I know most of you are probably console gamers but maybe some of you still game on a PC like me. I used to be a console gamer only then about four years ago I slowly switched to PC gaming and I’m hooked. I started out playing on a heavy duty laptop then got myself an HP computer from Best Buy. After upgrading it as far as I could go, I decided to take the step of buying a gaming computer. It’s a big step and it’s not cheap. I tried to do it over a year ago and ordered an Alienware which turned out to be a fiasco. It never worked. You can read about it on my blog site. This time I I wanted to go a different direction. I googled top gaming computers and found a list. The top three were Dell (heard the service sucks so I’ll pass), Alienware (not doing that again) and Falcon Northwest (hmm, let’s take a look).
I browsed the Falcon Northwest website and I liked what I saw. You can build a custom PC or laptop and you can have it custom painted. Not just any paint but paint like you would find on a car. That’s not cheap either, about $800 and higher but if you really want it customized, what a way to do it. They have examples of the custom painted computers on their site and they are sweet. They give you a personalized notebook with your own specs and disks, each computer is built uniquely for each customer. You even get your own copy of the Windows 7 disk, can’t get that from a Best Buy computer.
Half Life 2 custom paint job
I decided to give them a try. I configured my computer and put all the best components on it. I ordered the MACH V. I passed on the custom paint job but I splurged on the rest. Here are the specs.
- ASUS M4A79T Deluxe Motherboard
- AMD Phenom IIx4 965 3.4 GHZ
- Asetek CPU Water cooler
- 1000 watt power supply
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
- 8 GB of RAM
- XFI Titanium sound card
- 1.5 TB hard drive with a Blue Ray player and media reader
- Windows 7 Ultimate
I took a deep breath and pressed “order”. Within the hour of ordering a I got a thank you email and another soon after with my order confirmation. Very friendly and fast response plus they were curious why I ordered an AMD processor, said they don’t sell that many on a MACH V. Fast forward to two weeks later, I get another email saying my computer has shipped. It gets here on a Monday in 2 boxes. One contains the computer and the other the goodies that go along with it. I unpacked the computer and sat there staring at it. Wow, it’s freakin’ huge!! I now call it the BEAST! I literally was intimidated by it for two days before I finally hooked it up.
Meet the Beast
I spent those two days looking through the notebook they gave me. Not just a plain notebook but a thick, high quality one that zippers closed. Along with my book, I got a coffee cup, some high quality coffee, a mousepad and recovery disks as well as disks for every program on the computer. Nice thing is there isn’t many programs preloaded, they don’t put all that crap on there that you get in a retail store.
Goodies!
The notebook also came with extra cables and the power cord.
More goodies!
I finally hooked the computer up to test it out. I use a dual screen, one is my regular 24″ monitor and the other is my 42″ TV that hangs on the wall overhead. I don’t always dual screen but it’s an option. I power it up and sat there amazed. For as large as the beast is, it’s so quiet and unintrusive. It wouldn’t fit inside the desk made for computers so it sits outside and purrs. The video quality is beautiful, everything loaded like it should and runs so smooth. It passed the first test, it works! (something the Alienware didn’t)
To show you the size of this thing, I put the Sims game next to it and my other gaming computer is the black one on the right. It looks very puny. The next test, I loaded up the Sims3 and played for a week so I could do my game review. It was so awesome, everything ran so smooth and no issues. I’ve recently been playing Left4Dead2 and every game defaults to my computer to host as a server. All doubts of splurging on a computer are gone and I’m in love with it.
So the Beast now sits by my desk and I’m now writing about it while using it. Now I know you can buy or build your own gaming computer. You can buy a pretty decent one at Best Buy and it will play almost everything and cost 1/3 of what I paid but I have no regrets now about my purchase. Let me tell you why you should consider using Falcon Northwest for your next gaming system.
- Customer Service – real people who take the time to ask questions and answer them. A company who is not so large that they forget about the consumer.
- Quality – a quality built product custom made for each order. Tested at least 3 times by 3 different techs. They included a checklist of tests they did and each tech signed off on the system. They even played 3 different games as a test including Trine and Wolfenstein.
- A three year warranty. It didn’t cost extra, it was included. It’s not someone from another country but someone from their own company.
- After sale satisfaction – They want to hear feedback about how they did and how I like the product. I like it so much I’m writing about it on this blog. They didn’t ask me to do it, I want to do it.
To sum this up, you get what you pay for. I know that not everyone can afford a high end computer and that’s why they offer options. You can still get a pretty sweet gaming machine that’s easily upgradable and affordable. They also sell fragboxes and laptops. Take a look, they deserve some recognition. Many thanks to Falcon Northwest for building me a sweet gaming machine that will last many years to come. I am an extremely satisfied customer!!
That's one heck of a huge computer…How'd you manage to lift such a thing? Forklift?
What would you have picked if you decided to get it painted?
lol.. not quite a forklift. It's lighter than it looks, much lighter than the Alienware, that thing was heavy. I would have picked either a purple speckled paint or maybe a graphic with my spore creature, The Mallen on it. If I got a custom paint then I'd use that case for any future computers. Wouldn't that be cool though? To have a computer that matched your car? (my car is not speckled purple though)
That Half Life 2 custom paint is pretty fucking awesome
That case was featured in PC Gamer as a prize in their big Half-Life 2 giveaway. You should check out all the custom photos on the website, there are some cool airbrush art designs.
WOW! Very cool Merrie! I’ll definitely head over there to check them out. I always thought that Alienware was the go-to people for gaming rigs? Glad you set me straight. I have an HP machine for posting and recording the podcast, but if I ever get back into PC gaming I’ll look into Falcon Northwest.
I use to think Alienware was the one too but after receiving a computer that didn't work, it was obvious that no one really tested it or checked it. A brand new computer out of the box should work. I can't find one flaw in the Falcon Northwest computer yet.
I had an alienware pc about 4-5 years it worked perfect but got too old for my gaming. But I will say since dell took them over I would not touch them with a 10 foot pole so to speak. I ordered a falcon northwest a couple weeks ago waiting on the shipping email…time will tell if this is a good buy. But like the op this company Falcon Northwest has a very good rep.
Nice rig. Glad to see someone else has not fallen into the Allienware trap that so many do. The HL2 Artwork is superb.
Even though I'm a Dell employee, I've always had respect for FNW.
My gaming rigs consist of a homebuilt, a Dell XPS 730X, and an Alienware M15x and M17x. Never had one of these FNW beasts to play with though :-/
I'm sorry you were soured by a bad Alienware experience. While out of box failures shouldn't happen very often, they do on occassion, and it's a shame it happened to you.
If there's anything I can pass along to folks here at Dell, let me know.
As a side note… pretty cool we came up in 2 of the 3 top spots according to Google for PC gaming. Being next to a boutique shop like FNW in their search is pretty cool.
John B
Dell Gaming Guy
Thanks for your comments John the Dell Gaming Guy.
I've not owned a Dell but I noticed that EA Games had a ton of XPS desktops. The service reputation stopped me from trying it. The Alienware was mostly disappointing considering I sent it back to be fixed within a week of receiving it, (after they had me open it up and take out and put back memory and other parts which I shouldn't have had to do). Had it come back to me in working order I think I would have been fine, I know that things happen but when it came back from being serviced as "problem fixed" and didn't start, I just gave up and sent it back for a refund. I'm sure there are many people who have great experiences but it just wasn't so for me.
Did I miss it or did you not say the cost of your new rig?
I didn't say… but since you asked… it was $3500 total with shipping.
*HERK*
[...] Merrie just got a new kick ass gaming rig, I’m sitting here with my MacBook Pro wishing I had a Windows machine to use. I keep telling [...]
For that system, the price isn't bad. I keep doing the window shopping on a few of those sites. Last night I did it with an Alienware desktop. I had the price at over 9K lol. Never would buy it but fun to do. I think on Falcon's site I configured a system for over 10k lol.
I had exactly the same experience, both with Alienware (sent it back) and Falcon Northwest. The Mach V I have runs without a hitch, is fast, is quiet, and the support on upgrades has been wonderful. Real people…
Love the tower design. It's sleek!
Sweet system…i used to build my own rigs got sick of troubleshooting so i bought my gaming computer from ACS Gaming computers..pretty sic line up and good prices, i like falcon's website tho…
Holy Cow that surely is a beast of a system but as long as it has the power, I'm lovin it… you never mentioned why you chose the AMD processor… please enlighten me?
P.S. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this blog post.
A few months later and I'm still very happy with this computer. I had a couple of freezing issues but that was due to Windows 7 and an incomparable program, not the hardware. I choose an AMD mostly because that's what I've used on my previous computers and it seems to handle gaming just fine, very powerful. I have no complaints so it's just what I'm used to using.
I haven't heard of Falcon Northwest yet but that machine does look like a total beast. I just wrote a review on the Asus N61JQ-X1. This machine is actually one of the top laptops on Newegg right now. It has a 16″ LCD (1366×768 resolution), weighs 6.5 pounds, and pack hardware that delivers a serious punch! Gamers love the ultra fast quad core CPU (Intel Core i7 720QM at 1.6GHz) and video card (ATI Mobility Radeon 5730). One reviewer said that the N61JQ-X easily runs today’s top end games “like butter.”
Waaaaaay coooool! I wish I could afford it though. So pricey! But it really really rocks.
An update, last week my computer died. I called the Falcon Northwest guys and they talked me through diagnostics, which indicated a bad power supply. They sent me a new one next day air, I changed it out and now it works great. Had I not been able to do that myself, they would have allowed me to ship it back to them. Still happy!!
Did the power supply go bad because of the amount of power this beast is pushing? That is one heck of a computer. Glad you're still happy with the product.