Origin PC's new Omni gaming all-in-one wraps you up in its curved screen

An all-in-one desktop for gaming is one of those ideas that never quite works out as well as you'd expect. All-in-ones, such as the Apple iMac, combine computer components and a display into a single package, but their shallow bodies usually leave little room for the kind of high-end components gamers need. The handful of attempts at this gaming/all-in-one hybrid we've tested over the years have been a letdown, because they use laptop-level parts. That's fine for mobile gamers, but if you're dedicating a large desktop footprint for gaming, you want a traditional desktop video card in there.

The Omni from Origin PC combines that boutique PC company's extreme customization options and build flexibility with a big-screen all-in-one body, highlighted by a 3,440x1,440-pixel, 34-inch curved display. The base unit is an off-the-shelf chassis, and like many gaming PC builders, Origin PC takes that third-party unit and customizes it with its own components, tweaks and software to create something unique.

The Omni supports up to an Intel Core i7 5960X processor, liquid cooling, and can fit a new Nvidia Titan X desktop graphics card. That's all especially noteworthy because these are parts you pretty much never see in an all-in-one desktop. The back cover comes off, allowing you access to the motherboard so components can be swapped out for future upgrades -- another feature rarely seen in all-in-one desktops.

Sitting in front of the system, the huge 34-inch screen wraps subtly around you. Curved screens on big TVs are a gimmick, offering a great view to only the person sitting dead center. But on a smaller computer monitor level, adding a curved display immediately makes everything, including PC gaming, more immediate and immersive.

The Omni is coming sometime in the first quarter of 2016. There's no price yet, but we estimate it'll start at around $2,000 in the US, which is about $1,400 or AU$2,800.

Origin PC Chronos

Also new from Origin PC is the Chronos, a custom-designed small desktop. Despite being just 11.5 inches tall by 13.75 inches deep by 4 inches wide (292 by 349 by 101mm), it can fit in a very similar set of desktop components as the Omni. That includes liquid cooling, and four SSD storage drives to hold all your downloaded games.

It also has one especially clever feature for the space-challenged. The rubber feet under the chassis are attached magnetically, so you can simply pop them off and move them to any other side of the metal box, allowing for an easy transition from vertical to horizontal. It's one of those great little ideas that makes it easier to fit this mini-tower under a desk or in an entertainment center.