Falcon Northwest Talon review

Falcon Northwest obviously sent me the Talon that was decked out in every way you can think of. And if you’re going to buy one of these computers, there’s no reason not to spend more. Even for the base model of the Talon, working with Falcon Northwest costs more than other companies.

There you have it. My package came with an RTX 4090 and a Core i9-14900KS, which made the total cost $6,217. That’s possibly the most expensive PC you can get. You may not have even known you could spend that much.

Make it

There are no flaws in the Talon. There isn’t much else on the market that compares to it in terms of attention to detail, exact cuts, high-end materials, and wire handling. A cool, smooth metal that is 4 mm thick makes up the black mid-tower case. And I mean that as a compliment: it feels a lot like a Hydro Flask bottle. Not many cases are brave enough to use materials this high-end.

But it’s not just the materials and the way it was put together that amaze me. It’s the care that goes into it. It’s the thought that went into making it useful in everyday life. It’s the little space at the bottom of the glass screen where your finger can rest. The careful wire handling not only keeps things in order but also makes it easy to swap out or add components. You could also look at the big metal piece on the bottom, which lets you sit on carpet more safely. And maybe most importantly, it’s the way the thermals were carefully made.

All of that doesn’t mean that this style is very flashy—at least not these days. The Talon is a bit more traditional than some of the more flashy and interesting styles out there. The front and top panels are flat, and the sides are made of toughened glass. If you want a more full box look, you can also choose metal walls. The Talon looks a lot like a normal mid-tower PC in a world where everything is mesh, glass, and see-through. I guess that makes sense, since this version of the Talon has been out for a long time but I haven’t tested it yet.

Having said that, there are some temperature concerns about this kind of box. Since the front cover and top are firm, you might think that air isn’t getting in. Let’s talk about Falcon Northwest, though. It’s smart about what it does. You might think there would be more mesh, holes, and air intake, but its own samples show that lower temperatures were achieved with tighter and more accurate control of airflow than with a lot of extra air intake. Falcon Northwest has a much more subtle answer. The front panel has strips of mesh and is open on the bottom, but that’s all the outside looks like.

When you talk about the Talon’s design, you have to talk about paint jobs. The only thing that was different about our review unit was the small Digital Trends logo at the bottom of the front panel. Falcon Northwest does, without a doubt, the best high-end custom painting work that no one else can do. A more simple look is more in right now, so I think most people won’t choose one.

By the way, you should know that the Falcon Northwest sign lights up and is located in a visible place on both the front panel and the CPU cooler. That doesn’t happen very often with pre-built computers, but the Falcon Northwest logo isn’t exactly subtle. It has a very old-fashioned feel to it. That’s too bad for a system that can be changed so easily, and I would have liked the more current company name on the fans. There’s no way around the falcon, even if you had this whole system painted to match a certain theme.

Parts inside 

The Talon has a lot of space inside, big enough for an ATX processor and the huge RTX 4090. Some cases can’t fit that ridiculously big graphics card without making it impossible to get to the insides. But the Talon has enough room for it, and you’ll be glad for the extra space even if you choose a smaller GPU. It’s also smaller than choices like the Origin Genesis.

Even though there is more space, the internal thermals are pretty easy. This doesn’t have a thousand fans or RGB lights all over it. You can only set it up with the special AIO 280mm liquid cooler as a cooling choice.

Inside the RTX 4090, there is one fan below the GPU that brings in fresh air. This fan runs through the bottom input of the card. Another fan on the back of the Talon pulls hot air away from the GPU. All of that might come as a surprise, especially since these parts are hot inside. This is the hottest thing that can happen.

But because there aren’t that many fans, it stays pretty quiet. I liked that the system never got too loud, even though it worked really well, which is very important to me. Falcon Northwest fine-tunes and customizes the whole temperature profile to make a system that works well. As shown in the video shared by JayzTwoCents, Falcon Northwest’s own tests showed that pushing the CPU as hard as possible didn’t always get the best results.

In terms of the GPU itself, you’ll see that it’s attached to the case with a metal plate. GPU droop is not present in the least. That makes it a little harder to switch things out and get better ones, but for this kind of system, it’s better to have a fully finished and well-tuned system. And this fixing works great for that.

Another thing Falcon Northwest does with the GPU is change the ports so that the link to the RTX 4090 is better. CableMod StealthSesne 12-volt wires are used to make sure you get the strongest and safest link possible.

How it Works

When you spend a lot of money on a PC, you don’t want it to look good. Do not be silly; you need a PC that can handle it. What we’re really talking about is going cool. When put together in this way, this set of parts will make any PC work “well.” In games, even a cheap pre-built PC that looks like it was put together badly will have high frame rates. It doesn’t matter if the other prebuilt system is from a bigger PC company like Dell or a smaller one like Origin; I can’t directly compare these parts to that other system.
There is no better performance than this, though, because the thermals are so good and the parts are so fast. The Talon is lightning fast, whether it’s full-tilt multi-core loads for content creation or spikey jobs like games. The Talon’s CPU did get as hot as 97 degrees Celsius during the 10-minute stress test of Cinebench R24’s multi-core benchmark. However, keep in mind that this is a much bigger load than normal apps and games.

Also, keep in mind that the Core i9-14900KS is completely bold and stands alone. The new chip is almost the same as the Core i9-14900K. The only difference is that Intel says it can boost speeds up to 6.2GHz. If you compare it to even the best AMD processors, the single-core score I saw in Cinebench R23 and R24 breaks all records.

You can play most games in 4K at over 100 frames per second on the highest settings, as you can see above. This animal is very hard to stop. When I played Cyberpunk 2077 in Overdrive mode without DLSS, that was the only real obstacle I ran into. In 1440p, I could only get 37 frames per second. It shouldn’t be a surprise, though, that path tracking can’t be done without upscaling. It looks pretty good, though, and you can still get over 100 frames per second in 4K. This group of parts won’t start to show their age for a long time.

For people who are buying something like the Talon, having the best is probably important, so I think setups with the newest and best chips are the fastest. But I should say that moving to an RTX 4080 Super or one of the cheaper Intel chips would still be great. There would be less stuff packed into this case, and the machine would have to deal with less heat.

Do I want to buy the Falcon Northwest Talon?

The Talon is beautiful. There is no doubt about it. The function is great, and the workmanship is second to none. This PC is worth the money because it comes with the best guarantee and customer service in the business.

But it’s meant for a very narrow group of people. We usually talk about pre-built PCs vs. making your own, along with the pros and cons of each. Falcon Northwest, on the other hand, is a third way that costs the most. That’s right, you don’t have to build that PC yourself. You can’t do it yourself. But it has many of the good things about a custom PC, like being able to choose from a huge selection of parts that are all easy to get and can be upgraded.

As you might have guessed, this group of people is becoming more and more specific. It’s easier than ever to put together a PC, and there have never been more tools to help you choose parts that will work together and put together your PC. The Talon may be the best example of this among all the PCs the company sells. For example, the Tiki and the FragBox are smaller choices that would take some skill to build yourself. Because of this, they appeal to a different group of people.

Even better, you can buy PCs already put together with an RTX 4090 that cost a lot less than the Talon. That can’t be avoided.

But the Talon is the best choice for people who want a high-end, powerful game PC but would rather pay someone to build it for them than buy one themselves.