HP's overpriced monster of a computer.

Everyone had to see this coming at one time or another. HP bought Voodoo PC's awhile back. For those of you who don't know, Voodoo PC has built high-end, puurty looking PC's for quite awhile. They've always been expensive, mostly due to their ubber nice cases and cooling.

What do you get when HP and Voodoo PC mate? The HP Blackbird 002. And what do you get with the HP Blackbird?


-Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 OC'ed @ 3.67GHZ
-ASUS Striker mobo (680i, not a P35)
-2x Nvidia 8800 Ultra's
-4 gigs of Corsair Dominator memory
-Sound Blaster X-FI Sound card
-1x Seagate 320gig
-1x WD 160 gig
-One pretty sick watercooling system


And what price does this rig come at? $6,000. Yes. You read that right. Six Thousand Dollars. This is the perfect example of something someone would buy because they have too much money and don't know what to do with it.

Here's a review for it at Hot Hardware- http://www.hothardware.com/articles/HP_Blackbird_002_High_Performance_Gaming_System/?page=1

I was pretty much in shock when I read that.

So, how much would it cost for you to build that rig yourself? This configuration is based off of the BlackBird HotHardware got in their lab.


Let's add up the costs-


-Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850- $1,449.99
-Asus Striker Mobo-$289.99
-2x Nvidia 8800 Ultra-$1458 ( $729.99 each)
-Sound Blaster X-FI Extreme Gamer-$99.99
-4 gigs of Corsair Dominator memory -$305.00
-1x 320gig HDD- $79.99
-1x 160gig HDD- $49.99
-Custom watercooling solution for OC'ing and GPU waterblocks- $400
-DVD Drive/burner- $49.99
-Cooler Master Stacker 830 w/ Rear Power Pro 1,000W PSU- $399


Prices are all from Newegg.com and Dangerden for watercooling.

What are we at? $4,579.96

Obviously, the case is different and so is the power supply. But the case is still a full tower case and probably has better air flow and more room then the HP one. The watercooling is different, this set-up cools the GPU's as well, not just the CPU. It may even hold more water, which would lead to better cooling. The power supply is a different brand, but provides just as much power.


Now, I'm not the best at Math in the world, but I'm pretty sure the Blackbird 002 is overpriced by around $1,420.94. For that much, you could add in multiple Raptor 150gigs, set up a RAID-5 and add a Blu-Ray drive.

The Blackbird comes in configurations ranging from $2,500 to $6,500 and are available soon. I sincerely hope no one's foolish enough to shell out the cash for one of these things. Sure, the hardwares pretty sick, but that's beyond overpriced.

And come on, how in the world could ANYBODY justify paying $6,000 for a PC.