The Falcon Northwest Tiki ($2,793 direct) is a midrange gaming rig that approaches the performance of high-end gaming systems. It has a lot more performance than entry-level gaming models, but that's to be expected due to its price tag. What's surprising is that this gaming prowess comes in a system the size of a gaming console. The engineers at Falcon NW have done it again, in a svelte compact chassis that seems like it shouldn't be powerful enough to play 3D games at true 1080p HD resolution. But it is. It so is.

Design and Features
A Tiki is often a man-sized totem, but sometimes they'll fit on a table. The Falcon Northwest Tiki is one of the latter, since it's sized about 14 by 4 by 14 inches (HWD) with the granite base installed. The system is built out of your standard black painted heavy gauge steel and aluminum, similar to Falcon NW's other gaming rigs. The sides can be painted virtually any automotive color and finish, with airbrushed paintings optional (like on the Mach V, FragBox, laptops, and Talon). You will of course have to pay more for custom paintwork, with price depending on the complexity of the job. Unlike the Falcon Northwest Mach V and Talon, the front panel of the Tiki doesn't swing open. Instead the optical drive is a slot-loading, top-mounted affair, with Blu-ray capabilities in our review unit. Falcon Northwest has gone out of its way to position this system up against console-size systems like the Alienware X51 ($999.99 direct, 4 stars), though the Alienware X51 is in a totally separate price category. That said, the compact gaming desktop segment is rapidly maturing, and is well suited for the gamer who absolutely doesn't want (or need) two or more graphics cards.

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The Tiki chassis can support a 195-watt graphics card like the included Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 card. It's on a riser card above the motherboard, so the DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI ports are on the back panel of the unit, avoiding the more convoluted wiring arrangement that the Falcon Northwest Mach V ($6,899 direct, 4.5 stars) has to use. The Tiki optimizes cooling airflow, with lots of vents, including a huge vent that takes up a third of the top panel. Speaking of cooling, that's part of the reason why the Tiki comes with its distinctive granite base. You can use the desktop without its base, but be careful that you don't knock the system over or position it horizontally on your desk. The cooling becomes compromised in a horizontal position, and the system could overheat during an intense gaming session. The granite base keeps the system from tipping over due to a stray arm wave, pet, or small child. We received the light grey granite base with blue mica flecks, but Falcon Northwest also offers a black granite base as standard to match the black-painted Tiki.

The system's interior is jam packed with the motherboard, 450-watt internal power supply unit, Intel Core i7-3770K CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics card, 8GB of 1,866MHz DDR3 memory, 256GB SSD, 2TB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and the Blu-ray drive. The only space to spare is a space for an additional 2.5-inch hard drive like another 256GB SSD. While the internal space is limited, the exterior has a plethora of ports, including four USB 2.0 ports, six USB 3.0 ports (including two top-mounted ports), two powered eSATA ports, HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, Ethernet, and optical audio ports all over the top and back panels of the Tiki. About the only port that's missing is the nascent Thunderbolt port, and you won't need one of those (yet).

The system comes as clean as can be, with just the operating system (64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium), Cyberlink PowerDVD for Blu-ray, and Lucid Virtu (for managing the internal graphics and discrete graphics). You're free to put whatever games or programs you want without having to worry about uninstalling a whole bunch of bloatware. The system comes with Falcon NW's usual three year warranty on parts and labor. One thing that's missing is any sort of kitsch additions, considering the name. Oh well, I suppose you could put a Tiki bar wallpaper on the system's desktop.

Performance
Performance is where gaming rigs earn their right to be on the grid. The Tiki certainly has the chops to go toe-to-toe with other high-end gaming systems. Though only a smidge below what we'd consider high-end in price, the system gets really good scores for a single-card system. The Tiki smoothly played both game tests at all settings: Crysis (123 frames per second at medium quality, 60fps at very high quality) and Lost Planet 2 (217fps at middle quality, 94fps at high quality). These scores compare well with our current midrange gaming Editors' Choice, the Cyberpower Zeus Thunder 3000SE ($2,299 direct, 4 stars) (132fps in Crysis at medium, 84fps at Very High settings, and 157fps in Lost Planet 2 medium, 125fps in High settings) and is a bit stronger at the extreme settings than the Cyberpower Gamer Xtreme 4000SE ($1,899 direct, 4 stars) (which scored 56fps in Crysis and 57fps in Lost Planet 2 at High settings). It's worth noting that the Tiki's strong showing is compared to a dual–graphics card system in the Cyberpower 3000SE and an overclocked single-card system in the Cyberpower 4000SE.

The Tiki also put in a strong showing on the multimedia benchmark tests, coming in under a minute for our Handbrake video test and about two and a half minutes for the Photoshop CS5 test. These are about par for gaming rigs we've tested recently.

The Falcon Northwest Tiki is everything we've come to expect from a Falcon NW system. It has a great build quality, comes with an overclockable Core i7 processor, very high-end graphics, and forward-looking technology like a 256GB SSD. That said, it's a lot more expensive than our current midrange gaming rig, the Cyberpower Zeus Thunder 3000SE, which is still a leader on the majority of the performance tests. If you're in the market for a console-size gaming rig, I would look long and hard at the Falcon NW Tiki, but if you have the extra room (and are willing to endure a cheaper chassis), the Cyberpower remains our Editors' Choice midrange gaming rig to beat.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
Check out the test scores for the Falcon Northwest Tiki

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Falcon Northwest Tiki with several other desktops side by side.

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