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.
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.
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.
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.
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EateryOfPiza - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
that custom bios might be something special, or maybe its a drag on performance.JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
I would be absolutely shocked if performance was more than 3% off with the latest drivers. As it stands, the version of the Blackbird I have for testing has HD 2900 CrossFire, and I think most people would be better off getting 8800 GTX SLI. Even Rahul said, "It's not just about the benchmarks anymore - it's about the experience." Basically, a lot of companies got hung up on oneupmanship, where they would be the "best" in some magazine review, but only by 2%. It's pretty silly, I think.themadmilkman - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
How long until somebody makes a knock-off of the case design? I'd be interested in one.kmmatney - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
One will probably come out of China before the HP one is available...Bonesdad - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
but it might kill your dogOwls - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
I know you are trying to make a comparison to hand built quality but it was a bit over the top. The Duesenberg is a classic and a symbol of craftsmanship in the meantime, cases and parts made in china assembled by hand does not equal classic or "well built" by any means. How many cases have you seen that are "classics" today?Probably none.
good article though :)
strikeback03 - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
I'd imagine the point is that back in the day whoever bought that Duesenberg new was not buying a classic at the time either, just a nice expensive, well built car.psychotix11 - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
I would have thought after the foot-in-mouth "it takes $300 to match or beat air cooling" you guys would have had the tact to leave it alone and accept that you really don't know what you're talking about, but of course you couldn't resist the chance to take another dig at it on your crusade for air cooling, bias at it's finest, tomshardware would be proud of you.That said from what I can see they are using a dual 120mm radiator to cool two ultras and an over clocker quad core, that isn't enough. A dual 120mm rad will cool either an OC'd quad or the dual GPU's, but with both in a single loop it's not going to be enough even if you slap some delta screamers on it and let your ears bleed. You're going to need a triple 120mm for that.
kmmatney - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
rolls eyes...JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
Read what you just wrote: "...they are using a dual 120mm radiator to cool two ultras and an over clocker quad core, that isn't enough. A dual 120mm rad will cool either an OC'd quad or the dual GPU's, but with both in a single loop it's not going to be enough..."Let's talk bias for a second. Suggesting that a $300+ cooling arrangement with dual 120mm fans is not enough cooling and that *more* is required for proper water cooling of this setup illustrates the exact problem. I can get similar results from air cooled GPUs and CPUs for 1/4 the price (on the cooling side of things). Actually, it's even worse on GPUs, as the stock air coolers are "free" and water blocks are just pure expense that may not really even impact performance. Even if a triple-fan WC setup is slightly better in terms of overall cooling, that doesn't make it a great choice. Now read what I *actually* said again:
"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."
Yes, that's a terrible slam on water cooling: we find air cooling to be more than sufficient for most people. Or if you want to reverse it, water cooling is really only "necessary" for a very small portion of the market. Just like I specifically recommended AGAINST spending $1100 on a QX6850 and instead chose a Q6600 that will beat the pants off it on price and will overclock nearly as far, I chose air cooling that will cost significantly less and overclock nearly as far. While we're at it, I chose 8800 GTX cards that cost less than the 8800 Ultras and will run nearly as fast. See the pattern?
For the record, the water cooling in the Blackbird does a fine job at keeping the entire system running, and I didn't have any issues with temperatures or escalating noise levels. Without putting a similar setup into the case without water cooling and running benchmarks, I can't say for sure how much of an impact their cooling design has on overall performance and noise levels. However, if I'm building a system for myself or a friend, liquid cooling is just another expense and hassle that I'm going to avoid. I avoid RAID 0 configurations for the same reason.
Water is more complex and creates more concerns (weight, potential for leaks, installation and upgrade time and effort). Is it bad? Nope. Just like a $5500 prebuilt isn't bad, and a factory overclocked system isn't bad. It's still an expense many will bypass.