HP Phoenix h9se: The Pavilion Goes Beyond Thunderdome
by Dustin Sklavos on February 29, 2012 12:00 AM ESTBuild, Heat, and Power Consumption
As mentioned before, HP has been able to leverage their size to produce a custom chassis that's reasonably small given the performance of the hardware contained within. What exactly does that mean? Let's assume the R&D and chassis design for a new case comes to around $1 million; for a boutique that might only sell 10K units (if that), it could mean at least $100 extra per system. A large OEM on the other hand that can move 100K units would only need to increase the cost of each unit by $10. Basically, economies of scale are very much in favor of the big OEMs (never mind the additional pricing benefits they enjoy for moving large volumes of CPUs, GPUs, etc.) Regardless of the size of company, though, it's the final product that matters. In the case of the Phoenix chassis, the result is a system with some modest thermal headroom and expandability to boot.
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Externally the Phoenix looks like a slightly gussied-up Pavilion, but the aesthetic is pleasing. The side window glows from the red LED fan used on the liquid cooler's radiator, while the front has a series of red stripes that glow softly. I'm not a huge fan of glossy plastic, but here HP uses it primarily as an accent and it makes sense. The rest of the shell is a combination of gray plastic and black steel.
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The internal design is about as cramped as you would expect, but HP includes disassembly instructions on the inside of the panel. Note the inverted design; the motherboard is affixed to the left side instead of the right, and the power supply is mounted at the top of the enclosure behind the optical drives. This arrangement paid off handsomely for SilverStone's Temjin TJ08-E enclosure and seems to be the right call for HP. The hard drive cage supports up to two 2.5" SSDs and a single 3.5" HDD.
While the motherboard has two PCIe x16 slots, there just isn't enough space or thermal headroom inside the Phoenix to handle any multi-GPU configurations, let alone power from the power supply. You could potentially use two slower GPUs, but that seems like a step backwards in overall performance potential and ease of use. Running a single GPU shouldn't be a problem, but it's something to keep in mind.
Thermally, HP's cooling system does an adequate job handling this configuration, but I'm not holding my breath for much in the way of overclocking headroom on the i7-3960X. I've generally been unimpressed by closed-loop CPU coolers, but it's still a better choice for shipping than a hefty tower cooler that can stress the motherboard if it's jostled too much. The GTX 580 posts numbers basically on par with what I've come to expect from this type of enclosure design; this is a chassis clearly intended for a specific thermal and power envelope and it meets those needs.
Power consumption for the Phoenix is, all told, pretty good. No one ever accused Sandy Bridge-E of being particularly frugal, but the system at least takes advantage of power-saving technologies on hand.
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Dr0id - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
And it needs to lose the tacky stickers on the very plasticky case.marc1000 - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
this computer looks a LOT like my "ancient" mid-tower HP desktop, that i bought some 4-5 years ago. reverse-mounted motherboard, fan at bottom-back (but this time it is a liquid-cooler and pushes air out), and tilted hard-drive cage with only 2 3.5" hdd slots (but this time it is 2 2.5 and 1 3.5).the main difference is that this one is a bit bigger and has better looks. I can't fit a GTX580 on my case, but I have a 2500k with a 5770 here and for a small case it does a pretty nice job of keeping things cool. I just put 2 fans as intake (9cm and 12cm) on bottom back/right panels and they push all hot air out. no out-take fans for me.
in general, i really like this design.
IceDread - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
I don't think I've ever seen an uglier computer.MrSpadge - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
I did, but that was in the 90's.piroroadkill - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
I'm not sure if we're looking at the same case.It looks like any <INSERT PC MANUFACTURER HERE> generic PC in the last ~7 years or something, after they settled on fat plastic bezels that are black, and cheap looking steel panels.
I also think the spec is a bit ridiculous.
"When we asked why the 7970 wasn't being offered, HP's representatives said it was an issue of maintaining a price point."
Wait, what.. you think someone who buys a 6 core Sandy Bridge-E with 16GB RAM gives two shits about the price point?
I'd rather have a 2600K with a healthy clock bump, 8GB RAM, and a 7970.
piroroadkill - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
Sorry, that said, 16GB RAM is actually dirt cheap these days, but I still think it's basically pointless in the life of the machine for the AVERAGE user.Golgatha - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
"When we asked why the 7970 wasn't being offered, HP's representatives said it was an issue of maintaining a price point."That confused me too. I get the part about only using a single GPU because of the form factor and power supply, but someone buying an Extreme edition socket 2011 CPU isn't exactly looking at bang-for-buck ratios.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
HD 7970 is brand new and commands a price premium. It probably means that HP couldn't get as large of a volume discount as they'd like. AMD is basically selling all of the 7970 cards they make right now for full price, so why should they sell 50K to HP at a discount when they could just continue selling them to end users for more money?Herp Derpson - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
All prebuild PCs have horrible CPU\GPU ratio. In games Core i5-2500 will give you same fps and money could be spend on additional GPU. Hell, even i3-2100 will be the same in almost all games. It's like builders have no idea that GPU is always bottleneck.And of course nvidia bias. There is absolutely no reason to buy 580 now.
tipoo - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
That was one sweet case, I wish they sold that as a standalone. Also the last Voodo Omen. The Firebird wasn't as appealing since it had a smaller upgrade path but it could have been interesting to some people. Sucks that HP shut all of that down after buying Voodo out.