Introduction

A few weeks back, we provided our initial review of HP's Blackbird 002. What we found was a very interesting and exotic design, but without more information on pricing and availability it was difficult to come to any final conclusions. In fact, we were almost left with more questions than answers, so we spent some time talking to HP Gaming's CTO (and VoodooPC founder) Rahul Sood and the Blackbird sales team. There are still some questions that we weren't able to get answered, but we did get a lot of good material and we felt it would be worthwhile to revisit the Blackbird as well as HP's Gaming division.

One of the first things that might be a bit confusing for some people is how HP Gaming relates to VoodooPC. While HP bought out VoodooPC last year, they continue to exist as a separate brand (though still under the HP corporate umbrella). You can still go out and purchase a VoodooPC computer, and you will get the same thing that you always got from Voodoo: extreme attention to detail, premium components, and prices that might just leave you gasping for breath. VoodooPC is as much a status symbol as anything, and while the performance and construction is definitely top-notch, the simple truth is that we just don't see many people being willing to plunk down as much as $10,000 (or more!) on hardware that is going to be second-tier performance in 12 months.

This gets into one of those dirty little secrets about computers that some companies don't like to discuss. AnandTech of course isn't one of those companies, so let's air the dirty laundry. There are a few truths about extreme performance computer hardware. First, naturally, is that it costs quite a bit of money. Second, you generally get rapidly diminishing returns as you move up the performance ladder. Third, newer and faster products are always just six to twelve months away. Finally, if you take the top performing parts currently on the market and slap them together in a system, the difference in performance between something manufactured by a boutique computer shop (VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Alienware, etc.) and something built in your parents' basement is, generally speaking, negligible.

These aren't the only truths, of course. Another point that frequently comes up in enthusiast circles is that overclocking - particularly of CPUs - can save you a truckload of money. Practically speaking, there is no difference in performance between a QX6850 running at 3.0GHz and an overclocked Q6600 running at the same speed (9x333). With the right cooling, you can most likely push both processors up to around 3.5-3.6GHz (9x400), and performance will remain equal. What you do get with the QX6850 is more flexibility and (typically) slightly lower voltages. The unlocked multiplier on the QX6850 (and all of the Core 2 Extreme line) means that adjusting front side bus speeds isn't only way to affect the CPU clock speed. However, it's difficult to find a good reason to spend over three times as much on the CPU just for convenience. The best reason to purchase a Core 2 Extreme is honestly if you're not planning on overclocking and you want the best possible guaranteed performance. In that case, you might be more interested in a factory overclocked - and warrantied - system like the Blackbird.

The take away from all of this discussion is that our real question in regards to something like the Blackbird 002 is: what can it add to the computing experience that isn't directly related to raw performance? With a bit more time using the system, more configuration options available, and a lot more details on pricing, we should be able to answer that question.



Blackbird 002, Take Two

One of the most impressive aspects about the Blackbird is undoubtedly the case design. This isn't just your typical rectangular computer case with a window, some lights, a design cut into the metal, and a fancy paint job. As we mentioned in the previous article, the fully assembled case is quite heavy, but it's also extremely sturdy. The case is made from cast aluminum, and the main structure is extremely thick aluminum. The system we were shipped weighs about 70 pounds, and while the liquid cooling certainly accounts for some of the weight, the thick shell is the primary contributor.


One of the aspects of the case that we didn't mention previously (in part because we weren't aware of this fact at the time) is that the case door can actually be easily removed. Swing the door open and lift up on it and you can pull it off the pins and set it aside while you access the internals. Because of the heavy-duty design, this can all be accomplished without compromising structural integrity.

Other than looking cool and weighing a lot, the design of the case does serve other purposes. First, the raised chassis opens up a sixth side of cooling: air can now come in the bottom of the case. This may not be strictly necessary, but with the compartmental design that HP has created the bottom intake provides fresh air to the power supply.


The purpose of the compartmentalized design is to provide optimal cooling to all of the major components without creating a bunch of turbulence, so the internals are broken up into three main sections: at the bottom is the power supply, in the middle are the expansion cards, and at the top we find the CPU and water cooling system. The hard drives are located towards the front of the chassis and cooled by an internal 120mm fan that also provides airflow to the expansion cards. Having this fan located several inches inside the chassis allows it to provide airflow without generating much in the way of audible noise.


The panel that holds the expansion cards in place swings open with a quick release of the latch, and like the main door this can also be removed. Other plastic panels that help divide the interior into compartments can also be removed, and with all of these out of the way users get quick and easy access to the internals.

Upgrading expansion cards - outside of dealing with the water cooling on the GPU(s) if you get the LCi version - adding or removing hard drives, or swapping out the secondary optical drive can all be done in a matter of minutes without ever needing to touch a tool. We've seen plenty of tool-less case designs over the years, but without a doubt this is one of the slickest approaches that we've ever had the pleasure of using. It's also important to remember that even with the unique case construction, all the components contained within the Blackbird are all standard ATX offerings.

All of this raises some interesting points of discussion in regards to the case. Assuming that the cumbersome weight isn't a problem - it will be for some people but not for others - how much are we actually talking about spending on just the case? A lot of people are perfectly happy with the typical Antec and Cooler Master budget cases, but some people want a truly high-quality case like a Lian Li and they're willing to spend several hundred dollars if necessary. Will it be possible for users to simply bypass HP and purchase the case separately? (For now, the answer is no, but if enough people are interested HP might have a change of heart.) If you're looking at building a completely new high-end computer anyway, however, that might not even be necessary provided that HP's prices are reasonable. So how does HP's pricing of the Blackbird compare with a DIY build?



Blackbird 002 Pricing

At present, there are three models of the Blackbird 002 listed on the HP website. However, you can call HP Gaming to further customize your own system. Arguably the most interesting option is to just go for the all-out "Dedication Edition" that has been available for a couple weeks. Only 518 of these systems will be sold, but because these are mass-produced (relatively speaking) there are some savings on the total price. So let's start with the Dedication Edition and see how HP does in the pricing department.

HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition
	Component	Price
CPU	Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (Quad-core 2x4MB Shared cache OC to 3.33GHz)	$1,035
Motherboard	ASUS Striker 680i SLI - Customized (CrossFire support enabled)	$300
RAM	2x1GB Corsair Dominator PC2-6400	$150
GPU(s)	2xGeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB	$1,220
Hard Drive 1	Western Digital Raptor 160GB 10k RPM	$180
Hard Drive 2	(Seagate) 500GB 7200 RPM	$100
Optical Drive 1	20X DVDR with LightScribe	$40
Optical Drive 2	20X DVDR with LightScribe	$40
Power Supply	TOPOWER 1.1kW Modular	$325
Case	HP Blackbird 002 Custom	???
Cooling	Asetek CPU/GPU Cooling Kit	$450
Keyboard	Voodoo Razer Gaming Keyboard (Tarantula)	$75
Mouse	Voodoo Razer Gaming Mouse (Deathadder)	$47
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit)	$180
Warranty	HP 1-year limited hardware and technical support	$0
Assembly	HP gaming division assembly and tuning	???
Total Estimate	(Not counting case and assembly)	$4,142
Actual Price	(Without shipping and tax)	$5,500

We used Google in order to search for prices on most of the parts, but we tried to narrow down our retailer choices to companies that we consider "reputable" so we aren't simply grabbing the cheapest price we could find online. Some of the prices do involve some guesswork - for example, getting the water cooling system with all of the necessary water blocks preinstalled seems to be worth about $450 to us, though technically you could pick up a similar water cooling setup for closer to $300. How much you think getting a preassembled computer is worth - not to mention overclocking of the CPU without voiding the warranty - is another unknown. Finally, there's the case itself, which we can easily estimate at costing more than $300, but how much more? All told, it appears that the case, CPU overclocking, and system assembly carries a charge of around $1400 on the Dedication Edition.

A lot of people might initially react to the price of the system with an outraged demand of, "How can they possibly expect anyone to pay that much money for a computer?" While we certainly wouldn't suggest that everyone needs to go out and spend $5,500 on a computer, the reality is that the HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition is hardly a rip-off when compared with do-it-yourself prices. This is an absolutely top-quality computer with a unique case, and you basically get it for a price that is relatively competitive with what it would cost for you to assemble such a system on your own. Depending on how you might want to change things, you might be paying as little as a 15% premium which seems reasonable to us. Update: We initially included a Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive in our price list, as the test system includes one and we mistakenly thought the Dedication Edition did as well. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

For quick contrast, we took a look at a couple of other similarly equipped systems from boutique computer vendors. Specifically, we looked at Alienware's Area-51 ALX, Falcon Northwest's Mach V, and VoodooPC's Omen. The cheapest of these three is the Alienware, which will cost around $6,000 when configured similarly to the Blackbird 002. (Dell's XPS 720H2C also carries a similar price.) The Mach V will cost around $7,600 without a custom paint job, or about $8,200 with a single color paint scheme and as much as $10,000 if you want to go all out on the case graphics. VoodooPC doesn't offer the Omen without a high-end paint job, and the price ends up starting around $8,000. The closest we could come to matching the price of the Blackbird 002 was with ABS Computers, where we ended up at $5,200 but with a pretty generic case.

Other than a difference in case designs and minor component changes, why on earth would anyone even consider one of these more expensive offerings? We can't speak for all of the companies, but we did discuss this with VoodooPC/HP Gaming a bit. What it all comes down to is production facilities. VoodooPC builds all of their systems on an individual basis. From start to finish, each system is handcrafted by a single technician. This goes beyond merely installing the parts and software; after initial setup, each system is tuned and tweaked for optimal performance, and an attempt is made to eke out every last bit of power from each component.


In a sense, you're paying for the modern computer equivalent of a Duesenberg: a system built by hand rather than on an assembly line. The Blackbird (and most likely the Alienware ALX) step back a little bit and give up the last few percent of performance in order to bring a decent amount of savings to the end-user. Not surprisingly, the assembly line approach also results in the ability to roll out systems a lot faster; lead times on most boutique computer systems tend to be a month or more. A customized Blackbird 002 currently has a one-month lead time, but the Dedication Edition is more readily available and we expect the lead time for customized builds to drop down to a couple weeks or less in the future.



More on Blackbird Pricing

Because Blackbird 002 production is still ramping up, HP is delaying the full release of their online configurator. That should be available in November, at which point additional components and options might become available. At present, we talked with one of the sales team to find out exactly how low we could go in terms of price. Obviously, prices are subject to change over time, but a basic Blackbird 002 can be had for as little as $2561. What exactly do you get for that price? Unfortunately, not nearly as much performance as you get with the Dedication Edition.

HP Blackbird 002 Minimum Configuration
	Component	Price
CPU	Core 2 Extreme E6750 (Dual-core 4MB Shared cache 2.66GHz)	$197
Motherboard	ASUS Striker 680i SLI - Customized (CrossFire support enabled)	$300
RAM	2x1GB PC2-5400	$75
GPU(s)	1x GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB	$138
Hard Drive 1	(Seagate) 320GB 7200 RPM	$78
Optical Drive 1	20X DVDR with LightScribe	$40
Power Supply	TOPOWER 900W Modular	$290
Case	HP Blackbird 002 Custom	???
Cooling	Asetek CPU Cooling Kit	$250
Keyboard	Logitech G11	$53
Mouse	Logitech G5	$40
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit)	$180
Warranty	HP 1-year limited hardware and technical support	$0
Assembly	HP gaming division assembly and tuning	???
Total Estimate	(Not counting case and assembly)	$1,641
Actual Price	(Without shipping and tax)	$2,562

As you can see, a lot of compromises were made in order to get the price this low. Assuming $750 for the case and system assembly, which seems reasonable, there's still an additional 10% markup. Compared to the boutique computer vendors, the price is still very competitive, but now you're basically paying for a top-quality case coupled to a midrange computer. At the very least, we think bumping up to 8800 GTS SLI would make sense for anyone considering this sort of prebuilt computer, which pushes the price up to $3,121. CrossFire 2900 XT 512MB is available for $50 more ($3,171) while the higher-end graphics options (CrossFire 1GB 2900 cards or GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra) range from around $3,500 up to $3,750.

Once you start talking about high-end dual graphics card solutions, we would definitely look at upgrading the memory to at least DDR2-800 (another $30), and we would give serious thought to doubling the amount of system memory and moving to the 64-bit version of Windows Vista... if we could. Right now, HP Gaming is still only shipping with Vista 32-bit as they have still not validated Vista 64-bit works properly on their hardware. That's unfortunate, as we are definitely reaching the point where moving to a 64-bit OS on the high-end makes a lot of sense. Still, Vista 32-bit will allow you to utilize more than 2GB of RAM, and with the OS footprint it might not be a bad idea to have more memory. If you start adding hard drive space, then why not go ahead and do liquid cooled graphics cards? Pretty soon, you're right back to the Dedication Edition, only you would be spending more money.

As a final pricing alternative, we decided to put together our own high-end enthusiast system to see what we would be paying for similar performance. A few of the components could be debated, and we're not necessarily giving this as a high-end recommendation at this time, but most of the parts we would put in a modern high-end overclocking setup would be very similar to the following.

DIY Overclocking Alternative
	Component	Price
CPU	Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Quad-core 2x4MB Shared cache 2.40GHz)	$278
Motherboard	ASUS P5N32-E SLI (680i SLI)	$205
RAM	2x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500	$160
GPU(s)	2x MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD OC (610/1000)	$1,000
Hard Drive 1	Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10k RPM	$180
Hard Drive 2	Seagate 7200.10 500GB 7200 RPM	$100
Optical Drive 1	20X SATA DVDR with LightScribe	$40
Optical Drive 2	20X SATA DVDR with LightScribe	$40
Power Supply	OCZ GameXStream 1010W	$280
Case	Silverstone SST-TJ07-BW	$330
Cooling	Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme + Fan	$70
Keyboard	Voodoo Razer Gaming Keyboard (Tarantula)	$75
Mouse	Voodoo Razer Gaming Mouse (Deathadder)	$47
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate Retail (32 or 64-bit)	$320
Total Price	(Without shipping and tax)	$3,125

We decided to simply skip out on water cooling, as our own testing has been less than stellar and we're finding that top-quality air cooling is still more than sufficient for the vast majority of people. We didn't bother with GeForce 8800 Ultra, but the MSI cards we selected come factory overclocked and are nearly as fast as the Ultra while costing significantly less. For the processor, we of course decided to skip out on the Core 2 Extreme and stick with the far more affordable Core 2 Quad Q6600 (which should overclock nicely). You get all of this for a much lower price while still achieving similar performance to the Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition. We did upgrade to a retail version of Windows Vista, on the assumption that swapping out components is probably going to be a more frequent occurrence on a DIY setup, so getting the single install OEM version is likely a bad idea. You can also choose whether or not to make the leap to Vista 64-bit, which is good, and considering the price you can add another 2GB of RAM and still pay significantly than a similarly equipped Blackbird 002.

You still have to put everything together yourself, and of course you'll probably be stuck dealing with various companies directly when it comes to hardware warranty/support. You also miss out on the Blackbird case, though the Silverstone we selected is by no means a poor man's alternative. Finally, you lose CrossFire support on the motherboard side (or SLI support should you choose a CrossFire compatible board). If you know your way around computer hardware, it shouldn't be too hard to easily match the 3.3-3.5GHz CPU clock speed with this particular configuration. You can also purchase all of these parts today, get them in the mail later this week, and be up and running with your new PC by the weekend.

None of this means that the Blackbird 002 is a bad choice of hardware. However, as usual users will be able to customize things a lot more on their own and end up with lower overall costs. Depending on how much your time is worth - and how much you might be lusting after the Blackbird chassis - taking the easy route and letting the folks at HP Gaming do the hard work isn't a bad alternative. If you add in a complete water cooling system, we would count on spending at least a couple hours getting all of that prepped and installed. Lucky for us enthusiasts, most of us tend to have a lot more time than we have money.



Additional Testing and Information

Since we had the system for another couple of weeks, we did spend quite a bit more time testing things out. We're not going to bother with listing additional benchmark scores, as most of the updated scores are within a few percent of what we recorded in our initial review. We did discover a few areas that could use some additional tuning, specifically the memory configuration, and overall performance was improved by up to 5% just by tightening the timings and/or increasing the memory speed.

One of the oddities about the test system is that it was shipped with CrossFire 2900 XT 1GB cards. This seems to have been done more as proof that CrossFire is working on the Blackbird rather than for performance reasons. True, it would cost another $200 to upgrade to GeForce 8800 GTX SLI, but if gaming performance is your primary consideration and you're already spending over $5000, we definitely feel NVIDIA currently holds the upper hand. The latest NVIDIA Windows Vista driver release has removed any lingering doubts on this subject, but of course NVIDIA and AMD are both working on their next GPU updates and we may see those sooner rather than later.

We mentioned in the initial review that we had had a few system crashes/lockups. Those only occurred under continuous stress testing for several days, but it's still something that might concern a few people. It appears that HP has decided to ship overclocked QX6850 systems with a 3.33GHz clock speed instead of the 3.67GHz of our test system. While that does represent a 10% loss of performance in CPU intensive tasks, we can verify that even the rare instability issues we encountered went away at the slightly reduced clock speed. A little bit of fine tuning on the part of the end-user would likely allow a final CPU speed of around 3.5GHz while maintaining full stability, though obviously that will vary between CPUs. Increasing the memory voltage to 2.0V (without reducing the overclock) also seemed to help.

For the interested, we also did some quick noise level benchmarking. The difference in the amount of noise the system makes at full load and while idle is very small. Measured one foot from the left side of the case, we recorded 48 dB idle and 51 dB at load. That might seem pretty poor, but that was actually the worst location for noise measurements and objectively the noise levels seemed lower than what you would encounter with a regular air cooled setup. From the front and from the top, noise levels were 44 dB idle and 45 dB at load, so much of the noise seems to come through the ventilation on the left side of the case. Finally, sitting in a chair next to the system at a distance of about 4 feet, we recorded idle/load noise levels of 40/41.5 dB. By no means can this be considered a silent computer, but considering the amount of performance packed into the case the noise levels are very good.

There are a few other points of interest we wanted to touch on before we wrap up. First, Blackbird 002 is not meant to be a static offering. Instead, it will represent the top-of-the-line gaming offering from HP, and it will be updated with new components over time. Besides the aforementioned GPU updates that are almost certain to occur this fall, the CPU and chipset arenas aren't standing still either. HP will configure and ship an AMD based Blackbird starting in November utilizing the Athlon 64 X2 6000+; however, we don't see any point in bothering with such a processor right now. By far the more interesting AMD configuration will be whatever HP provides once Phenom starts shipping, and HP has committed to providing such a configuration.

Another subject that we discussed with Rahul Sood is the nForce 680i SLI ASUS motherboard with CrossFire support. He wouldn't tell us exactly who was responsible (other than that HP/VoodooPC was the driving force), but we can verify that there is a customized BIOS utilized on the motherboard and we were unable to flash a standard ASUS Striker using a copy of the BIOS. Rahul did state that they feel flexibility is one of the more important things about their motherboard selection, and they are evaluating all of the upcoming chipset releases (X38 from Intel and the various new SLI and CrossFire offerings from NVIDIA and AMD). We're fairly confident that whatever chipset they decide to use, they will continue to support both SLI and CrossFire on a single platform. Until we can get AMD and NVIDIA to drop the restrictions and open up things for all dual x16 motherboard offerings, this may represent the best compromise.

Finally, we asked Rahul about what sort of upgrade options they would offer people in the future. One of the benefits of purchasing a VoodooPC is that they will perform any system upgrades for you as long as you own the system. All you have to do is pay for shipping back to VoodooPC, and then pay for the wholesale price of the new hardware. They will upgrade the hardware, swap components as necessary, and clean up the wiring - all "free" of charge. (We're not quite sure about the wholesale pricing, however.) Rahul indicated that they are still trying to work out some sort of upgrade plan for the Blackbird, so if that's something you might find beneficial, keep an eye on the Blackbird website.



Closing Thoughts

Compared to most of the other high-end systems that we've seen and reviewed over the years, it's actually really difficult not to be impressed by the Blackbird. It's not necessarily a perfect system, but compared to most of the other prebuilt "enthusiast" gaming systems we've seen it gets just about everything right. It looks great, it performs as well as all of the other top systems, and unlike some of the proprietary designs we've seen (sorry - we're really not interested in BTX) we basically don't have any serious complaints. What's more, it does all of this while maintaining a competitive price.


That doesn't mean that you can't go out and build a similar system for less money on your own. Not surprisingly, you can, but unless HP decides to start selling the Blackbird chassis without any internal components, the only way you're getting this case is if you purchase a Blackbird or do some serious case modification on your own. We aren't huge proponents of enthusiast class prebuilt systems - mostly because these systems usually fall far short of what most enthusiasts want in terms of price/performance. However, if we were in the market for a top-quality prebuilt system, right now the Blackbird 002 would be at the top of our list. It comes with all of the performance and features you would expect, and the price is extremely competitive.


That's great for the wealthy enthusiasts of the world, but of course the reality is most people are unwilling to spend $3,000 let alone $5,500 on a new computer, regardless of how fast it is. Obviously, the Blackbird 002 isn't meant for everyone. For now we're left to wonder what will be the next offspring of HP's VoodooPC acquisition. We know that a notebook is in the works, but we're a lot more interested in seeing what they can come up with in the entry level and midrange gaming enthusiast markets.

Take what we've seen in the Blackbird 002 and scale the price down to $1500 or less, and we'd certainly be interested. Even better would be to get all of the benefits of the PC as a gaming platform and manage to compete with the PS3 in terms of price... but that might be asking a bit much. Then again, once you play games on a system like the Blackbird, the allure of console gaming may feel a bit tarnished.