As most of you know by now, Tom's Hardware Guide celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. When you hit a milestone like that in a rapidly changing industry like computer hardware, you need to celebrate. That is exactly what we are doing, and we want to share our jubilation with the readers who have been with us along the way.

Over the last few months we have been giving away hardware from various vendors, but our grand prize is to give away a truly kick-butt system. We went in search of amazing high-end systems and got the best answer from Kelt Reeves of Falcon Northwest. Falcon is not a newcomer to our system reviews, of course, and stepped up to the plate to put together a system worthy of 10 years of bringing you the latest computer hardware news and reviews.

Being the tinkers and testers we are, we were not about to let this system go without letting everyone know just what it is capable of. Accordingly, we got the system in and put it through its paces, and without a doubt, it is by far the most expensive and most powerful system we have ever tested. This street legal monster tore up our labs and will soon find a home in one of your homes!

Roaring Out Of The Gates

We posted the statistics for the Falcon Northwest machine, but as prize fighters know all too well, the past means nothing on fight night. You step into the ring to win, and walking away the loser only means you wasted your time in preparation. Falcon Northwest has been in the ring before, of course, and its $10,000 PC is certainly the odds on favorite to win.

This time, the system came dressed to kill in an eggshell metallic paint for a background emblazoned with the 10 year anniversary Tom's Hardware Guide logo. All of the artwork was finished off with several layers of clear coat for an impressively crisp look.

In most system reviews we will only get the tower and not all of the peripheral devices, displays and speakers. This time things are a little different, because we wanted to give away an entire system worthy of bragging rights. With that in mind, we had to have it outfitted with a 30" Apple Cinema display (which alone retails for $2,000). That may be a hefty price tag, but the monitor sports a native resolution of 2560x1600 and it matches the décor of the system to a tee.

To complete the matching set, Falcon Northwest had its artist paint the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser mouse and keyboard as well. The base of the cordless mouse has a smaller version of the 10th anniversary logo, as well as an additional set of text upon the keyboard's wrist guard.

We also wanted the system to have a monstrous sound system. If you have ever heard a muscle car drive by, not only does it look good, but it sounds good too; the same applies to this muscle PC, which comes with a set of Logitech Z-5450 speakers. The speakers are powered by a Creative Labs X-Fi sound card for Dolby and THX certified 5.1 theater-quality surround sound.

As with all Mach V systems, Falcon Northwest includes a welcome package that contains various goodies. Inside the box is a mouse pad with the Falcon Northwest logo, and a T-shirt and coffee mug sporting the same logo. Finally, there is a bag of Falcon Fuel, a special blend of coffee made just for Falcon Northwest by The Bean Forge.

slide show Tom's $10,000 PC!

• M9179LLA Silver 30"...
• • iUnitek
  • $1682.80
• • CtiStore
  • $1694.00
• • Safe Harbor Computers
  • $1778.99
• • zZounds
  • $1799.00
• • Same Day Music
  • $1799.00

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