User:Kelt at Falcon/draftfalcon

Falcon Northwest is a private company headquartered in Medford, Oregon. It designs, assembles, and markets high-end custom computers. The company was founded in 1992 and was 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 computer built specifically for gaming, the Mach V, in 1993, starting the "gaming PC" category of computer products. The company was founded in Florida, but later moved to Coos Bay, Oregon, then Ashland, Oregon, and finally Medford, Oregon.

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 on early liquid cooling components. Intel worked with Falcon Northwest in secret, in order to avoid the appearance of endorsing overclocking 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 to gamers. Falcon's computers are consistently highly-ranked in benchmark tests, but cost $1,500 to $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. As of 2017, Falcon is best-known for its smaller, portable mini-PCs. However, it used to be better known for tower desktops like the Mach V and it also sells laptops.

Reception
In benchmark tests by Maximum PC, Falcon Northwest's Tiki mini-PC performed better than a tower computer with a high-end graphics card, but the Tiki was also the most expensive computer the reviewers had ever used. Similarly, Falcon's FragBox mini-PC was praised by Tom's Guide for its appearance and power, but the reviewer was using a $5,000 configuration. 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 said 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 review in PCWorld, praised the Mach V's performance but noted the high price that comes with buying a computer running three graphics cards.