Did you rebuild your specs with the Fragbox? Just curious. I'm glad to see the Tiki came out cheaper, though I'm not sure why since usually equivalent performance in a smaller form factor tends to increase the price somewhat. Maybe the difference is that the Talon still leaves room for expansion later, and you're paying extra for that?
That ABS system at Newegg does look very crisp! -- of course you'll have to add a monitor to it, but still should be under the Falcon pricing. (As an aside, I don't know that I'd buy a monitor or speakers or mouse or anything else in accessories like that from Falcon. They aren't going to offer something that they haven't tested extensively, to protect their rep, but it isn't like they're putting those things together and wiring them intelligently and running the bios etc. I recommend using their accessories as recommendations, and shopping for them somewhere else. Like at Newegg for example. This is how I shopped a sound system for my Dad's den, by the way: computer speaker/amp systems are just as awesome if not moreso, at some cost savings, and I worked off Falcon's recommendations at the time.)
I just don't know how reliable to expect it to be. When you buy Falcon, you're buying a very long-term well-earned reputation, sort of like buying a Volvo if Volvo made Ferraris. They're going to put your computer through a rigorous test of dozens of points before it leaves, including extensive software and hardware tests: that computer will be chugging steadily hard at work for forty-eight hours, for example, if I recall correctly.
I also don't know if the ABS system will be bloated or not. Often systems with suspiciously low prices will come with bloatware on your software: the software publishers partially subsidize your cost that way, by shoveling demos and other things they'll hope will convince (or annoy) you into buying them eventually. FNW comes with Windows, and the software needed to run your hardware, and whatever extra software you ordered from them (like Office365), and that's all. They also send an emergency reinstall kit; and an entire set of extra (high quality) cabling for everything on your computer; and instruction manuals for all your hardware. (They used to send the original install discs, too, including for anything Windows you bought; not sure how they send licensed software installs now, but I bet it's still policy somehow. Office is now only a one year license, of course, FNW can't do anything about that.)
This is a big selling point on doing your own whitebox build, too, of course: you can be sure you're only getting the system footprint you want, and minimize the extra stuff eating up your cycles and hectoring you about buying the full version or whatever. I've managed to stay away from having to do tech work on friends and family the past few years, so I don't know how prevalent that sort of thing still is.
