A falcon Northwest system.

Jimvice

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Sep 20, 2010
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k so ive been interested in a falcon northwest for my birthday as ive been wanting to upgrade from my laptop withut even a gig of ram.
The specs for the computer are as follows.

Falcon Northwest Mach V computer.
Motherboard- Crosshair IV formula.
Power- 750 Watt power supply.
Processor- Phenom II x4 965 3.40 ghz.
Liquid cooler for the processor.
Ram- 4gb 1333MHz DD3
Graphics card- Nvidia Geforce gtx 460 1gb or gtx 470 1280mb (is there a huge difference between the 2 cards and is the 470 is worth the extra 100$$)
500gb or 1tbHardrive.

Thanks for all of your input. Gaming that i will mostly be doing is like MW2, Starcraft2, World of warcraft, and maybe some crysis.
If you possibly can would you please tell me about how many fps i can run on this? =D
Also, there is an option that i can have the processor overclokcked. Now i do not really know anything about overclocking...Is it dangerous? Will it ruin my computer? Thanks a lot for the help everyone!
 

tecmo34

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1) If you are going to buy a pre-built, the Falcon's are good (see them tested alot at MaximumPC), however, I would still recommend building your own system over a pre-built system.

2) I would go with the GTX 460 1GB over the GTX 470... IMO The GTX 460 is the best value to price to performance.

3) I would recommend reviewing benchmarks for whatever GPU you get to review benchmarks. You can see benchmarks here... http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/88

4) Overclocking will not damage your PC, as long as you maintain acceptable temps. This shouldn't be an issue since you are having a water cooled setup.
 

Jimvice

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Sep 20, 2010
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I would build the system myself but i have no idea at all how to do that. All i really want is to be a comfortable frames at max settings. Is that possible with this setup? Also. Im upgrading from 1gb ram laptop that got fixed from having milk spilt on it.(it was a miracle) It also has a nvidia from like 3 years ago lol.
 

tecmo34

Administrator
Moderator
Read through these two links to get an idea on building a PC yourself...
■http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274745-31-step-step-guide-building
■http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems

As for the FPS, it will play games a good FPS at resolutions at below 1920x1080. Once you get at 1920x1080 or higher, you will see decreases in FPS with a single card setup.
 

Jimvice

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Sep 20, 2010
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Well im thinking of playing on a 23ish inch screen. Also i think that if i get a radeon 5870 my fps will be higher. All i wanna know is if ill be happy with it =P. Right now all i can play is WoW at about 10 fps low settings. Cant even install other games... For the money of this build, i hope it can run 60+ in atleast wow and sc2 maxed or close to.
Also if u really wanna be awesome. Can you show me an awesome build on like newegg that i can do myself that will get me max games. Price is around 1.7k or 2k with moniter and all
 

Jimvice

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Sep 20, 2010
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Ahh lol i gotcha now. So pretty much they are all good! =D. I like the one with the 2 5970's lolol. But maybe if you can something that is about 2k not including moniter but has Win 7.

Also, sorry for all the questions. I have never built a pc but when u build one from scrap like this, all you have to do once its built is insert the win 7 disk?.
Also what about the drivers and stuff. Thanks a ton!!!
 

dethblo

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Oct 19, 2010
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Just a quick word of warning about Falcon Northwest's support: SLOW.

They use a callback model for support. Essentially, when you have a support issue you leave a voice mail with their tech support, and they call you back in the order that the voice mails were left. The problem is that they are so short staffed in the support department, that if you get a call back in less than 48 hours you should consider yourself lucky. In my case it meant that my computer was unusable for more than 2 days before I could speak with a human at Falcon Tech support.

IMO this model is ridiculous. It's the slowest support I have ever had from any vendor. On the surface, the way that the company sells this approach seems reasonable, but in practice it is aggravating to say the least. In my case I purchased a system for more than $10K from this boutique manufacturer supposedly with a reputation for good customer service, and expect a faster response time than 48+ hours. This support model could be more effective if they had a way to inform you of your place in the queue, or some automated notification that updates you as to the progress, but as it stands the model leaves you waiting by the phone in the hopes that today's 9 hour window of their operation will be the day they bless you with a call.

Please don't misunderstand me. Their machines are great, but their support requires customers with excessive patience :)
 

excelerater

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Nov 13, 2010
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They called me last night at 7PM to help me with a old Talon
I am giving to a buddy (obsolete gifts)

Yes the call back thing is lame but they do get back to you ,,,,,,,,,,,eventually
Nice people once you get them - I have never had issue with the old Talon
 

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