The overclocked eight-core chip made quick work of rendering troops and cities.This is how you can accidentally kill AMD’s best CPU for gaming While Beyond Earth isn’t the most graphically demanding game, lots of units on screen can stress many processors. It might not look that impressive when you compare it to the systems below, until you remember that it’s up against the fastest gaming machines we’ve tested, like the Origin Omega and AVADirect X99, both of which had multiple graphics cards.įrom the overclocked CPU to the 980 Ti, the Falcon Northwest Tiki proves that everything’s faster in the northwest. It didn’t disappoint there, and once again played outside its weight class, beating every other single-card system in Futuremark’s 3DMark test. Of course, the Tiki is a gaming PC, so it has to be able to impress graphically. It beat the Intel 750 Series SSD by a substantial margin, and had over three times the average performance of a standard SATA SSD. With a read speed of 1616 megabytes per second, and a write speed of 1553 megabytes per second, it’s by far the fastest drive we’ve tested. Instead, our review unit makes use of a 512GB M.2 form factor drive, the performance of which beats out even a RAID array. It’s an available option with 1TB SSDs, but it’s going to cost you around $800. While a lot of Falcon NW systems do, it’s absent from our Tiki review unit. If you want top-end performance from your SSD, you’d usually use a RAID array. The Tiki beats out quad-core chips in similarly sized systems like the Omega and Micro Z40 Raptor handily, and falls closer to full-size systems with eight cores like the Falcon Northwest Mach V and AVADirect X99 in terms of performance. Its overclocked CPU flexed its muscles in our GeekBench performance test, and is easily in the fastest three chips we’ve tested to date. High end parts means high end performance, and the Tiki is no exception. The card isn’t overclocked out of the box, but the system already has EVGA’s Precision software installed if you want to try your hand at it. The graphics card was an Nvidia GTX 980 Ti with 6GB of RAM. There’s also a full 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 6TB mechanical data storage drive. The processor was an eight core Intel i7-5960X, which has a base clock of 3.4GHz out of the box, but Falcon Northwest overclocked it to a blazing fast 4.3GHz. Our was tricked out with some of the higher end offerings in the Tiki line. ![]() Photo finish for fastest PCĮvery Falcon Northwest PC is custom made to order. It’s more intuitive than some larger systems, like the Origin Omega. Its layout is simple to understand, and most components are easy to locate. Getting to the graphics card would take a lot of work, but is possible if absolutely necessary.Ī system this small will never be as easy to upgrade as a full tower desktop, but the Tiki does a much better job of accommodating future growth. With a little work, you can access your SSD and HDD, and the ports on the side of the PSU. There’s easy access to your CPU, radiator, and RAM without moving other parts. A modular power supply is a must in a case like this – there’s no room for extra cables to just hang out. Pop off the side panel on the Tiki and you’ll be pleased to find that almost all the internal components are easily accessible. The Tiki has two ports on the back for attaching an included Wi-Fi antenna, which you’ll need, because reception is spotty at best without it. You have full access to the GPU’s ports, which in the case of the 980 Ti means three DisplayPort, one HDMI, and a DVI plug. It also sports a PS/2 port for mouse or keyboard, an eSATA port for external drives, two gigabit Ethernet ports, five 3.5mm audio connections, and an S/PDIF for digital audio out. The motherboard’s rear panel is equipped with two USB 2.0, four USB 3.0, and two USB 3.1 ports for high speed read and write operations. But can a computer this small really compete with larger desktops?Įverything is packed in a case that’s not much bigger than a Xbox One. Falcon Northwest is trying to bundle an enthusiast computing experience into a case that looks like home theater equipment. The specifications make it clear this isn’t your average small form-factor PC. ![]() All of which was packed into a case not much larger than an Xbox One. For storage, the Tiki included a 512GB m.2 SSD alongside a 6TB mechanical data drive. That was backed up by 16GB of RAM and a GTX 980 Ti video card. Our review unit was equipped with an octa-core Intel Core i7-5960X, which had been overclocked to a speedy 4.3GHz. ![]() Yet it uses every inch to its fullest and supports a wide range of configurations. The Tiki is the company’s shrunken-down gaming computer, just four inches wide and 13 inches tall. The small boutique, which has been around since the early 90s, has built a reputation for carefully crafted, heavily customized PCs. If you haven’t heard of Falcon Northwest, you’ve been missing out.
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