Falcon Northwest is a private company headquartered in

Medford, Oregon Medford is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Oregon, in the United States. As of the 2020 United States Census on April 1, 2020, the city had a total population of 85,824 and a metropolitan area population of 223,259, making the Me ...

. It designs, assembles, and markets high-end custom computers. The company was founded in 1992 and was one of the first to specialize in PCs built specifically for gaming.

History

Falcon Northwest was founded in April 1992 by gamer hobbyist and former pilot Kelt Reeves. Falcon Northwest released the first pre-built computer model intended specifically for gaming, the Mach V, in 1993, starting the "

gaming PC A gaming computer or gaming PC is a personal computer specifically designed for playing video games at very high graphic and gameplay configurations. Gaming PCs typically differ from mainstream personal computers by using high- performance vid ...

" category of computer products. The company was founded in Florida, but later moved to

Coos Bay, Oregon Coos Bay ( Coos language: Atsixiis) is a city located in Coos County, Oregon, United States, where the Coos River enters Coos Bay on the Pacific Ocean. The city borders the city of North Bend, and together they are often referred to as one en ...

, then

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 cen ...

, and finally

. In the late 1990s, Falcon grew to $3 million in annual revenues and opened a new manufacturing facility in Oregon. Later on, the company collaborated with

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

on early liquid cooling components. Intel worked with Falcon Northwest in secret, in order to avoid the appearance of endorsing

overclocking In computing, overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. Commonly, operating voltage is also increased to maintain a component's operational stability at accelerated spe ...

by selling liquid cooling products under its own brand.

Products

Falcon Northwest sells high-end computers that are optimized for gaming, scientific, or military applications. As of 2013, about half of its sales were from gamers. Falcon's computers are consistently highly-ranked in benchmark tests, but cost $1,500 to over $10,000 depending on the user's configuration. Many Falcon PCs are sold with custom paint jobs, high-end graphics cards, and special low-latency components. Though it was originally known for

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

desktops like the Mach V, and also sells laptops, as of 2017 Falcon is best-known for its smaller, portable mini-PCs. Their products include: *Mach V - Desktop tower PC *Talon - Desktop tower PC *FragBox - Small Form Factor (SFF) PC *Tiki - Micro-tower PC *TLX - Thin & light class laptop PC *DRX - Desktop replacement class laptop PC

Reception

In benchmark tests by ''

Maximum PC ''Maximum PC'', formerly known as ''boot'', is an American magazine and website published by Future US. It focuses on cutting-edge PC hardware, with an emphasis on product reviews, step-by-step tutorials, and in-depth technical briefs. Componen ...

'' in 2018, Falcon Northwest's Tiki mini-PC performed better than a tower computer with a high-end graphics card, but was also the most expensive computer the reviewers had ever used. Similarly, Falcon's FragBox mini-PC was praised by

Tom's Guide ''Tom's Hardware'' is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The si ...

in 2017 for its appearance and power, but the configuration cost $5,000. Tom's Guide said it was "one of the best options out there" for consumers that have the budget for a high-end portable gaming computer. ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

'' said in 2018 that the Talon tower gaming PC from Falcon Northwest set records in benchmark performance tests and has high-quality components but was too expensive for most consumers. The same publication gave Falcon's Mach V desktop gaming computer a 5 out of 5. A 2015 review in PCWorld, praised the Mach V's performance but noted the high price that comes with buying a computer running three graphics cards.

References

External links

Official website
1992 establishments in Oregon American companies established in 1992 Companies based in Medford, Oregon Computer companies of the United States Home computer hardware companies Privately held companies based in Oregon Video game hardware Computer enclosure companies {{commons