You better believe I benchmarked the crap out of this rig, and found that it handles 1440p, Ultrawide and 4K gaming like an absolute champion. The other chunk of that pride? This thing's exceptional performance. There's a thick, hardy owner's binder with the company's logo stitched onto the front and a smattering of extra cables, instructional pages, and recovery USB inside. There's a mug and a custom coffee blend ("Falcon Fuel" - it WILL keep you awake) from The Bean Forge, a local roaster in their neck of the Pacific Northwest. Several pages of quality assurance checks are initialed by hand. There's a personal note on the top of the box. Everything about the way the system is prepared, shipped, and presented implies that I'm not just another number. Part of that pride is attributed to some intangibles like a strong sense of ownership. Knowing that their in-house artist can do stuff like this stunning airbrushed system inspired by Game of Thrones, I wasn't too worried about this particular requirement. Second, it needed to be a single-GPU system (you overclockers and enthusiasts can have your badass SLI and CrossFire setups I want elegance and day-of-launch support) that could still handle 4K and Ultrawide gaming. A machine that packed enough horsepower to handle anything VR could throw at it (it's worth mentioning that the Tiki is currently the only Pascal Oculus Ready system in existence), and one that was built like a tank but could be easily transported to my local library for VR club meetings, to a friend's for a LAN party, or just around the house without being a hassle. First and foremost, I wanted a compact system not just for aesthetics, but for portability. When it came time to put serious thought into my own gaming PC wishlist, I had very specific needs. Ok, let me bring this back around to my Tiki, what's inside of it, and why I love it. "There Are Many Others Like It, But This One Is Mine." This seems insane from a business standpoint, but the company claims they’re comfortable offering expensive 2-way overnight service for one reason: their defect rate is so consistently low they barely use it (count my wife among the people who didn't need it). They’ll then address the problem and ship it back to you, again on their dime, with overnight service. If your system develops any serious issue that can’t be solved over the phone, Falcon will pick up your system via overnight courier. Did I mention it's roughly the size of an Xbox One?Ī true 3 year warranty is also included with the purchase - that covers parts, labor and tech support. This was a big deal to me with this new "certain age" mentality. Speaking of ultra-enthusiast specs, guess what the Tiki can accommodate despite being the size of a console? Just stuff like a liquid-cooled 22-core processor, 64GB of DDR 4 RAM, a Blu-Ray writer, a 600W modular power supply, an Nvidia GTX 1080 graphics card, an M.2 SSD and up to 10TB of total storage. The Tiki was introduced to the market only 3 months after Alienware's trailblazing but now retired X51 - except that Reeves' chassis housed a power supply beefy enough to drive an overclocked Intel Core i7 and an Nvidia Titan, while Alienware resorted to a massive Xbox-sized external power brick that couldn't support high-end, ultra-enthusiast configurations. There are reasons why Facebook's Oculus group one of their biggest clients, and why people like Nathan Fillion are buying them (the rusted look in that tweet is to honor Serenity, by the way).įun fact: The Tiki is one of the principle reasons Asus created an enthusiast-level mini-ITX motherboard. When you really stop and reflect on this, it's remarkable that a well-known PC brand has not changed their core design in 4 years, yet remains more popular than ever. It has spawned several copycat systems from other boutique PC builders, the majority of which aren't reviewed as enthusiastically, and have seen their overall design tweaked or scrapped year after year. (Seriously, if you want to truly appreciate the work that went into creating this custom chassis, read that 37 page article at Tom's Hardware.) This is why the 4-inch wide, 13.25-inch tall system has seen only the subtlest changes under the hood as opposed to external redesigns and different yearly approaches. It's a chassis that president Kelt Reeves - whose company has been at the forefront of the custom PC industry since the early 90s - perfected the first time around in 2012. It consists of steel and sandblasted aluminum - with an optional granite ( granite!) base - and can be augmented with a variety of professional Glasurit or House of Kolor paint jobs, including your own designs or, well, anything under the sun. The Tiki's first impression comes via its custom chassis that simultaneously exudes minimalism and luxury.
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