Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X)

We're entering familiar territory for our enthusiast readers. The latest Intel six-core CPU is overclocked and paired with an obscene number of video cards to give us the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X) ($6,899 direct). Frankly, we'd have it no other way. The funny thing is that our contact at Falcon NW told us that though the system flirts with the mythical 5GHz overclock, it is actually dialed back (more than a little) for reliability's sake. Any overclocker can push Intel's latest Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition to lofty (and unstable) clock speeds with a few clicks of a mouse in the UEFI (aka BIOS), but the people at Falcon are masters of smart overclocking that will keep the system from crashing like a drunken panda in a go-kart. Build quality with bragging rights is the reason we award the latest Mach V our latest Editors' Choice for high-end gaming desktop PCs.

Design and Features
The Mach V (Core i7-3960X) is in Falcon NW's signature Mach V chassis, like the previous Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-2600K) ($4,599 direct, 4 stars). In this imposing black tower the video cards are mounted vertically to help disperse heat; the cards' fans vent out the top of the system. The front panel is hidden behind a door with the iconic Falcon NW logo cut into the metal.

The chassis is full of tech: the cooler for the Intel Core i7-3960X, the three Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 cards, 32GB of system memory (eight 4GB sticks), two SSDs, a 2TB data storage hard drive, a Blu-ray player/DVD burner combo drive, and an Asus P9X79 motherboard. Powering it all is a 1,200-watt power supply (PSU). To put this into perspective, mainstream tower desktops get by with 260 to 400 watts. Because of how much power this PSU can pack, you may want to think twice about running other high-wattage electrical appliances (like space heaters or hair dryers) on the same electrical circuit as the Falcon. A moderately beefy uninterruptable power supply might be a good accompaniment, just in case you overload the circuit.

Because the DIMM and PCI Express slots are filled, there isn't much extra expansion room here, but about the only people likely to be disappointed by this are ?ber-users who prefer discrete sound cards for their surround gaming. There's a bit of room in the chassis for hard drive or optical drive expansion, but with this system's specs, you won't need to add anything for a long time. Externally, there are plenty of ports: five USB 2.0, eight of the faster USB 3.0, and two eSATA. You can potentially run six displays off of this little monster, using a combination of the DVI and mini HDMI output jacks (mini-HDMI?to?HDMI adapter cables are included). About the only drawback to the chassis' design is that the majority of the system's ports are on the top of the system, under a metal panel. There are routing holes in the back of the system for cables, but it's still inconvenient to connect peripherals to the main ports on the motherboard and video cards. It's a good thing that the system has two more easily accessible USB 3.0 ports closer to the front of the system on the top (along with headphone and microphone jacks).

The system's 32GB of memory will likely be "enough" for this system as long as you own it, and will certainly be plenty for the multitasking gamer who likes to play on one monitor, surf on another, and message on a third. (In other words, Tony Stark.) The 500GB capacity of the two 256GB SSDs in a RAID Level 0 array is plenty for Windows 7, a bunch of games, and some files to all benefit from the SSDs' superior speed. An additional 2TB data drive was included on our review unit as well. If that isn't enough, the system has enough eSATA and USB 3.0 ports to potentially support at least another 40TB of external hard drive space.

Performance
The Mach V (Core i7-3960X) does not disappoint as far as performance. It took top spot on eight of the ten tests we currently run, and was minimally slower on the two remaining tests. The system gained playable scores on all four gaming tests, including Crysis (75 frames per second, or fps) and Lost Planet 2 (168fps) at 1,920-by-1,080 resolution on high detail settings. This means that you'll get a smooth game session while using a standard 24-27 inch monitor. If you have an older 30-inch (2,560-by-1,600 resolution) behemoth, the system will work fine as well; the system achieved playable scores in anecdotal testing. Other systems like the Digital Storm Black Ops Enix Edition ($3,627, 4 stars) and Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960 ($4,599, 4 stars) kept close on Crysis (both got 73fps at 1,920 by 1,080), but the Falcon blew the others out of the water on the DX11-based Lost Planet 2 (the others were a distant second at 122-123 fps). Likewise, the Mach V completed our Handbrake video encoding test in the fastest time ever (54 seconds), and was a scant two seconds behind the Enix Edition on Photoshop CS5 (2:21 versus 2:19). For work or play, this is the system you currently want.

The Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X) will eventually be supplanted as speed champ, but at this particular moment in time it's the fastest PC we've tested. It trumps its nearest (and admittedly less-expensive) competitors, the Digital Storm Black Ops Enix Edition and Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960, with build quality, insane component stats, and ultimately bragging rights. You don't buy a PC this expensive because it can do spreadsheets. You buy one because you want to crush your enemies on the gaming grid, then brag to your friends about how you did it on your incredibly overbuilt $7,000 PC (provided your friends are also part of the top 1 percent). Because of that and its blazing performance, the Mach V follows its predecessors as our new Editors' Choice for high-end gaming rigs.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X) with several other desktops side by side.

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