Falcon Northwest Mach V (Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition)

Pros: The Fastest Gaming Machine in the world (currently). One of if not the most reliable systems in the world. The paint job is immaculate and awe inspiringly beautiful.

Cons: They are expensive.

Summary: You get what you pay for. That is the bottom line. Is it possible to get a system similarly equipped for less money? Yes. You can't however get a similarly built computer for much less at all. In fact some of their competition is even more expensive and not built any better (and out performed in side by side tests).

The system that Cnet reviewed has a lot of stuff you just don't need. You don't need two ATI 4700X2 cards. One NVidia 295GTX is enough for some serious gaming (but not available when this review was done). Like Cnet mentioned you also don't NEED the paint job. I was able to get a real nice Mach V for $5,000 similary set up but without the paint job, 1 295GTX and and a smaller Core i7 chip (the 920) but a larger secondary HD (my system has a 1.5TB HD in it along with the Intel Solid State drive).

I've owned a Dell, HP, Alienware, and Voodoo PC in the past 10 years as well as a Falcon Talon system and another Falcon Mach V. No company has ever made a more reliable machine than the Falcons I own. Both of those Falcons are still used for LAN Parties and are more than capable of letting friends play Left 4 Dead with me and the systems are OLD. Falcon builds giant tanks. My old Alienware is also a tank and still does well (although all the systems have had graphic card updates). However that Alienware was from when Alienware was a different company before their Best Buy days and Dell ownership.

I've never been happier with a computer company than I am with Falcon Northwest. They just build the best. I know I can save $1,000 on the higher end systems building it myself or from another company, but I also know that Falcon will out perform those cheaper systems and last longer without any worries of reliability. Plus when things go wrong with systems you build there is no company to call. I've had that happen (but I also have some solid machines still running that I built).

There is a big reason that at all the game conferences that the big companies all have Falcons showcasing their new games or new graphics cards. Falcon just does it better.