in this box I have a pre-built PC unlike
anything you've ever seen before this is
the Talon by Falcon Northwest and they
sent it over for us to check out
especially with the launch of Intel's
14th gen processors they've updated it
to have some of the fastest components
known to man but also this thing has
been in production for over 20 years
that's basically the entire time that my
employees have been alive and just about
the time that I probably got into
computers yeah that would I would have
just been in high school 20 years ago
goodness and Falcon Northwest themselves
have been in business for over 30 years
and this is double packaged which you
love to see when buying a pre-built you
can see that it's actually packaged with
love and care but Falcon Northwest sent
this town to me in order to review it so
they want you to know no Money's been
exchanging hands they did sponsor our
canonball for the charity stream they
provided a PC for giveaway as well as
donated money to singap research fund
but today's video isn't sponsored by
Falcon Northwest it actually does have a
sponsor and that's APN X we'll get to
them in a second so we can even see from
the very beginning at the top they show
you all of the instructions for how you
get your Talon going making sure that
you uh know how to clean it take care of
it what parts come open what parts
[Music]
don't wow so power cable stuck to the
side to make sure that we can actually
turn this thing on and Kyler you want to
read what says the TU Bret from Reese
Reese is back in South Africa so I don't
exactly know what's going on here but
that looks like Christmas wrapping and
this feels that's glass I'm going to put
this to the side we'll unbox that last
but what you can see here are some of
the things that make the Talon special
this little section right here it's for
carpet it's to make sure that if you
place this P down on carpet cuz Falcon
Northwest realizes that not everybody
has all of the space that you could
possibly need to put put a PC on your
desk you are not blocking the airf flow
to the power supply or any of the
intakes that are up front you still have
the separation that allows you to have
some breathing unless you have gigantic
shag carpet like Kyler does at home all
of the packaging makes it look like it
came in one piece which is great to see
from a system integrator who actually
produces these PCS on a regular basis
and you can even see that they taped it
shut with what appears to be Gaff tape
or masking tape I think this is masking
tape but it doesn't leave any residue on
the PC at all so it peels off very
easily no residue on the glass either
and both sides are actually a tempered
glass side panel so that you can see the
interior of what's going on so this case
right here is custom made by Falcon
Northwest themselves they've designed it
they've engineered it to make it so that
when they're shipping out their
pre-built systems it is to the highest
quality possible and this thing is
loaded to the gills with the highest end
Tech out there you've got an Intel Core
I9 149 900k which has their Falcon
Northwest custom liquid cooler on here
run by 280 mm of radiator as well as
fans that's supposed to be cooling it
96 GB of ddr5 6400 MHz Ram sitting right
there a 2 TB crucial t700 PCI Express
5.0 SSD an Asus RG strict z790 gaming
Wi-Fi 2 motherboard and then of course
the RTX 4090 Founders Edition now I
mentioned that today's video is
sponsored by AP andx because we're going
to be putting this Falcon Northwest
Talon up against this system right here
which is the APN X C1 chroma flare case
as you can see as you move around the
case it actually ends up changing color
because of its custom paint job but in
this system we don't have the same
amount of ram we're not looking at 96 GB
but we have really fast Ram in here
combined with the i 94900 k and RTX 490
and this is going to be a great
comparison system for the Falcon
Northwest Talon you can see what you can
put together for yourself for a lesser
price point and we're going to see just
how much custom engineering goes into
the Falcon Northwest PC but AP andx
sponsored this video and they want you
to check out their C1 case that they've
launched recently you can check our Link
in the video description which has it in
multiple colors you can get it in white
you can get it in black and you can get
it in this chroma flare blue/purple
setup and the C1 Cas is designed to
perform right out of the box it has four
30 mm apx fp1 fans that come
pre-installed in the case delivering a
boost to thermals without adding the
need to buy them separately and the fan
frames are an extra 5 mm thick over
standard 25mm thick case fans that extra
depth allows for wider fan blades which
in turn pushes air more effectively and
in apx testing the performance boost was
anywhere between 30 to 50% over the
thinner versions and making sure that
it's good for thermals is happening
because it has perforated front front
side and top panels for multiple
different cooling solutions you can have
dual 360 mm radiators on the inside 11
fan slots clearance for even the biggest
graphics card which you can see we've
put a 4090 in here and an optional GPU
card holder and riser cable and if you
want to go for a clean build the
removable Cable Management sidebar on
the motherboard back plate will help
funnel and hide your cables or you can
use it for putting a little fan behind
the motherboard itself to keep the
backside of everything that's going on
cool especially with the 14900 K can't
hurt the c1s curved edges smooth finish
and toolless paneling make for a
comfortable building experience
regardless of how you want to build in
it we've loaded this thing up with APN
X's fans I think Kyler we counted how
many fans do we have in this like 15
total it's 3 6 9
10 11s on the the CPU Cooler there's
three on the graphics card that's 14
then there's one on the back then
there's one on the power supply we're at
16 total fans if you're looking to build
a high-end system in a stunning case
whether it's the chroma flare some of
the other colors AP andx has you covered
with the C1 you can check out their fp1
fans to add into your system but big
thanks to AP andx for sponsoring today's
video and providing us with the testing
setup that we're going to compare
against the Falcon Northwest Talon which
let's talk about this case for a second
you cannot buy this on the open market
this is 20 years of engineering that
Falcon Northwest has gone into to make
sure that this is delivering the best
setup for the customers and you can hear
this is four mm thick aluminum plating
which they have found that doesn't
actually detract from thermals in the
slightest you see it's a tooless setup
you don't have to take out any screws in
order to open up the side panels and
take them off it appears to be the same
way with both sides and you can even see
down here they've engineered that
there's just a little finger hole for
you to put your finger when you're
actually trying to pop open the case fan
but based on what I'm gathering this is
likely a side panel Custom Design now
the fact that it's from Reese has me
worried if I had to guess which I'm just
going to use my Powers prognostication
right now this is a yummy yummy deal
Master side plate that's that is my
[Music]
guesstimation I can't see it I
can't it's
not that's
amazing oh my
go so you can see on display right here
is Falcon northwest's custom printing
process which they can put designs on
the side panels of your PC I believe
this will go on the back to replace the
glass that's over here
which we might as well oh oo there's
foam in here as I'm grasping it I firmly
grasped it and there's foam glass is
nice especially in this Falcon Northwest
Talon because you can see the cable
management Kyler you could never look at
this I made no you you definitely could
with enough practice but being able to
Route the 24 pin custom Channel over
here to make sure it's not blocking any
airflow on the back of the motherboard
but then also this is a custom cable mod
extension that they've worked to make
and then just that is a lot of effort
that has gone into a pre-built I have
not seen another pre-built with this
much effort put into the cable
management and you see right here it's
got a custom ufd Tech little blazing
logo right there to let you know that
this is our PC and it was made on
November 10th 2023 it's taken us a
little bit to get around to this
especially with the holiday season but
I'm excited to be checking it out
finally and you can see that there's
room here you've got some 2 and 1/2 in
ssds I do know that Falcon Northwest if
you mention this to them that you
actually might expand in the future
they'll make sure that you have the SATA
cables and the PO cables back here so
that they're ready to go be slotted in
and I've watched a few other videos
where they will actually heat up the
SATA data the cable to make sure that it
twists in at the right angle to make
sure that there's no Force when it goes
in it just goes straight down which not
every cable allows you to do and then
down here is a little 3 and 1/2 in hard
drive sled that you can take out in case
you want to install hard drives but we
are anti-h hard drive gang here on ufd
Tech there's no need we've got a 2 terab
PCI Express 5.0 SSD what do I need a
hard drive for but let's take off the
last little bits of masking tape which
are fixed to the dust filter that down
here for the power supply which is I
believe magnetic so that should just
stick but nothing slipped around during
shipping so this is all looking very
robust and that's actually another thing
that they do is they make sure to
utilize the bracket that's here on the
end of the RTX 490 Founders Edition
where they have a metal mounting
solution this thing is firmly in there
no no GPU sack and like this ain't
wiggling and I'm working real hard to
get it to wiggle I have scuffed up the
top just hitting it Kyler do you want to
you want to take a little knock you want
to knock this 4mm
aluminum that's thick right like that
this is a robust PC case but then
there's a couple other unique things
that I want to point out before we get
to testing the actual performance
thermals and all that there's a little
GPU fin that they installed right here
fully removable in case we wanted to
install something like a capture card
but this provides the air flow to the
return on the RTX 490 right here so
it'll blow air from the outside into
this and then that'll exhaust out the
side but another thing that's attention
to detail from Falcon Northwest having
the ability to design their own case
year after year you can see that some of
the return for the RTX 490 Founders
Edition is over here so instead of
blocking it off like you can find on
some cases you actually still have the
ability to fully exhaust the 490 not
just over here where the io is but also
towards this little extension as well
also as I've been looking at this for
just a little bit longer one of the most
intriguing things things that I've seen
is typically when you have a motherboard
plate at the back of the case it's not
two separate pieces like this they the
screws for the middle and bottom are one
piece of metal but then to screw the top
of the motherboard is another piece and
then this is just completely open and so
I was I was looking at the cables I was
like how do they get such a fine degree
of bending and I was like oh because the
plate doesn't extend past the
motherboard but no there's no plate back
here so it can just curve very nicely
and they have all of this
extra space to work with again which is
just another one of those benefits of
building your own case year after year
and selling them to customers to make
sure that they're satisfied with them
I'm satisfied with Reese I'll tell you
that much is this glass or is this metal
okay this is glass and it's just it's
covered on the other side so and then we
just have one last thing to check out
before we turn the system on and start
benchmarking it to see how it compares
to a custombuilt RTX 490 PC of equal
caliber in the APN xc1 case and that is
this other box that Falcon Northwest
sends out to their customers if you
happen to buy one of their piec and that
is it comes with a whole host of goodies
including a mouse pad from Falcon
Northwest a nice little coffee mug for
your Brewing choices for your Brew for
your Brew for your for your Brew for for
your locker Brew I believe because this
is an RTX 40 series it came with a copy
of Allen wake 2 all of the extra cables
that you could want for your C sonic
power supply they come with their own
Falcon Fuel Coffee which just as a
little teaser which we we'll talk about
more in a few months but we might also
be uh competing with Falcon Northwest in
that game and then an extra little box
right here which has looks to be all of
the motherboard acutron R stuff the
Wi-Fi adapter as well as uh the 4 pin to
16 pin that came with the RTX 490 and a
little recovery USB rescue drive this is
glad they don't use CDs anymore even
though some companies still ship out CDs
with their products thank you Falcon
Northwest for being modern on that side
oh you're not allowed to see this but
this is my windows 11 activation key
that's mine you can activate Windows no
oh there's a little folder down here
it's matte black so it was very easy to
miss spot but looks to be our desktop
system documentation customer ufd
they have their documentation their QA
analysis just to see exactly is
everything working up to spec oh and
they even include a little benchmarks of
things that we should expect so
benchmarking we have things like the
time spy Benchmark the fire strike
Benchmark PC Mark 10 cin bench 10-minute
Loop Max CPU temp is 100 so expect the
14900 K to get up to its thermal limit
which is exactly what 14th gen CPUs do
more QA testing getting started keeping
your your system clean using the USB
rescue drive and then interesting things
about the warranty procedures which
includes the Falcon overnight service if
your Falcon system should develop a
serious Hardware problem that they can't
solve via technical support they'll pick
it up via overnight Courier correct any
problem fully test the system and
overnight it back to you the Falcon
overnight service covers any applicable
instance within one year of the date of
purchase why does no other computer
company do this frankly it's much too
expensive but with their extremely low
defect rate they can offer customers
this unparalleled level of service one
of the things that I've seen as I've
done more research about Falcon
Northwest across the internet is the
reason that they have been in business
for the 30 plus years that they have is
because they actually do treat their
customers right if you build it
correctly from the beginning which it
appears like they have definitely put in
the effort to do and then you also make
sure that the customers receive a ton of
support as they're trying to make sure
that their PC is up and running well
then it can actually happen where you
you are in business for this many years
which you love to see just from the
unboxing experience I have literally no
notes on how they could potentially do
this better one of the things I am
interested in seeing is just how
thermally efficient this is I've read a
lot of Falcon northwest's own details on
why they believe that a 280 mil cooler
will provide the best airf flow because
it's not just about adding as many fans
as possible into this system they've
designed that the path of the air and
the heat at getting out of the PC is as
optimal as possible and it's also like
easy to wipe off I've left a lot of skin
marks as I've been attacking the the top
of the PC to test out that metal skin
marks I mean my my skin is skitting the
marks on the the PC and it's it's wiping
off very nicely ooh that's got a little
bit more clang to it kind of like our
prototype metal Screwdriver from LTT
store.com also I just want to again on
the no notes thing the quality of this
UV printing
is incredible look at it zoom in on
Reese's pores like you the the the
definition is obviously quite high but
then there's it's just printed onto this
glass so beautifully like I can see
where Rees actually needs to shave his
unibrow and you can tell this wasn't
right after the Cannonball because he
has his entire beard coming in okay let
no talk testing time we're going to get
this on our testing system and we'll
test against the APN xc1 with similar
specs so we're going to put these PCS
through the hardest Benchmark that I
have in my Suite which is cyberpunk in
its R tracing overdrive setup that's
going to allow us to stress the GPU and
if we run it out low enough resolution
it should also impact the CPU as well
we're going to be taking a look at
Thermals how much power each of these
PCS pull while we're doing that and then
also taking a look and seeing how the
FPS performs on my custom built I9 with
the 490 and then the Falcon Northwest
Talon so we're going to go ahead and
clear the min max here that's in the
hardware monitor we're starting off
temperatures are very good 36C on the
CPU roughly 38 on the GPU with 48 on the
hotspot and you can already
hear all of the fans in this APN xc1
case ramping up we have so many fans in
here that it it will get noisy but I'm
also curious to hear the audio
difference between this and then the
talent so we're at the r tracing
overdrive setup so that means that we're
going to get full path tracing as hard
as you can hit an RTX 490 we're going to
drop the resolution instead of being at
4K let's drop it to 1080p just to
potentially get a little bit more CPU
impact and we'll go ahead and run the
Benchmark with pass tracing on this is
basically as good as lighting can look
in a game it's incredible to see we
averaged
12859 FPS and then if we go and take a
look at hardware monitor the package on
the CPU got up to 78° the PE course hit
81 deg we pulled a maximum of 260 Watts
then down here on the GPU side of things
we reached a maximum of 58 on the GPU
65.1 on the hot spot that is not bad we
pulled a Max of
393 Watts on the GPU so this system is
pulling a lot of power and staying
relatively cool which is what you want
to see in longer gaming sessions but
we're going to swap this out for the
talent and see what a pre-built can do
in a very similar situation now the only
down side to having the Talon here is
that we obviously don't get that
beautiful Reese look I am going to see
if I can turn this so that it's actually
it has Reese facing us but before we do
that I do want to highlight just the
lighting that's on the inside of the
Talon here the RGB right now as it's
booting up is looking a little disperate
and not necessarily cohesive but once we
get into Windows you'll notice that they
have customized it so that it's actually
hot news colors which is a nice little
touch of putting the Falcon Northwest PC
together it's clear that they have put
effort into this at every single step
and then you also have the custom bio
splash page right there and of course
Windows 11 wants to try to force me into
some situation there we go the hot news
colors absolutely synced up on the
inside of this Tow and just it's the
small details that you really appreciate
and it's one of the things that not
every system integrator is going to go
through the painstaking effort to do and
additionally I also know that we are not
necessarily getting special treatment
simply because they sent this to
influencers or Media or YouTubers based
on every single review I've read of
Falcon Northwest and how they have
behaved over the years if you are a
customer of them you get similar
treatment let's go ahead and pull up
cyberpunk on the Falcon Northwest Talon
you got ree staring at you while we
Benchmark this thing so immediately as
we're booting into cyberpunk I can
already tell that there is a substantial
audio reduction just from my ears with
the PC being right here it sounds
further away like it's not all blaring
right next to my ear like it does on the
more perforated APN xc1 so we've got the
same settings all set up for the Falcon
Northwest Talon going ahead and
resetting the minmax on the hardware
monitor just to see if we can get very
similar numbers and now it's time to go
ahead and run the Benchmark on the Talon
so comparing the FPS we are definitely
lower here on the Talon we came in at
119.99 whereas we're at 28.5 n on the
APN xc1 now a lot of that may be due to
the fact that we do have a custom 4090
that's in the C1 let's also go take a
look at the temperatures so the
temperatures are also higher here coming
in at 97 on the package 97 on the PE
whereas previously on the C1 we were at
78° and 81° respectively but we did pull
more wattage here the package power was
270 watts compared to the 260 Watts on
the C1 now looking at the GPU this is
where the difference definitely comes
into play that custom GPU that gigabyte
orus card that we have in the C1 ran at
nearly 100 Watts higher coming in at 394
on the C1 whereas this one you can see
comes in at 294 but temperatures are
very good they're very close to what we
got on the custom car partially thanks
to the fact that Falcon Northwest add
that little GPU intake situation at the
back we got 58° on the core and then
66.8 de on the hot spot where it was
65.1 on the APN xc1 so it's very clear
based on this comparison that there is a
performance advantage that you can get
by going with a uh higher clocked GPU
that can pull more wattage than simply
the founders Edition additionally maybe
a 280 mm cooler isn't quite enough to
keep the 14900 K tamed which is a known
quantity when it comes to Intel's new
CPUs if it was something like a 7800 x3d
we would have found that the 280 mil
would have been a little bit better but
the higher temperatures at only 10 watts
more of power pull is likely due to the
fact that it doesn't have as many
perforations on the C1 Additionally the
cooler is slightly smaller in size but
you also have to take into account that
you are getting significantly quieter
setup here again the intakes for the
fans are only these perforated sides on
this metal front panel so it's actually
incredibly impressive that Falcon
Northwest has managed to create a system
that even allows you to get that close
while also being more closed off but I
think all of the little extras that
Falcon Northwest gives you if you are in
the market to get the king of a
pre-built gaming PC the Talon definitely
puts itself up there now the price is
still significantly more than building
it your own but you are getting all of
the extra little goodies that Falcon
Northwest puts into it you do not have
to build it yourself you do not have to
worry about all the cable management you
have the three-year warranty on parts
and labor you have the amazing customer
service to to make sure that you're
never out in the cold with a PC that you
need to keep running for either your
business or for your professional
content creation that you're doing the
price of this Talon aspect is roughly in
the $6,300 to $6,500 region depending on
whether or not you want to get the UV
printing on the side compared to the apx
C1 adding up all of the fans and
everything there we're looking at closer
to
$4,000 which you have to determine it's
the everpresent question when it comes
to pre-built gaming PCs are you willing
to sacrifice your financials for more
peace of mind for somebody else to make
sure and ensure that this PC is going to
run the way you want it and if it
doesn't then you can have overnight
service within the first year to make
sure that everything gets put back up to
speed I think the little extras that
Falcon Northwest goes to the effort to
provide the end user helps to offset
some of the cost and it makes it clear
why they have been in business for 30
plus years having that extra margin
allows them to create an experience for
the customer where they are not left out
to dry in case their new pc happens to
have technical issues which is always
possible things break things go wrong
but Falcon Northwest has put in the
effort to make sure that you're going to
be taken care of for as long as possible
being in this industry for 30 plus years
it can't be understated I've not even
been in Tech YouTube for 10 years at
this point and just having that sort of
longevity in any sort of career field is
impressive to say the least just like
the Falcon Northwest Talon is I've
thoroughly enjoyed my time with this
system my only real complaint is that
the 14900 K just it it's too much it's
too much of a CPU for adequate Cooling
in a lot of different scenarios it
likely will run fine for you but again
Intel just making CPUs that suck 300
watts and require an insane amount of
cooling to go for and then also the only
other caveat is the price which happens
to be with pre-book but at least with
Falcon Northwest you know you're getting
a lot of enhanced experiences for that
extra price so let me know what you
think of the talent Down Below in the
comments and we'll keep you updated on
uh a few of the things we got in the
works this came in
recently we got some things that were
moving in shaking here at ufd Tech I'm
excited for it see you in the next video
friends