reviews the Origin PC Neuron 3500X: Illuminating Aquarium-Like Gaming Experience
reviews the Origin PC Neuron 3500X: Illuminating Aquarium-Like Gaming Experience
The Origin PC Neuron 3500X exudes the air of an expensive gaming PC. Corsair, in their wisdom, delivers their Origin PCs in enormous wooden crates that you must crack open yourself. Nestled within this crate is a box, and as if in a vaudeville act, there's another box covered in foam inside that box, adorned with a foam crown and shoes. If you're like me, you can't wait to transport your PC to your desk, bursting with excitement like a kid on Christmas. However, beware of opening it the wrong way, as one of the panels might tumble to the ground.
This is a PC that boasts a far more structurally sound appearance than its reality. Despite this, it maintains its cool and trendy appearance. The air vents are located beneath the PC, with the air flowing out to the back and top. This layout is effectively and provenly cool and quiet. The RGB lights add a subtle joy to my gamer heart.
The aquarium tank case design has gained popularity for a good reason. Now, you can admire your expensive gaming equipment from multiple angles. Unfortunately, I've noticed some craftsmanship issues with the Corsair 3500X mid-tower case. Although it looks appealing, it's best not to place anything heavy on top to avoid turning your square case into a toaster oven.
My setup for the Origin Neuron 3500X would cost approximately $3,387 MSRP, but Origin has generously knocked it down to $2,888. This price point includes free shipping, although breaking up the crate for firewood may be necessary. Although it's a fair price considering the quality, a part of me feels that desktop towers should offer more at this price range. If looks were everything, the PC inside its aquarium tank case would be picture-perfect. However, several other factors detract from the overall solid production.
Origin PC Neuron 3500X Review: Build Quality
© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The three Corsair-brand intake fans are a sight to behold, and the iCUE software installed by default makes it a breeze to alter the fan color and pattern. The Vengeance RGB DDR5 RAM sticks and the Capellix XT cooling unit align with the aesthetic. From every angle, it's simply a pleasure to look at.
However, I have other issues with the Corsair 3500 mid-sized tower. The Y-shaped grating is visually appealing but also causes the top sheet to bend towards the center. You should avoid placing any books or other items on the PC's main heating vent due to its slight dip. The top of the box features a single USB-C, two USB type-A ports, and a 3.6mm headphone jack. Two extra USB-C ports are available on the MSI Z890-P rear I/O panel for additional dongles or cables.
All panels are pressure-fitted with ball and socket joints. They held up well during the short trip from the box to my desk, but I nearly sent the front panel tumbling to the floor when I opened the main panel to remove the obtrusive packing phone. Both the main and rear panels are located behind the front glass. It's best to remove the front panel before disassembling the sides, despite the lack of a frame cutout that makes this process easier. If you're considering this chassis, you'll need to be extra careful when diving into your fishbowl for routine maintenance.
Unlike some other pre-built desktops available on the market, such as the Alienware Aurora R16, there's no special bracket for the GPU. Instead, it relies solely on the rear bracket and the PCIe Express slot to maintain its balance. This is only an issue when moving the PC, as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is a substantial and authoritative card. The free-floating end of the card wiggles when force is applied.
Despite this, the PC is remarkably quiet. The low hum of the fans while idling provides comforting white noise, and the tower never becomes loud enough to be bothersome, not even when under stress. The interior of the PC offers ample space, with two additional RAM slots and a single PCIe Gen 5 slot for larger Nvidia graphics cards if desired. When you open the rear portion, you'll notice the cables are well-organized, until you spot the jumble of cables leading to the PSU.
However, if you're buying this PC for its stunning appearance and cooling RGB glow, the Origin 3500X exceeds expectations. Origin's engineers have done an adequate job assembling it, but I feel that there are too many design details for the Corsair case, which impacts its overall rating.
Origin PC Neuron 3500X Review: Performance
© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The configuration provided by Corsair included 32GB of DDR5, 6400 MT/s RAM, the RTX 4080 Super, and the most recent top-of-the-line Intel Arrow Lake CPU, the Core Ultra 9 285K. This CPU typically hits a 3.7 GHz clock speed, but TurboBoost should increase that to 5.7 GHz, according to the designers.
Until I encountered the Origin, I had yet to delve deeply into Intel's latest desktop-level CPU. I still can't wrap my head around why the chipmaker decided to abandon their past generation naming conventions in favor of more "Ultra" names, like their most recent laptop chips.
Regarding the issue at hand, I've caught wind of some chatter about the chip's performance in relation to the previous generation's gem, specifically the Intel Core i9-14900K's top-tier desktop chips. While conducting my own tests, I discovered that the new Intel chip wasn't quite as swift as the 14900K. The Maingear MG-1, equipped with the same graphics card but an Intel 14th-gen gaming CPU, showcased a difference of around 200 points in Geekbench 6 single-core tests and more than 1,500 points in multi-core tests. However, the MG-1 did outperform in Cinebench multi-core rendering tasks by about 65 points.
In terms of claims by CPU enthusiasts, Arrow Lake was found to excel in productivity but fall short in gaming. In 3D Mark tests, the MG-PC outperformed an RTX 4080 Super in the Time Spy and Steel Nomad benchmarks.
The performance in gaming wasn't lacking by any means from this Origin PC. Despite being put through its paces across several games at varied resolutions, it managed to achieve around 50 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at the highest settings, even with ray tracing enabled and DLSS turned off. With DLSS activated, FPS surged to around 90 in intense scenes. At 4K, Cyberpunk's frame rate dipped to around 30 FPS.
Unfortunately, expectancies can't be excessively high for a PC at this price point. In Baldur's Gate III, the game played seamlessly, delivering 105 FPS in Act 1's outdoor areas and around 87 FPS in Act III's city. Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 also showcased smooth gameplay, averaging around 90 FPS in chaotic scenes.
Demanding titles could be played on maximum settings without worry. On average, I achieved 70 FPS with DLSS in Horizon Forbidden West and around 90 FPS in God of War: Ragnarök. The system tested well in benchmarks and performed even better in real-time gameplay. However, the experience wasn't as polished as it could have been, especially compared to the 14th-gen Intel gaming-focused CPU. The Neuron model offers support for up to an AMD Ryzen 9 9950x. To ensure safety, one might consider waiting for the anticipated 2023 release of the AMD 9950x3d.
Origin Neuron 3500X Review: Conclusion
The Origin Neuron is a robust PC with an attractive appearance and has the ability to coat your bedroom in RGB lights. Remember to take the CPU selection into consideration if you choose the PC. It is beginner-friendly but requires care due to some design flaws preventing easy gaming on the go. Despite that, the PC is well-designed and delivers an overall pleasant gaming experience.
In the future, potential buyers might want to consider the impact of the Corsair 3500X mid-tower case's design flaws on its portability. The reviews for the Origin PC Neuron 3500X have highlighted the need to be extra careful when disassembling the case for maintenance to avoid damaging it. In the realm of technology, the Origin Neuron 3500X offers a stunning appearance and cool performance, making it an attractive option for RGB enthusiasts and gamers alike.