origin PC has put into building the rig and ensuring its safe arrival to customers. But, this configuration isn't the only available. Costs could be cut significantly by going with a lower tier CPU, like the Core i5-12600K or even a Ryzen 5 5600X, both of which still offer excellent gaming performance. There are also cooling and fan options that can further reduce costs. The biggest savings, however, would come by scaling back the GPU, though. Choosing an RTX 3080, for example, would result in a $664 reduction.
Overall, our time with this system has been quite pleasant from the start -- from opening the package, unboxing the well protected case, slipping off the fitted sleeve, and evaluating the system for the last few weeks. The cable management is top notch, the case is excellent, and while the components used are all off-the-shelfs parts, this system was obviously built and tuned by experts.
If there is anything to nit-pick about our particular component combination it has to be the front tempered glass panel and the "smaller" 240mm AIO cooler for the CPU. While the case and build are absolutely beautiful, we the solid front panel and choice of cooler helped lead to the higher than desired CPU thermals under load. Our recommendation would be to go for the mesh front version of the case and opt for the Corsair H150i Elite (with or without the LCD that's a personal preference) and the CPU will run cooler, regardless of workload.
At the end of the day, the Origin PC Neuron's asking price, while high, is a reasonable ask considering the expert build quality and premium experience, from top to bottom. While there is plenty of wiggle room within the lineup that could lower the sticker price, the configuration we were sent performs very well compared the other systems we put it up against. The NEURON 4000X even managed to trade blows with more expensive offerings, that packed an RTX 3090. So, with all that said, we can recommend the Origin PC NEURON 4000X, without hesitation.
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