A dark horse arrives on the luxury PC scene
HP’s annual product showcase in New York City last month put the electronics manufacturer’s slim and sexy laptops and mobile devices in the limelight, but the product that stole the show was the Blackbird 002—a massive, 80-pound desktop PC.
The first official product borne out of HP’s acquisition of Calgary-based luxury computer manufacturer Voodoo PC—a company known for premium gear priced in the tens of thousands of dollars—Blackbird is a stunningly advanced, powerful and elegant piece of machinery.
HP’s chief technology officer Phil McKinney and Voodoo founder/head of HP gaming Rahul Sood stood over the machine, manufactured and assembled in Alberta, like proud parents as they showed it to journalists for the first time just hours prior to its official unveiling.
The Blackbird’s chassis is a single cast piece of aluminium painted matte black on its front and top grills and polished to a mirror shine along its interior side edges. The entire unit is suspended on a metal pedestal, allowing air to enter the box from beneath the tower to cool its high powered innards—what Sood calls “a sixth side of air cooling—an industry first.”
The machine is loaded with the sort of plush extras that Voodoo is renowned for, including an LED light on the back of the box that illuminates the machine’s jack pack for easy cable alterations, a hydraulic powered pop up panel on top of the machine that houses a bevy of quick access ports and a swinging VESA mount on the right side of the tower to which users can attach a variety of peripherals, such as LCD screens and game controllers.
Pop off the stylishly-designed side door and a gleaming interior loaded with the most decadent of PC components is exposed, including a proprietary liquid cooling system that keeps the machine dead silent even while running the most resource hungry software, and a monstrous 1.1 kilowatt power supply designed to ensure that the computer’s power hungry hardware is well fed (a green machine the Blackbird is not).
Users have the ability to order the machine to precise specifications, choosing between factory over-clocked AMD and Intel quad-core processors and the latest graphics boards from either Intel or Nvidia. Users can also select whether they’d like to add a Blu-ray, HD-DVD or dual format high definition optical drive next to the two slot loading high-speed DVD burners on the front of the machine. All components, including an ATX motherboard, are industry standard, allowing for virtually unlimited modifications.
Speaking of which, the Blackbird has a stunningly innovative, tool-less design that makes the process of swapping parts so simple that even a technophobe grandmother could tackle it. From graphics cards to hard drives, everything simply snaps into place—no screws to twist out, no cables to plug in. “It’s basically like Lego,” said Sood, as he demonstrated the installation of a standard, off-the-shelf hard drive, which involved little more than pulling out one of the system’s five hard disk trays, dropping the hardware into it, then shoving it back in and snapping up a plastic lock. Sood also mentioned that there would be no need to “mess around” with driver installation, though didn’t demonstrate this point.
HP wants to get the message out that the Blackbird is designed to be tampered with by its customers. “You won’t void your warranty by opening the case,” said McKinney. “We want people to get inside these machines.”
He also noted that, unlike the majority of ready-built consumer PCs, Blackbird will not ship with any eyesore stickers advertising interior third-party hardware (think Intel Inside), nor will it have any preloaded junk software. Indeed, much like an exotic sports car, Blackbird will be unblemished and tuned to deliver maximum performance upon delivery.
So, even though the Blackbird is branded by HP (at least on the outside; there’s a giant Voodoo DNA logo visible the second you crack open the case), it’s essentially a Voodoo dream rig—but one with a surprisingly affordable sticker price. HP will offer several recommended models ranging from $2,500 for a basic build to about $7,000 for a completely pimped out rig. Users can also choose to order a wholly tailored machine.
However, interested parties—we won’t just say gamers, since, unexpectedly, only 25 percent of people who buy Voodoo machines use their über powerful computers to play videogames—still have a small wait ahead. While a limited number of Blackbirds were made available this month to a lucky few VIPs, the general public will have to cool its heels until November to place their online-only orders.
HP’s annual product showcase in New York City last month put the electronics manufacturer’s slim and sexy laptops and mobile devices in the limelight, but the product that stole the show was the Blackbird 002—a massive, 80-pound desktop PC.
The first official product borne out of HP’s acquisition of Calgary-based luxury computer manufacturer Voodoo PC—a company known for premium gear priced in the tens of thousands of dollars—Blackbird is a stunningly advanced, powerful and elegant piece of machinery.
HP’s chief technology officer Phil McKinney and Voodoo founder/head of HP gaming Rahul Sood stood over the machine, manufactured and assembled in Alberta, like proud parents as they showed it to journalists for the first time just hours prior to its official unveiling.
The Blackbird’s chassis is a single cast piece of aluminium painted matte black on its front and top grills and polished to a mirror shine along its interior side edges. The entire unit is suspended on a metal pedestal, allowing air to enter the box from beneath the tower to cool its high powered innards—what Sood calls “a sixth side of air cooling—an industry first.”
The machine is loaded with the sort of plush extras that Voodoo is renowned for, including an LED light on the back of the box that illuminates the machine’s jack pack for easy cable alterations, a hydraulic powered pop up panel on top of the machine that houses a bevy of quick access ports and a swinging VESA mount on the right side of the tower to which users can attach a variety of peripherals, such as LCD screens and game controllers.
Pop off the stylishly-designed side door and a gleaming interior loaded with the most decadent of PC components is exposed, including a proprietary liquid cooling system that keeps the machine dead silent even while running the most resource hungry software, and a monstrous 1.1 kilowatt power supply designed to ensure that the computer’s power hungry hardware is well fed (a green machine the Blackbird is not).
Users have the ability to order the machine to precise specifications, choosing between factory over-clocked AMD and Intel quad-core processors and the latest graphics boards from either Intel or Nvidia. Users can also select whether they’d like to add a Blu-ray, HD-DVD or dual format high definition optical drive next to the two slot loading high-speed DVD burners on the front of the machine. All components, including an ATX motherboard, are industry standard, allowing for virtually unlimited modifications.
Speaking of which, the Blackbird has a stunningly innovative, tool-less design that makes the process of swapping parts so simple that even a technophobe grandmother could tackle it. From graphics cards to hard drives, everything simply snaps into place—no screws to twist out, no cables to plug in. “It’s basically like Lego,” said Sood, as he demonstrated the installation of a standard, off-the-shelf hard drive, which involved little more than pulling out one of the system’s five hard disk trays, dropping the hardware into it, then shoving it back in and snapping up a plastic lock. Sood also mentioned that there would be no need to “mess around” with driver installation, though didn’t demonstrate this point.
HP wants to get the message out that the Blackbird is designed to be tampered with by its customers. “You won’t void your warranty by opening the case,” said McKinney. “We want people to get inside these machines.”
He also noted that, unlike the majority of ready-built consumer PCs, Blackbird will not ship with any eyesore stickers advertising interior third-party hardware (think Intel Inside), nor will it have any preloaded junk software. Indeed, much like an exotic sports car, Blackbird will be unblemished and tuned to deliver maximum performance upon delivery.
So, even though the Blackbird is branded by HP (at least on the outside; there’s a giant Voodoo DNA logo visible the second you crack open the case), it’s essentially a Voodoo dream rig—but one with a surprisingly affordable sticker price. HP will offer several recommended models ranging from $2,500 for a basic build to about $7,000 for a completely pimped out rig. Users can also choose to order a wholly tailored machine.
However, interested parties—we won’t just say gamers, since, unexpectedly, only 25 percent of people who buy Voodoo machines use their über powerful computers to play videogames—still have a small wait ahead. While a limited number of Blackbirds were made available this month to a lucky few VIPs, the general public will have to cool its heels until November to place their online-only orders.
Atom Feed (xml)
No comments:
Post a Comment