Power Consumption
The massive EVGA 1600W 80Plus Platinum power supply is needed in this system. It is really quite an interesting system on the power consumption side. On one hand, idle can be as low as around 150W, which is not bad for the system. Then going beyond idle, one can get the system to really expand. Exceeding 800W is not a challenge, and getting over 1kW of power consumption is also quite easy. We have heard that in some heavy overclocking scenarios this system can get into the 1.3-1.4kW range, but we did not push for the last few percent of performance sacrificing noise and power in the quest.
Of course, we had to at least share a photo of the huge C19-ended power cable that the system came with.
One area that we showed in the video is the noise. This system took our 34dba studio to 37.5-39dba. We were shocked as I thought it would sound like a jet engine. Falcon Northwest makes premium systems, and part of that is making pre-built systems that can be used in studios even if they are packing a huge amount of performance. Bryan #2 ran from the studio to my office when he turned it on because he was so shocked at how quiet it ended up being and wanted to show me. This is quieter than our Noctua-powered self-built system, even as Falcon Northwest delivered more performance.
Final Words
Overall, this is an awesome system. Falcon Northwest charges a premium over self-built machines, but in this case, it feels like it makes sense for ultra-high-end workstation/ server buyers. There are features like the custom liquid cooling loop that make this system not only perform better than its large OEM counterparts but also at lower noise profiles and smaller chassis dimensions.
These may seem like small things, but all of the small things add up like using faster ECC RDIMMs to keep ECC support while also increasing memory bandwidth. Falcon Northwest is actually using the Xeon w9-3495X in a performance profile that many other vendors do not, and is getting massive performance gains as a result. They even were handily beating our self-build using the same CPU and memory for some frame of reference.
Overall, the Falcon Northwest RAK is an awesome system that is fast, expandable, compact, and shockingly quiet. It has the added benefit of having an easy path to becoming a server down the line already being in a rackmount enclosure and with remote IPMI management. A fast workstation today with a path to becoming a server later is a great combination that we wish more vendors followed as part of their green initiatives.
Again, if you want to learn more, check out the video here:
