"First and foremost, do not buy a computer from Falcon Northwest; if you did, save the box and original wrapping somewhere secure since you will need to mail the system back for repair soon, and they will want you to return it in its original packaging. Take pictures of all packaging stages and make sure you can confirm that you shipped the equipment in excellent shape if it is damaged in their facilities. If you don't do so, they'll try to come up with excuses for not honoring the three-year warranty."

"A friend & I purchased 2 identical high-end Talon computers from Falcon Northwest and we could not be happier. (BTW, I waited until we'd used our systems for several weeks before writing this review. Our systems have continued to work flawlessly during that time.)

Both systems are beautifully constructed & cable-routed, and the standard tinted glass side panels display the significant but not overdone internal RGB nicely. The exclusive custom-designed Talon case, which also includes an RGB-illuminated falcon logo on the front - and which they only sell as part of a complete computer, no matter how much DIYers may ask them to make the case available separately - is virtually all metal, and designed to provide good airflow for cooling of everything but the CPU. (The CPU is handled by a Falcon Northwest--branded Asetek AIO cooler that's included standard.) In keeping with the elegant ruggedness of the overall design, the GPU is supported by a sturdy end bracket which holds it in place so securely that there's no need for those ubiquitous expandable foam bags to be used internally during shipment. (Though I imagine the well-executed double-boxed shipment packaging gets a bit of the credit there, too.)

F-NW's online configurator is the cleanest, most informative, and most convenient one I've used. (And I checked out a LOT of places online while I was spec'ing out our systems.) It doesn't offer low-end "cheapo" component options but it does offer a good range of selections in most categories. (A few items are "locked into" the design once certain other choices are made. For example, when I decided we'd go with Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero was the only motherboard offered. Fortunately, it was so well-reviewed by the online tech experts -- "texperts?" (hmm, maybe not) - that I wouldn't have wanted another one, anyway.)

The way I came to think of it is that F-NW offers a "curated" set of selections for your components, so you don't have to worry that you're going to make any serious blunders in your choices. And I guess this lets THEM not have to worry about putting together a system that's not going to work together well enough to pass the multiple days of testing they put it through after assembly. (I should mention that you get the filled-out-by-hand testing checklists as part of the paperwork included with your system.)

I'm basically a "show me the choices I have then let me go off & research them on my own" kind of shopper, so I didn't need to consult with their sales department during the configuration phase. So I can't speak to how helpful they are in that regard. But I CAN say that when I emailed a question about my order that I had after placing it, they got back to me with the information I requested within a day. So my guess is that they'd be helpful with any pre-order configuration-related questions, as well.

Our systems shipped 6 days earlier than the estimated 28-day build time, and of course I received a notification/confirmation email on that day. So they do a good job of keeping in touch.

If you've read this far, you've probably gotten the impression that Falcon Northwest systems are not cheap in any sense of the word. And you'd be right. But they don't feel overpriced for what you get. (And yes, I fully acknowledge that I'm fortunate enough to be able to pay more for a system than many folks are. AND that I've become a bit of a Falcon Northwest fanboy by this point. But I think it's not without good reason.)

View it this way: There's a considerable baseline cost you're going to pay for even the most budget-conscious system you'll get from these guys. Think of that as including the cost associated with stuff like the beautiful case and the really wonderful, high-quality workmanship. But as you compare the additional cost when you select higher-tier components over lower-tier, you'll see that the cost increase is very much in line with the increase in MSRP for the components. So the costs do make sense, IF you can manage the baseline cost. I hope you can.

Take care. :)"

"Just love my experience with FNS! Brett stay with me until my problem was resolved. I will always own a Falcon."

"1. Ordered computer: stated 17 days to build.
2. While I was waiting on the build I had questions about the components used in the build.
3. Customer service became defensive and combative and never really answered my questions.
4. Its been 21 days and they still have yet to complete the build.
5. It seems a lot like retaliation for questioning build components.
6. Horrible customer service.

While can certainly appreciate being swamped, workload was not communicated to me anytime during the wait period. In fact, the ship date was stated twice in the email communication. Furthermore, I clearly communicated a business was reliant on the build and could not afford delays. Again, there was no communication from Falcon NW regarding a delay at any point of the dialog or on the status of the build. Help me understand how this is customer centered service and not to be construed as retaliatory? In the end, I will be losing money and do not have the option to wait for another company to build a computer.

Glossy sock puppet reviews from so-called expert sites speak to the effort made to produce a perfect product – for the review, but do not speak to the actual experience. The seasoned company has lost its way and only seems to cater to critics – not the average customer. Will I receive this same dismal service and support if there’s a problem? It certainly seems likely.

"

"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
"

"YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!...
FNW makes badass gaming systems with nothing but pro built quality in side and out and they do it right!

HOW THE HELL DO THEY DO IT?...
I have been gaming online for years and I have bought many gaming systems in that time...
FNW is with out a doubt the most serious **** systems you can buy!

YOUR A SERIOUS GAMER AND WHEN IT COMES TO SUPPORT FNW WILL GET YOU BACK INTO YOUR GAME FAST!...
When it comes to building your system and its pro 7 days a week one on one technical support via it's friendly live human system support that actually knows what they are saying and doing is completely refreshing and is nothing but the best hands down over any other system builder out there today!

PROFESSIONAL FROM DAY ONE!...
My father "Marty" bought many gaming systems from FNW over many happy years with nothing but praise and admiration for this company and its staff and he was in his 80's when he bought his last system!

THANKS ANDREW AND BRETT!...
FNW will go above and beyond to make sure you are completely cared for and satisfied in every aspect in the life of your system!

YOUR NOT JUST GETTING A PRO SYSTEM YOUR GETTING A TEAM!...
Falcon Northwest in my opinion is nothing but the best of the best you can own!"

"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 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."

"When I first received my computer from them, it had immediate memory problems and kept shutting down. They replaced the memory since this is under warranty.

A little while after that, my headphones wouldn't connect through the main headphone jack because it came loose. They pretty much said, "not under warranty, sorry to hear you are experiencing this."

A few months after that my computer began shutting down once again. This time it's because of a CPU over temperature error.

I've had this computer for only a little over a year... I wish I hadn't wasted $5k on it. It has already had so many technical problems. I have zero confidence this machine will be working in 5 years.

I would especially not recommend buying a computer from NW Falcon if you do not know much about working with computer parts or have a technical background. The computers frequently need maintenance and have problems with the parts inside."

"Before purchasing from Falcon NW I was my own system builder since the early 90's. When my time started to become more valuable to me than me building my own system I started looking for a company to build me a system. The first company I went with was because it was the cheapest company I could find that seemed to have a good reputation. Needless to say that "cheap" computer was the worst experience I ever had and it is a good thing I am not reviewing them, just stay away from cyberpowerpc they are the worst builders out there. Since I had to replace the crap system I was now stuck with I went with Falcon NW. I have a Mach V that I purchased in 2007 that is still running and looking as good as it was new. I've made a few upgrades here and there and even gotten advice from Falcon NW's tech guys on my upgrades. The thing I like about them is how neat and complete the system was put together right out of the box. They even had glued cables to components so they would not come unplugged during shipping. They had a notebook professionally done which listed all my components and how they were configured including overclocking information and testing numbers. All of the components in their computers are 100% original manufacturer parts. They never use OEM components, you even get all the boxes and manuals that your components come with. So far every dime spent on this system is worth it right out of the box. Now for the best part, they have a lifetime of free tech support included with your purchase. It doesn't sound like a lot because you read some of these other reviews and you see that people have had problems with their tech support. Now consider this, when you do get a call back from Falcon NW you are not talking to someone in some third world country that is reading from a manual. You are actually dealing with system builders or people who are very close with the components used in the system building process. I've called them several times over the years just for upgrade information. I'm still using my Mach V case because it is just so good. My latest upgrade advice from Falcon was for advice on a which video card I should go with. At the time of my purchase I did not buy all top of the line parts which kept my price down, it was convenient for me at the time. With that said if your time is worth more to you than saving a few dollars on your next super computer, do not go with any other company but this one. They will not let you down. When I'm in the market to replace my case I will definitely be going with Falcon NW without question."

"One of my clients (with too much money) purchased a Mach V about 6 month ago. About 4 weeks ago it started crashing.
Im an it professional and i understand that things break, even nice expensive once, that's not an issue here at all. The issue is that it has now been just over 4 weeks and the computer still has not been fixed.
I spent the first week on the phone with their tech support trying to troubleshoot the issue, even though it was obvious that the motherboard was at fault after the second day. Falcon would not send the board to me but instead made me ship the machine to them to have the part replaced.
Then it turned out that the Rampage board was not in stock so now they are replacing it with a lower end one. Once again i get the fact that things like this happen but when you pay $12000 for a computer wouldn't you expect to have it fixed a bit faster. Faster then 4 weeks at least.

Side note. They are using high quality parts, best of everything, which drives up the price. If you don't know anything about computers, ask someone who does. Chances are you don't need a machine this powerful. My computer was under $1500, all parts bought from new egg. Im able to run Battlefield 3 with ultra settings in online play, no issues at all. Video card stays nice and cool in mid 60 to low 70. Game play is very smooth. So once again ask someone who knows if you don't.


"

"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..."

"Recently, I have bought a Falcon Mach V, with the Icon 2 case. I bought my Falcon with all of the below components. Although I have only had it for a very short time, I can say this - it's fast. Unbelievably fast.

It can manage a mind boggling 98 frames per second while on Crysis 2, played on 3 23" screens, in high definition and in 3D. All I can say to that is wow.

Not to make anyone jealous, but check out my system's specs below (given to me by Falcon themselves, and each one verified by me).

System Details

Router
DGL-4500 Xtreme N Wireless Router

External Storage
Drobo & 4x 1TB 7200RPM HDD

Chassis
ICON2 - Black Anodized

Chassis Logo Insert
White Light

Chassis Fan Kit
Performance Fan Pack

Power Supply
1200 Watt Modular

Motherboard
Rampage III Extreme

Processor
Core i7 Extreme 990X 3.46GHz

Processor Cooler
Mach V Liquid Cooling

Processor Overclock
Mach V Processor Overclock
(Overclockd processor to 5.48 GHz after turbo boost)

Memory
24GB (6x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 (Also overclocked - new speed of 1880 MHz and bandwidth of 2000 MHZ)

Video Card
GeForce GTX 590 (3072MB)

Video Card 2
GeForce GTX 590 (3072MB)

Monitor
3x 23" 1920x1080 & 3D Vision Kit

Sound Card
X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion

Headset
G35 Surround USB

Speakers
Logitech Z-520 2.1 26 Watt

Networking
Extreme N USB

Keyboard
Logitech G-19

RAID Controller
9260-8i & 8x 256GB SSD

Hard Drive
256GB - SSD - 6GB/S

Hard Drive 2
256GB - SSD - 6GB/s

Hard Drive 3
256GB - SSD - 6GB/s

Hard Drive 4
256GB - SSD - 6GB/s

Mouse
Cyborg R.A.T 7

Optical Drive
10x Blu-Ray Writer

Optical Drive 2
10x BluRay Writer

Media Reader
Internal Media Reader

64-Bit Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate

Office Software
Office Professional 2010

Warranty
3 Year Warranty - Parts and Service

Surge Protector
APC Performance SurgeArrest

USB Flash Drive
USB 3.0 Raid Drive 128GB


Falcon is the best a man can get. Brilliant staff, no fuss. You choose your pc, they contact you, you tell them how you want the next stage to be like. Simple.

Expensive? Yes, but God is it worth it. Quality. Speed. Beauty. The Falcon Mach V is more than worth the money, in every way possible."

"As an owner of a Mach V my advice is to avoid this company like the plague. Of course when working this is a nice rig. However, pray pray pray and pray some more that it does not break down. I don't quite know who is reviewing their service standards, but they are abominable. You will wait days, literally, to even speak with someone about your issue. And heaven forbid, if any hardware needs to be replaced. Because whatever they decide to send you will probably be old technology by the time they get around to sending it to you.

To date, the following hardware items have needed to be replaced:

Hard Drive
Disk Drive
Sound Card
Motherboard

This is is my personal experience. I have never worked with a vendor who felt like they were doing me a favor by selling me their product. Do yourself a favor and avoid Falcon Northwest no matter what.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20029549-1.html#ixzz1DOj1ywE2

2/10/11

An update. After the service management at FNW reviewed my service history, they very graciously have offered to update hard drive, mobo, storage and ram to current configurations. This is a move that separates average companies from great ones. I will be recommending Falcon Northwest to any serious gamers I meet. I am changing my ratings to reflect this."

"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. "