HP Firebird With Voodoo DNA [ A Cheaper Alternative to HP Blackbird]

HP has come out with HP Firebird – a performance PC that’s small in size, low on noise, is modular, and more energy efficient than other gaming PCs. It looks similar to the chic and very expensive HP Blackbird 002, which costs around $5,000. It features removable tool-free hard drives (250 GB-320GB dual hard drives), full system liquid cooling, and an aluminum foot opening an additional side so that cool air can enter the chassis.

A lot of the hardware used in this PC has been custom-designed to fit into its smaller confines. For example, Nvidia has created smaller video cards and Creative Labs have designed smaller X-FI audio cards. Hopefully, the custom hardware should not present any problems while upgrading capabilities or when swapping with another machine.

The GPUs, chipset, and CPU are cooled with the help of an on-board dynamic thermal management plus a factory sealed liquid cooling system. An innovation that helps keep the system stay cool while running is the external power supply. It also reduces noise. In fact, HP claims that less noise emanates from the Firebird when it’s running as compared to other gaming PCs that are on idle mode. Keeping the power supply outside has enabled the company to keep the CPU chassis small and at the same time dramatically improve efficiency.

The HP Firebird is one-third the size of the HP Blackbird and will retail at $1799. An upgraded version, the model 803 is available for $2099. It features extra hard drive space, Blu-ray, built-in wireless Ethernet, a more powerful processor, and more.