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The latest Falcon Northwest Tiki (starts at $2,419; $5,327 as tested) packs an Nvidia Titan X graphics card and an octo-core Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processor into a 4-inch-wide package. It’s better looking and more compact than its rivals, and easily plays the latest PC games at 1080p and 4K resolutions, making it our top pick for small-form-factor (SFF) gaming desktops.
Design and Features
The latest Tiki is almost identical to the 2014 model. The all-metal case is made of steel and aluminum, and has a more appealing design than boxier rivals like the Origin Chronos (X99)($1,224.00 at ORIGIN PC)(Opens in a new window) and the Maingear Drift. Our review unit is customized with aqua-green, automotive-quality paint job, but an identically configured model without the paint can be had for $4,903. The chassis measures about 14 by 4 by 13.75 inches (HWD) with its weighted base attached. The base helps keep the system upright, and since the Tiki is only 4 inches wide, it will fit virtually anywhere a gaming console like the Sony PS4($799.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) or the Microsoft Xbox One($200.00 at eBay)(Opens in a new window) can.
The top panel has a headset and microphone jack located next to the Power and reset buttons. You’ll also find a pair of USB 3.0 ports, along with a slot-loading DVD burner. Around back are two antenna connectors for the integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, a set of surround-sound audio ports, a digital audio port, two Ethernet ports, an eSATA port, a PS/2 port for old keyboards or mice, two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and two USB 3.1 ports. The USB 3.1 ports are Type-A instead of the compact Type-C ports you’ll find on the latest laptops. The GeForce GTX Titan X card has a DVI port, an HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts.
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A 400GB boot drive solid-state drive (SSD) is supplemented by a 6TB hard drive with a variable “Intellipower” rotational speed. In comparison, the Origin Chronos (X99) has a larger 1TB SSD boot drive, but half the space in its hard drive. The Tiki’s network-attached-storage-(NAS)-class hard drive is designed to last longer while being more active than typical desktop drives, which is a good thing if you’re a digital pack rat. Like most gaming desktops built by boutique PC manufacturers, the system is free of extraneous programs and bloatware.
Internal expandability is limited to a single 2.5-inch drive bay. The Titan X graphics card fills the only PCIe slot on the motherboard, and both DIMM slots are taken up by the system’s 16GB of memory. You can remove the existing memory for future upgrades up to 64GB, which is a much better proposition than the <Origin Chronos (Titan Z)($1,224.00 at ORIGIN PC)(Opens in a new window), our previous Editors’ Choice, which was limited to 16GB. The Tiki comes with a three-year warranty on parts and labor, with one year of overnight shipping included for returns. That’s triple the length of the parts warranty for the Origin Chronos (X99), though that system includes a lifetime warranty for labor. 
Performance
The Tiki is equipped with an octo-core Intel Core i7-5960X processor, overclocked to 4.6GHz from its 3GHz base clock speed, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X graphics card. Thanks to these components, the system was an excellent performer on the 3D and multimedia benchmark tests. It returned butter-smooth frame rates on the Heaven (105 frames per second) and Valley (112fps) game tests, both at Ultra-quality settings and 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. When we pumped the resolution up to 2,560 by 1,600 (the resolution of our 30-inch LCD), the system still ran at a smooth rate in the 50fps-to-60fps range.
See How We Test Desktops3DMark Cloud Gate (44,953 points) and 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme (8,200 points) test results were excellent. Other desktops with Nvidia Titan X graphics we’ve tested, like the Cyberpower Trinity Xtreme, the Maingear Drift, and the Origin Chronos (X99), scored between 8,000 and 9,000 points on the Fire Strike Extreme test, and the Tiki was second only to the Origin Chronos (X99) (47,574) on the Cloud Gate test.
At 33 seconds on Handbrake, the Tiki was a single second behind the Chronos. The system scored 1,630 points on the CineBench R15 test (33 points lower than the Chronos), and eked out a slight win (2 minutes 25 seconds) over the Chronos (2:33) on the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test. The Tiki’s score of 3,593 points on PCMark 8 Work Conventional is good for the category, and certainly fast enough for everyday tasks.
Conclusion
The Falcon Northwest Tiki can compete, delivering smooth gameplay at 1080p and higher resolutions, with all the eye candy turned on. Its well-built compact design takes up about as much space as a gaming console, but it’s so much more powerful. If you’re a hardcore gamer with deep pockets, but don’t want a big, honking gaming PC, the Tiki should be your first choice.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/falcon-northwest-tiki-2015