Falcon Northwest Computer Systems

A friend recommended a falcon for me to get into VR. I am not aware of any other company that will provide the level of customer service that falcon NW gives to their customers. I can see why they have been in business for 25 years.

I have heard about Falcon computer from my gaming magazines for years now I just never had a job that paid me enough to be able to afford one. I finally saved up enough money for a Falcon and I must say these blow away the HP computers I have been forced to use in the past. I can easily overclock and get my resolution up to even 4K if I had a 4K monitor.

After years of drooling over a Mach V I finally got my wife to agree to let me have one and she even ordered it for me. It is so quiet for the speed it delivers and the build quality is nothing short of spectacular. It is easy to access all of the cables too for future expansion.

Compared to HP and Dell both of who make you jump through hoops if you get any service at all, The service at Falcon Northwest is amazing. When I had questions, whether, both software and hardware. They quickly responded in detail, usually within a couple to a few hours. I have owned my computer for 2 years and 6 months when twice my computer shut down and wouldn't come back on for one or more hours. After some tests they had me run, they identified the problem as the power supply and offered to send me a replacement power supply with detailed instruction, or I could return the computer. That was my choice, They will pay return shipping and sent me a UPS label at a discount. The computers are somewhat more expensive but you get what you pay for. I will buy from Falcon NW again. DC

I remember ordering my first falcon NW back in 97. This was long before alienware and many of the newer gaming rigs were even developed. These guys know how to build a fast PC and have been around for years. I like how they have not sold out to the big box retailers too.

I used to buy alienware pcs especially before Dell bought alienware. Not many laptops are actual desktop replacements for gaming. The falcon NW laptops with their 17 inch screens are simply amazing and you can even RAID 0,1 them which is rare on laptops.

Falcon northwest has the reputation for being overpriced, but I specced out the costs of their higher quality components and it is not nearly as overpriced as people think it is. It does cost more but you are getting the more costly ram/HD/video cards. Good quality like corsair doesn't come cheap...it doesn't also fail either.

I just ordered our 2nd Falcon. My wife bought me our 1st Falcon ~6 years ago for a birthday present, and I couldn't have been happier with either the machine itself or the service Falcon Northwest provided.

Recently, our 1st Falcon's motherboard gave out, so I called their tech support. About a 6-year-old machine that hasn't been under warranty for over 3 years. Not only did the tech support guy provide help when he didn't have to, he realized that I knew my way around the innards of a machine and didn't talk down to me.

I can't possibly recommend a company more highly than Falcon Northwest. Their goods and services come at a premium, to be sure, but I have not once regretted the purchase or the price. They have earned my repeat business, and I'll continue to sing their praises, as well.

My husband bought me a Falcon NW PC for Xmas 2 years ago. It is a real screamer. I typically run 100-120 fps w/zero lag on WoW. Win 10 auto download patch caused a glitch "blue screen of death". It would occur most often during longer gaming sessions (over 2 hrs). Then last week we had an electric outage x 2. Afterward my PC failed to recognize the mouse. I switched peripherals and tried everything I could think of but, no mouse. I made my very 1st call to Falcon NW customer service. I spoke first to Jonathan Moore. He was so patient and helpful. I could not find my restore disk. He walked me thru creating a flash drive restore disk. We tried to restore the PC but the files were corrupt. He literally spent 2 hrs working on this problem with me. His weekend began today & I was passed to another technician, Daniel. We created a new flash drive restore disk and he walked me thru the restore. There were a couple of glitches (probably on me) but, my PC is restored, my mouse is recognized and I was not charged. When you think about the cost of a PC consider customer service. Falcon NW customer service transcends the superlative. When I buy another PC, it will be a custom built Falcon Northwest. Incredible experience!!

I have been a customer of Falcon-NW for over 10 years. During this time I have ordered two fantastic state of the art gaming computers with top of the line components. I am absolutely delighted with my systems!!

I am equally delighted with the truly impressive expertise of their Tech Support Dept. Recently, I spoke to Brett Barker who helped me to configure Windows 10 HDR settings with a brand new 43" Asus PG-43UQ Monitor. His email suggestions were spot on. When he called me for my scheduled appointment, I had already successfully implemented his suggestions on needed changes to the Nvidia Control Panel. During our telephone conversation, he answered all of my questions regarding these changes. Like all Falcon Technicians with whom I have spoken over the years, Brett was impressively intelligent, knowledgeable, articulate and informative. It was TRULY A PLEASURE to speak to him and to have my problem quickly resolved. What I love about Falcon Technicians is that I always learn more about computers and Windows after speaking with them

Acquiring new knowledge can be a beautiful experience when you have great teachers.

Ron

Ok so far its been almost 3 weeks since I've placed my order with Falcon Northwest. When I placed my order I initially did not get an eXotix paint job, but a few days went by and I decided to get an eXotix paint job!

Also along the way I've changed several parts in my computer, everytime Falcon's sales representatives would ask what I use my PC for, explain if I would gain performance from this part or not (even if the part I wanted would have made them a lot more money).

Now they are expecting as am I that my system be ready sometime next week, which is way ahead of schedule for a PC with a eXotix paint job (which is supposed to add 1-2 weeks).

Ok I have now had my Mach V for about 3 weeks, and let me tell you it is an amazing machine! Out of the box it worked flawlessly, no errors or anything. I would load up whatever I wanted and it would play it just fine (this machine is very fast).

As for the looks on the machine, it looks awesome, the paintjob is great, the lighted side window looks awesome with 1 blue and 1 green cold cathode light, and lastly the wiring on the inside is very nicely done...this machine must have perfect air flow!

Once again I will say this has been an awesome experience, and its well worth the price I paid! I wouldn't hesitate recommending Falcon over any of the other "boutique" computer companies!

I have been using a Falcon Fragbox for last 6 months. Although this is a gaming computer, I bought it for its small size to keep in my small radiology office. The computer was used exclusively for work, specifically for radiology diagnosis using 3D reconstruction, and dictating radiology report using Dragon Naturally speaking. Overall, this is an excellent system for the price. No more Dell for me after getting two lemons in Dell 690 worstations with twin Xeon processors (extremely slow, worse than a sloth). Only issue with this Fragbox is the noise from the fan. It is constantly humming, but not so loud to affect my dictation.
Jacob Thornley was my sales rep, and he was very helpful. He kept me updated about the progress of the build (somewhat long).
The goodies that came with the machine are nice, although I do not care. I needed a workhorse in a small form factor, and that is what I got.

I ordered a fragbook from Falcon almost two years ago, with an extended 2 year warranty and it was running fine until the port for the AC power jack cracked. I've emailed and called their "Live Support" repeatedly to only have my questions and concerns met with silence. So much for a 5 Star company...

I finally stopped ordering from "the others" to save a few hundred bucks and got my latest top-of-the-line rig from Falcon. I am a IS professional with responsibilty for millions of dollars of infrastructure every year. NOTHING comes close to the Mach 5 I received from Falcon. No crap-ware, no blue screens, no instabiliby... just massive speed and cool-running bliss. The box came reasonably over-clocked and runs like a charm (4Ghz on top of stock 3.33). I OC'd it to the heavens and it didn't run into instability until I reached some truely crazy numbers (4.8Ghz). Unbelievable build quality. They even accomodated my brand request on hard-to-find video cards.

After receipt, I had 3 VERY technical questions and submitted them to Falcon tech support. 2 of 3 were answered on the spot, the 3rd (regarding SSD TRIM updates) had to wait until the support person could reseach the answer... and guess what... HE CALLED BACK WITH THE ANSWER the next day. This is, in my experience, the best you can get.

DO NOT HESITATE to pay the extra couple of bucks to get the best... and don't try to build it yourself if you think you can match Falcon (only about 5% of enthusiansts can (IMHO)).

EVGA X58
I7 975 Extreme
4Mhz OC
Water cooled CPU
12GB DDR3 PC3-10600 Crucial RAM
2x ATI R5970 2GB DDR5 X11 XFX running crossfire
2 Corsair Solid-state drives (128 and 256)
2 WD 1GB spinnning drives
Creative X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
2 LG CD/DVR
Win 7 - 64-bit

Falcon Northwest is the premier maker of gaming pcs and their venerable reputation is well deserved indeed...
I was forced to abandon Alienware after the "ACME" of pc makers (DELL) bought them out earlier this year. Chewing poodle crap is more fun than dealing with this vendor so I took my business to the original gaming pc company and received the fastest machine that these weary old eyes have ever seen.
I learned what "boutique" treatment was all about as I received five star handling from A to Z. Getting decent customer support from most vendors is like finding a topless bar in Tehran but the folks at FNW are not only folksy and nice but AVAILABLE!
I used to think that my predator case was nifty and asthetically pleasing but now it looks like a red headed stepchild next to my Falcon. Guess I didn't know cases from shinola before now...
But what matters the most to me is that I got a raging, crack addled SCREAMER that is tearing through my games like a pickpocket at the SuperBowl. Oblivion brings most systems to their knees but my baby says, "PLEASE FOOL" and runs it like a saturday morning cartoon.
Lastly, it has become fashionable in the gaming community to buy a certain Canadian rig that is all show and no boat, if you know what I mean. FNW gives Americans an option to keep it real as luxury pcs are made here too... Just call the good folks in Oregon and see that some of the finer things in life still read, MADE IN THE USA!!! Way to go, Kelt!!! Eat your heart out Rahul...
I would also like to add that my rig arrived over eleven days early and despite the fact that UPS had obviously abused her, she ran like a charm straight out of the box... I have logged over ninety hours in Oblivion in just three weeks (that comes out to over thirteen per cent of my life) and my Falcon just begs for more! Murphy's Law in reverse?

I ordered the Talon recently and simply put it's an out standing machine. Very well built and all the components are exactly as ordered. Before I decided to go with Falcon I spent a lot of time searching resellerratings, The BBB and other reviews. Falcon Northwest really stood out from the rest especially when I realized they have been in business 10-15 years longer than the others I considered. Falcon is one of the few companies offering a killer system under $2500. The wiring is perfection. I was a little concerned about freight since I live all the way across the country and the unit would take five days by standard freight. However it was well boxed in a suspended air filled plastic. It's a bit hard to describe but the computer is packed very well. After mine arrived the extended warranty prices were dropped and I added that with out any problem. FNW has been fast to respond to all my email and phone questions.
I do have one minor niggle. No coffee cup or coffee was included. LOL

After buying our previous systems from IBM and Dell and having what seemed like some overheating/thermal issues with the Dell system in an enclosed desk I decided to get a gaming-type system to see if it would solve the heat problems.

On the first of May I ordered the so-called Mach 5 system in more or less a mid-level configuration and it still cost $3,518 delivered. Pricey systems, for sure. The system was shipped on May 25th.

The system was well packaged and didn't have any problems out of the box. The system is seriously fast and it can handle the few games that I play (Diablo II and Morrowind) with ease. I didn't opt for any of the fancy paint jobs but the Coolermaster Wave all-aluminum case is quite a nice contrast vis-a-vis the gray and black plastic of the former Dell.

Support was needed once and was a mixed bag. My video card includes a TV tuner and I sent an e-mail asking if Falcon could help me with the problem I was having with losing the video output to the monitor after about 20 minutes of tuner use. Three days later, still with no response from Falcon-NW, I gave them a call and a real person picked up the phone after a ring or two. He suggested getting the lastest set of drivers from the ATI site for my video card and upgrading my Direct X to the lastest version. I asked him if this seemed like a software problem to him and implied that it seemed like a hardware issue to me. He said it was probably hardware but you never know and he said that he had seen other similar problems solved with drivers. So I did download the drivers and Direct X and they solved the loss of signal to the monitor problem but created a new problem of not being able to control the volume setting withing the ATI application software...that I can and have lived with. So kudos for the support solution but Falcon, however, they shouldn't push the e-mail support unless they are going to answer the things in a timely manner.

All in all a very good experience so far with Falcon Northwest.

Considered several other vendors like Dell.com, Vodoopc.com, Velocitymicro.com, custom built computers from local stores, buympc.com, Abs out of california, etc.. Last two custom built computers i had built by a computer consultant turned out to have major problems like windows xp errors 'bad pool caller' & 'irq not less or equal'; these were intermittent errors where they happened about every 30 days or so at the time. Diagnosing the errors couldn't really be done as they weren't consistent.

Between Dell.com and Buympc.com i like the latter as I was actually able to test the support line with some questions to see how good support was. Dell on the otherhad refused to do that unless i already owned a computer. My bro owns two dell dimension models that're about 1.5 years old and told me he got hard to understand support out of India. Vodoopc.com was based out of canada and i didn't wanna deal with shipping in back through customs under warranty. I wanted an american based company with inhouse support; not outsourced support. Well i was actually able to get a hold of falcon northwest technical support a few times before making my decision. i also, considered alienware.com as well but had read quite a few negative comments about support being based outside the united states. in pricing the computers between dell, falcon, and alienware, i found them to be all in the same price range.

speaking of local stores custom building gaming machines for me. i didn't seem to find one that i felt comfortable that had had experience like falcon did with building gaming rigs. my last two systems were Amd Opteron 240series cpu with 1.4ghz, 512megs ram, 80gig ata, radeon 9800pro, asus sk8n mainboard; intel 865perll, 2.8c cpu, 512megs ram, 9600pro, 80gig ata, antec sonata case. i feel it was the consultant that built them for me as to why i had problems. well enough of that after i sold the used computers i had custom built i thought, i'm getting a falcon. i was stupid in the first place when i bought the Opteron system and plunked 1,300.00 plus into it and over 1,000.00 in my last 2.8c system; i could've well afforded falcon earlier.

now onto my system. it took about one month to receive the Mach 5 system i ordered on 5/18/04 and i received it on 6/13/04. been running it since i got it almost 24/7 without any serious problems. sure i couldve built a comparable system by a local shop for half the price; however i feel falcon build quality is much better especially for gaming systems.

i've had a chance to use falcon support mucho times since owning it and i give it a 10 out of 10. from simple to very complex problems they are excellent. once in a great while a person will get right through to tech support ; however, mostly you leave a message and they call you back.

i'm a hardcore gamer, and business user to i use the computer a lot and require stability and reliability; which i've gotten from falcon.

my system has the asus p4c800-e deluxe mainboard, radeon 9600xt, 512megs ram, seagate sata 80gig, no modem as i have broadband, zalman silent p4 cooler, xp pro, sony 16x dvdrom, plextor cdrw, audigy 2 zs, coolermaster atc-110 extended atx case, enermax 450 watt power supply, p4 3.0c cpu, coolermaster front usb/1394 adapter, sound dampening kit. only upgrade left that i have to do is the Bfg 6800gt video card from falcon and some ram. i had to pay upfront to extend the overnight warranty from one year to three years. this was the tradeoff i made ; get the extended overnight warranty upfront or get better video card, etc..

falcon does have the Talon line of computers that i've been looking at as well; but i'm mostly an Intel person. although i would trust falcon to build good amd systems.

i paid the premium price for falcon, but i got exactly what i paid for. excellent support that's not outsourced, full oem version of windows xp, no bloatware installed, custom dvd-r restore disc with a licensed version of norton ghost 2003 which has saved me multiple times due to various software problems that i did on my own. falcon is simply the best custom prebuilt system in my opinion.

my thoughts on owning a computer system are get a decent one and do small upgrades here and there and get the most years useage you can out of it.

From the day I ordered to the day I recieved I knew I was in for something special. My Mach V arrived in the mail, and I've had a grin ever since. No problems with FNW, computer is flawless. Will buy from them again.

Jacob Thornley took me through the buy process and made sure I had all the components I wanted and needed. Made justifying the price tag easier to do.

The quality is astounding... great wiring job, lots of attention to detail. All my games runs great at high resolutions.

Like I said, looking forward to upgrading in the future through them.

I bought a computer from them a few years ago and have been extremely impressed with them, especially their support.

Over the years I've only had 1 problem which was a fan on the liquid cooler fail, and they quickly shipped a replacement.

More recently I've been thinking about upgrades to improve my photoshop performance and I contacted their support team. The responses I got were knowledgeable, thoughtful and genuinely useful --- something that is sadly a rare occurrence these days. It was a delight to "chat" (email) with them.

I strongly recommend them.