As one of many smaller desktops in Falcon Northwest’s gaming PC household, the venerable Tiki is commonly overshadowed by the bigger Talon. Sibling rivalry apart, such comparisons are futile. The Tiki is simply as highly effective a PC in a bundle about as compact as a gaming console.
Simply do not let the Tiki’s small stature idiot you. This highly effective gaming rig continues to be meticulously made with Falcon’s legendary all-metal craftsmanship and a spotlight to element. Because the runt of Falcon Northwest’s flock, the diminutive Tiki comes full of all the newest silicon, and like a svelte sprinter, this agile desktop can go away a lot bigger rivals within the mud. One of the best half? It does all that with the grace and design solely Falcon Northwest can obtain.
Falcon Northwest Tiki: Pricing and availability
What’s spectacular in regards to the Tiki is that Falcon Northwest managed to squeeze in one of the best parts of a high-end PC right into a bundle that’s comparable in dimension to Sony’s PlayStation 5 gaming console. The $3,058 Tiki could be configured with both AMD Ryzen 5000 Collection or Intel twelfth Gen processors in addition to Radeon or GeForce graphics.
Our upgraded $5,000 assessment unit comes outfitted with an all-AMD configuration, with a 4.9GHz liquid-cooled Ryzen 9 5950X processor, AMD Radeon RX 6950XT graphics, and an upgraded 2TB Samsung 980 Professional solid-state drive, 64GB of DDR4 reminiscence, and upgraded 1000W SilverStone SX energy provide unit.
| Specs | Falcon Northwest Tiki |
|---|---|
| Video card | AMD Radeon RX6950XT |
| Energy provide | SilverStone SX SFX-L Platinum 1000 Watt |
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG Strix B550-I Gaming, Mini-ITX |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, 16-core, 4.9GHz |
| Processor cooler | Asetek Liquid Cooling 550LC |
| Reminiscence | Kingston Fury Renegade RGB 64GB (2x32GB) , 3600MHz |
| Storage | 2TB Samsung 980 Professional M.2 SSD |
| Further M.2 drive | None |
| SATA drive | None |
Upgrading your construct will quickly add to the price of the Tiki, nevertheless it’s price each penny when you have the money to spare. Although you could save a bit of cash by stepping down from essentially the most premium processors and graphics playing cards, you do not need an entry-level rig in case you’re getting into boutique territory.
Falcon Northwest affords configuration choices that high out with both an NVIDIA RTX 3090 or A6000 graphics and 4TB of NVMe solid-state storage coupled with a 16TB SATA SSD divided between two 8TB drives together with a second M.2 drive.
Moreover, you may add elective UV printing choices for totally custom-made aesthetics, both with a photograph, picture or scene out of your favourite sport, or firm emblem. You may see examples of Falcon’s UV printing handiwork on our Talon assessment, however we determined to maintain issues minimalist, and our Tiki is available in a regular jet-black end.
Absolutely configured with high-end workstation-class graphics and an AMD processor, Tiki’s value jumps to over $11,500.
All of Falcon Northwest’s built-to-order techniques bear in depth pre-shipment testing, and so they come backed by a restricted three-year guarantee on components and labor.
Falcon Northwest Tiki: What you’ll love
Regardless of its stealthy all-black aesthetic, the rapid factor you’ll discover in regards to the Tiki upon laying eyes on this attractive gaming beast is its small stature. Measuring 13.6 x 13 x 4 inches, the Tiki is impressively extra compact than Sony’s PlayStation 5 in two dimensions. The PlayStation measures 15.4 x 10.2 x 4.1 inches, for comparability.
However the similarities with the PlayStation 5 ends there. For starters, Tiki’s extra highly effective processor combos — whether or not you do an all-AMD configuration, like our assessment unit, or select an Intel and NVIDIA mixture — can do laps round Sony’s Zen 2-based semi-custom chipset. And Tiki’s strong all-metal development provides it a extra premium really feel. To be truthful, our assessment unit prices 10 occasions as a lot because the $499 PlayStation 5. The benefit although is that Tiki can be utilized for each work and play, and for professionals who want a workstation, you may’t put a price ticket on productiveness.
“It is robust for most individuals to grasp as a result of they’ve by no means seen an precise highly effective PC that small,” Falcon Northwest founder Kelt Reeves defined about Tiki’s efficiency. “They might have seen like Intel NUCs and issues like that, and they also’re sort of used to the PC behind the monitor at their physician’s workplace [but] it is a dumb terminal with built-in graphics. However the Tiki is the smallest PC which you could really put a full-size GPU in and full-size desktop liquid-cooled CPU.”
The Tiki can accommodate playing cards as giant as NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 Founders Version, which is considerably bigger than the corporate’s prior graphics card fashions, prompting CEO Jensen Huang to name the cardboard a “BFGPU” at launch.
The closest dimension rival to the Tiki can be Corsair’s One gaming PCs and One Professional workstations. These desktops are available in a squircle-shaped tower — moderately than Tiki’s extra conventional rectangular compact tower type issue — making it extra much like Apple’s now discontinued “trash can”-styled Mac Professional. Corsair’s One collection tops out with an RTX 3080 Ti.
On Tiki, this implies you’re getting a performance-packed gaming PC within the type of a lounge console. Tiki’s compact dimension permits it to additionally function a robust dwelling leisure PC. Residence theater PC (HTPC) fanatics can arrange this desktop in the lounge to stream images, music, films, and TV exhibits and hold all their recordsdata available. The one draw back with utilizing Tiki as an HTPC is which you could’t set the Tiki down horizontally on its facet, as this might block the vents. Nonetheless, the benefits — whisper-quiet followers, discrete black end, highly effective efficiency, and tank-like sturdiness — negate any drawbacks, offered you could have house for a compact tower.
Regardless of its small stature, Tiki’s construct high quality is, as anticipated, distinctive. Like the larger Talon desktop, Tiki advantages from Falcon Northwest’s industrial engineering experience. To get issues right down to a extra compact footprint, Falcon Northwest swapped out the Talon’s thick, extruded aluminum plates in favor of thinner steel sheets for the majority of Tiki’s case. Tiki’s steel plates seem thicker than the skinny sheet steel used on many competing desktops. Given the thicker steel development, Tiki’s compact dimension, and the densely packed inside parts, there’s no flex. Merely put, the Tiki isn’t constructed to final. It’s designed to outlast you.
For comparability, the Talon, a mid-size tower that clocks in shy of 40 liters, weighs about 44 kilos. With its 11.6-liter dimension, the Tiki is available in at 25 kilos, of which a strong 6 kilos is devoted to the strong base. Which means that Tiki weight is barely greater than half of its bigger sibling, nevertheless it’s simply roughly 1 / 4 of Talon’s dimension. For players who do not have expertise with Falcon Northwest’s luxurious desktop builds and are stepping up from cheaper rigs, dealing with the Tiki is like upgrading from a Hyundai to a Mercedes G-Wagon.
Whereas we beloved the minimalist black end, if the Tiki’s design is just too plain for you, Falcon Northwest additionally affords elective {custom} UV printing on the perimeters, entrance, and high for a completely {custom} contact. We used the corporate’s UV printing service to emblazon Home windows Central’s emblem on the Talon’s glass doorways, which is beautiful. We opted for a extra plain end on the Tiki.
For higher or worse, in contrast to with the Talon, Falcon Northwest has not embraced RGB lighting on the Tiki. Whereas workstation customers will recognize the stealth matte black end of the Tiki higher, the extra possible clarification is that the compact dimension means there’s little house contained in the tower to neatly prepare every thing and showcase it by tinted tempered glass sides. Additionally, provided that the Tiki is ventilated from 4 sides — the highest, the 2 sides, and the rear — any giant use of glass would impede airflow. Of notice is that the holes on the vents appear to be laser minimize by the steel, so that you received’t must cope with sheets of mesh like on another towers.
On the left facet panel, for instance, you’ll see two related hexagonal vents in direction of the highest and followers beneath to maintain the GPU cool. A smaller hexagonal vent under it helps cool the CPU, whereas a bigger hexagonal vent on the underside entrance circulates air over the PSU. You’ll additionally discover uncovered steel screws all through this plate which are used to safe varied PC parts, together with followers.
The best panel could be eliminated, and Falcon Northwest depends on giant retaining, spring-loaded thumbscrews this time as an alternative of the cool rearranged and deconstructed gullwing-styled doorways which are hooked up through hinges on the rear of the unit. As soon as the screws are loosened sufficient, they come out however are nonetheless saved of their slots with the retaining mechanism. It’s a pleasant contact and helps to make sure that you don’t lose the screws.
Although the panel could be eliminated, a fan is completely hooked up, so it is best to pay cautious consideration to not extreme or injury the connecting wires. As soon as the panel is off, you’ll be instantly greeted by a vertically mounted GPU, energy provide unit, and liquid-cooled Ryzen processor. Falcon Northwest’s engineers needed to not solely match all of the parts inside Tiki’s radically smaller physique — in comparison with mid-size towers like Talon — but additionally handle thermals and noise.
“Tiki is by far more difficult than expertise simply due to the radically smaller dimension,” Reeves stated. “Frankly lately half of the GPUs available on the market on the excessive finish received’t bodily match into Tiki.”
To get from the Talon to the Tiki, Falcon Northwest needed to redo some cables and connectors to reorient bigger graphics playing cards to slot in the compact desktop’s slim 4-inch-wide physique. With Tiki, the corporate opted for a vertically mounted GPU.
Different challenges that Falcon Northwest needed to work by with this wholly custom-engineered case embrace CPU energy limits, energy provide dimension and noise, and getting sufficient airflow to chill every thing. Energy, thermal, and noise concerns have been positioned not simply on the CPU and GPU, however on each part contained in the Tiki’s enclosure. Expertly crafted, the ultimate end result manages to not solely overcome these challenges but additionally ship spectacular outcomes that can blow you away within the course of.
The unit is hooked up to a thick, strong steel stand derived from extruded aluminum. The bottom provides the desktop a pleasant pedestal and helps keep the premium really feel.
Ports are divided into two places — on the high and the rear. On high, you’ll discover two USB-A, a single USB-C, and an audio jack along with the ability button. On the again, you’ll discover three extra USB-A ports, one other USB-C port, digital audio jacks, show ports, and an Ethernet jack, however you’ll need to rely as an alternative on the show ports in your GPU to attach your shows. There are additionally gold-plated antenna connectors to connect exterior Wi-Fi 6 antennas for higher vary.
| Benchmark | Falcon Northwest Tiki (all-AMD) | Falcon Northwest Talon (Intel Core i9-12900KS, NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti) |
|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 5 | 1,705 | 2,230 |
| 16,930 | 21,502 | |
| CPU-Z | 702 | 882 |
| 12,542 | 11,993 | |
| Cinebench R23 | 1,752 | 2,254 |
| 29,003 | 29,145 | |
| PCMark 10 | 14,127 | 9,503 |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 27,003 | 23,412 |
| 3DMark Fireplace Strike | 60,348 | 43,201 |
| 3DMark Port Royal | 11,423 | 15,002 |
However regardless of the Tiki’s good-looking construct high quality, the true enjoyable is beneath the hood, the place Falcon Northwest’s engineers packed in full-size playing cards right into a pint-sized bundle, figuratively talking, giving this bantamweight desktop a heavyweight punch.
In comparison with our assessment configuration of the bigger Talon with a 16-core Intel Core i9-12900KS processor paired with NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti graphics, the all-AMD configuration managed to maintain up and beat out its bigger rivals in a couple of key benchmarks. Though the Ryzen 5950X trailed its Intel competitor on the Geekbench 5 benchmark, the 2 silicon stayed in lockstep with the CPU-Z check and Cinebench R23’s multi-core rating. The Ryzen pulled forward with a a lot stronger PCMark 10 rating.
And surprisingly, with AMD’s Radeon graphics, our Radeon RX 6950XT card pulled forward of NVIDIA’s top-of-the-line RTX 3090 Ti shopper card by a major margin in artificial GPU benchmarks. The Radeon card was greater than 3,500 factors forward of its RTX counterpart within the 3DMark Time Spy check and examined almost 40% higher than the RTX on the Fireplace Strike check. For digital actuality work, 3DMark’s Port Royal benchmark revealed that the RTX 3090 Ti carried out higher.
The good factor about shopping for a made-to-order PC from boutique gaming PC producer Falcon Northwest is that earlier than your desktop is even shipped, it undergoes a collection of burn-in exams. Falcon Northwest will even provide you with a couple of benchmarks that have been examined in your system to make sure that the PC you obtain performs at your expectation. The corporate’s detailed guidelines confirmed that 3DMark, PCMark 7, and Cinebench exams have been carried out on our non-overclocked assessment unit.
The Radeon RX 6950XT’s robust efficiency in artificial benchmarks additionally translated very properly to real-world utilization. As typical on most fashionable PCs, the Tiki was agile at multitasking, and we by no means skilled any lags or delays launching apps, opening giant recordsdata, or loading webpages. Transcoding efficiency utilizing Handbrake with a big 4K video file took the identical period of time on the Radeon because it did on the RTX 3090 Ti. Manipulating images in Adobe Photoshop, modifying movies, and dealing with giant spreadsheet recordsdata by no means slowed down the system.
Gaming efficiency is equally robust, with excessive body charges when performed beneath 4K decision and most sport settings. Far Cry 6 carried out at 95 FPS on the Radeon, or roughly 5% higher than the RTX 3090 Ti. Video games like Forza Horizon 5, Murderer’s Creed: Valhalla, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider carried out equally on AMD as on NVIDIA’s top-of-the-line gaming graphics. NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 Ti did have a 20% benefit on Metro Exodus. With the graphics-intensive Battlefield V, the Radeon does a improbable job of maintaining with its bigger and costlier rival, acting at simply 4 FPS decrease.
And even whereas beneath heavy load taking part in AAA titles, the Tiki by no means actually bought loud. Fan noise is impressively quiet, and the Tiki simply hummed alongside by no means dropping its cool.
And provided that the $1,100 Radeon is $900 cheaper than the $1,999 RTX 3090 Ti, you’re getting very comparable efficiency at a forty five% cheaper value level going with AMD graphics. And now that AMD has up to date its FidelityFX software program to higher compete towards NVIDIA’s DLSS, the efficiency is rapidly narrowing regardless of the large value hole, giving our AMD-configured Tiki an enormous bang-for-the-buck win.
Falcon Northwest Tiki: What you received’t love
There’s a lot to like in regards to the stealthy metal-clad Tiki that we now have to nitpick to seek out fault. The primary minor criticism we had is that the rear port labels are the wrong way up, which is probably going as a result of Falcon Northwest needed to mount the ASUS ROG Strix B550-I Mini-ITX board to suit the scale constraints of the Tiki’s chassis.
The second criticism is that the paint on a couple of screws arrived barely chipped away, exposing naked steel beneath the matte black end. It’s a small element, however one which ought to be highlighted on a $5,000 premium made-to-order PC. The highest thumbscrew additionally exhibits some paint put on on the sting out of the field.
The largest criticism that we had with Tiki is that the detachable facet panel could be arduous to place again on. Happily, this isn’t one thing that you simply’ll must do too usually. Inside, there’s nonetheless an honest quantity of room to make upgrades, making certain Tiki will final you for years to come back.
Falcon Northwest Tiki: The competitors
There’s loads of competitors within the desktop gaming house, however Tiki stays unmatched in case you want a performance-packed compact desktop that is simple to improve. Backed by Falcon Northwest’s expertise in over-engineering {custom} PC instances, Tiki stands in a league of its personal. Lots of this desktop’s closest rivals shall be considerably bulkier rigs.
Within the mainstream market, desktops like Dell’s Alienware Aurora R collection and HP’s Omen desktops ship related ranges of efficiency as Tiki, however neither include Tiki’s dimension benefit or craftsmanship. The Omen 45L could be configured to come back inside vary of Tiki’s premium configuration — HP’s $2,000 configuration tops out with a twelfth Gen Intel Core i7 and RTX 3080 graphics — however that efficiency is available in a bundle that is almost 3 times as massive as Falcon Northwest’s providing in quantity.
To save lots of value and never sacrifice an excessive amount of efficiency, we might advocate a barely scaled-down model of the Tiki. You will not be capable of obtain an all-AMD construct as our assessment unit, however in case you pared right down to RTX 3080 graphics, a Ryzen 7 5800X processor, and 32GB of RAM, you would not lose an excessive amount of efficiency whereas on the identical time trimming the price right down to $3,800.
On the boutique facet, Tiki competes towards manufacturers akin to Corsair, Digital Storm, and Origin PC. Just like the mainstream facet, all these desktops — save for the Corsair One — are available in bulkier and heftier packages. And in comparison with the Tiki, the Corsair One is considerably much less upgradeable with its smaller dimension and its extra restricted GPU choice. When it comes to efficiency and construct high quality, the Tiki is extra evenly matched towards its bigger sibling, the Talon. Each desktops profit from Falcon’s craftsmanship, and pricing for each is roughly related.
On the Mac facet, the Tiki must cope with Apple’s newest desktops, together with the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and iMac. All these desktops depend on Apple’s {custom} Arm-based silicon. And although Apple’s desktops are competent workstations for inventive workflows, the Mac ecosystem is not recognized for its gaming chops.
Falcon Northwest Tiki: Do you have to purchase
You can purchase this if …
- You are tight on house and do not need to sacrifice efficiency in getting a extra compact gaming desktop
- You want top-of-the-line GPU efficiency with an equally succesful CPU
- You desire a solidly constructed, meticulously designed, and over-engineered desktop with top-charting efficiency with out having to speculate your personal time in constructing your personal gaming PC
- You are a thermal geek who likes to nerd out over airflow and cooling
- You hate RGB backlighting and desire a extra unspoken design with none of the ostentatious aggressiveness of a gaming PC
You should not purchase this if …
- You are on a funds and do not have some huge cash to spend on a premium, high-end rig
- You favor a desktop with RGB backlighting
- You’d moderately have a regular mid-size tower for straightforward upgrades sooner or later in case NVIDIA continues to make its GPUs even bigger down the street
- You do not care about proudly owning a luxurious boutique gaming PC and might reside with a mainstream rig to chop value
Punching above its weight and dimension, the Tiki proves why Falcon Northwest continues to be the trusted gaming PC builder for a number of the largest names in tech, together with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and the workforce at Oculus, Steam’s Gabe Newell, and Epic Video games’ Tim Sweeney. From its examined and engineered vent design to its cautious curation of a number of the greatest PC parts available on the market to suit into a decent chassis, the Tiki comes with a efficiency pedigree that solely Falcon Northwest can ship.
Falcon Northwest proves that smaller could be higher. However at $5,000 for our assessment configuration, this rig is priced out of the attain of most players, particularly in case you do not care about desktop dimension or construct high quality. If you happen to do, nothing even comes near touching the Tiki. That is an infinitely upgradeable compact desktop that is price its value for discerning players, inventive professionals, and residential theater PC fanatics.
Falcon Northwest Tiki gaming desktop
Falcon Northwest’s Tiki is a compact gaming rig that punches above its weight (and dimension). Do not let this diminutive desktop idiot you, because it comes with loads of energy. From the newest CPU and GPU to a number of storage choices and loads of reminiscence, the Tiki is a powerhouse of a PC all packed into an 11.6-liter bundle.
