Falcon Northwest
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| Falcon Northwest | |
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| Type | Privately Owned |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1992 |
| Headquarters | Medford, Oregon, USA |
| Key people | Kelt Reeves, President |
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Products | Desktops Laptops |
| Website | www.falcon-nw.com |
Falcon Northwest is a personal computer manufacturing company located in Medford, Oregon, USA which was founded in 1992 by its current President Kelt Reeves. The company began its existence focusing on high-end systems for CAD applications. Falcon Northwest is considered a pioneer in the field as they were the first PC company to specialize solely in high-end hardware.[citation needed]
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[edit] Operations
Falcon Northwest maintains one facility located in Medford, Oregon. Falcon Northwest's operations are mostly restricted to online and telephone orders, as the company has not signed any distribution deals with any major retailers. Falcon Northwest is renown amongst gamers for its custom professionally-painted cases, often purchased by companies for promotional purposes.[citation needed]
Falcon's lineup began with the Mach series and slowly expanded over time. The Mach models were built with components that Falcon Northwest believed to offer the highest performance in PC games. In 2000, the company added the Talon line, at a lower price than the Mach V line.[1] Later, the company brought out the Fragbook line of laptops. Falcon Northwest also offers a small form factor (SFF) PC called the FragBox, a miniature system intended for LAN parties.
Falcon Northwest's magazine advertisements over the years have usually consisted of game art and its characters surrounding one of their systems. Their ads have included games such as Half-Life, Unreal, Alien vs. Predator, and MechWarrior, among many others. Their earliest ads played off the company's Falcon name and related it with the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter plane, perhaps relating to the Falcon series of simulations. Many of the company's ads are available for viewing on their web site.
The company has occasionally had customized hardware made specifically for its machines. One example was the Falcon Northwest Special Edition Maxi Gamer Xentor 32, an upgraded NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Ultra 3D accelerator card. It wasn't simply overclocked, however. The card used special low-latency RAM and hand-picked accelerator chips.[2]
[edit] Competitors
Falcon Northwest has traditionally competed with PC gaming niche companies such as Alienware and VoodooPC.
[edit] Recent Publicity
At the Metreon in San Fransisco, the Headquarters of the US launch for the Playstation 3, the popular gaming magazine PC Gamer gave away a super high-end $7,500 system to the person that would give up their spot in line. There was a contract that followed the lucky person's acquisition of the Falcon Northwestern PC that stated they could not own, receive as a gift or otherwise have a Playstation 3 at all. Postion #42 in line got the system in the end after a lottery out of a hat.
[edit] References
- ^ McClellan, Keith. Talon/Falcon Northwest Prelim, Tweak3D, January 28, 2000.
- ^ Freeman, Vince. Falcon Northwest Special Edition Xentor Review, Sharky Extreme, November 12, 1999.
[edit] External links
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