Blackbird 002 Pricing
At present, there are three models of the Blackbird 002 listed on the HP website. However, you can call HP Gaming to further customize your own system. Arguably the most interesting option is to just go for the all-out "Dedication Edition" that has been available for a couple weeks. Only 518 of these systems will be sold, but because these are mass-produced (relatively speaking) there are some savings on the total price. So let's start with the Dedication Edition and see how HP does in the pricing department.
We used Google in order to search for prices on most of the parts, but we tried to narrow down our retailer choices to companies that we consider "reputable" so we aren't simply grabbing the cheapest price we could find online. Some of the prices do involve some guesswork - for example, getting the water cooling system with all of the necessary water blocks preinstalled seems to be worth about $450 to us, though technically you could pick up a similar water cooling setup for closer to $300. How much you think getting a preassembled computer is worth - not to mention overclocking of the CPU without voiding the warranty - is another unknown. Finally, there's the case itself, which we can easily estimate at costing more than $300, but how much more? All told, it appears that the case, CPU overclocking, and system assembly carries a charge of around $1400 on the Dedication Edition.
A lot of people might initially react to the price of the system with an outraged demand of, "How can they possibly expect anyone to pay that much money for a computer?" While we certainly wouldn't suggest that everyone needs to go out and spend $5,500 on a computer, the reality is that the HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition is hardly a rip-off when compared with do-it-yourself prices. This is an absolutely top-quality computer with a unique case, and you basically get it for a price that is relatively competitive with what it would cost for you to assemble such a system on your own. Depending on how you might want to change things, you might be paying as little as a 15% premium which seems reasonable to us. Update: We initially included a Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive in our price list, as the test system includes one and we mistakenly thought the Dedication Edition did as well. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
For quick contrast, we took a look at a couple of other similarly equipped systems from boutique computer vendors. Specifically, we looked at Alienware's Area-51 ALX, Falcon Northwest's Mach V, and VoodooPC's Omen. The cheapest of these three is the Alienware, which will cost around $6,000 when configured similarly to the Blackbird 002. (Dell's XPS 720H2C also carries a similar price.) The Mach V will cost around $7,600 without a custom paint job, or about $8,200 with a single color paint scheme and as much as $10,000 if you want to go all out on the case graphics. VoodooPC doesn't offer the Omen without a high-end paint job, and the price ends up starting around $8,000. The closest we could come to matching the price of the Blackbird 002 was with ABS Computers, where we ended up at $5,200 but with a pretty generic case.
Other than a difference in case designs and minor component changes, why on earth would anyone even consider one of these more expensive offerings? We can't speak for all of the companies, but we did discuss this with VoodooPC/HP Gaming a bit. What it all comes down to is production facilities. VoodooPC builds all of their systems on an individual basis. From start to finish, each system is handcrafted by a single technician. This goes beyond merely installing the parts and software; after initial setup, each system is tuned and tweaked for optimal performance, and an attempt is made to eke out every last bit of power from each component.
In a sense, you're paying for the modern computer equivalent of a Duesenberg: a system built by hand rather than on an assembly line. The Blackbird (and most likely the Alienware ALX) step back a little bit and give up the last few percent of performance in order to bring a decent amount of savings to the end-user. Not surprisingly, the assembly line approach also results in the ability to roll out systems a lot faster; lead times on most boutique computer systems tend to be a month or more. A customized Blackbird 002 currently has a one-month lead time, but the Dedication Edition is more readily available and we expect the lead time for customized builds to drop down to a couple weeks or less in the future.
At present, there are three models of the Blackbird 002 listed on the HP website. However, you can call HP Gaming to further customize your own system. Arguably the most interesting option is to just go for the all-out "Dedication Edition" that has been available for a couple weeks. Only 518 of these systems will be sold, but because these are mass-produced (relatively speaking) there are some savings on the total price. So let's start with the Dedication Edition and see how HP does in the pricing department.
| HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition |
||
| Component | Price | |
| CPU | Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (Quad-core 2x4MB Shared cache OC to 3.33GHz) |
$1,035 |
| Motherboard | ASUS Striker 680i SLI - Customized (CrossFire support enabled) |
$300 |
| RAM | 2x1GB Corsair Dominator PC2-6400 | $150 |
| GPU(s) | 2xGeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | $1,220 |
| Hard Drive 1 | Western Digital Raptor 160GB 10k RPM | $180 |
| Hard Drive 2 | (Seagate) 500GB 7200 RPM | $100 |
| Optical Drive 1 | 20X DVDR with LightScribe | $40 |
| Optical Drive 2 | 20X DVDR with LightScribe | $40 |
| Power Supply | TOPOWER 1.1kW Modular | $325 |
| Case | HP Blackbird 002 Custom | ??? |
| Cooling | Asetek CPU/GPU Cooling Kit | $450 |
| Keyboard | Voodoo Razer Gaming Keyboard (Tarantula) | $75 |
| Mouse | Voodoo Razer Gaming Mouse (Deathadder) | $47 |
| 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) | $4,142 |
| Actual Price | (Without shipping and tax) | $5,500 |
We used Google in order to search for prices on most of the parts, but we tried to narrow down our retailer choices to companies that we consider "reputable" so we aren't simply grabbing the cheapest price we could find online. Some of the prices do involve some guesswork - for example, getting the water cooling system with all of the necessary water blocks preinstalled seems to be worth about $450 to us, though technically you could pick up a similar water cooling setup for closer to $300. How much you think getting a preassembled computer is worth - not to mention overclocking of the CPU without voiding the warranty - is another unknown. Finally, there's the case itself, which we can easily estimate at costing more than $300, but how much more? All told, it appears that the case, CPU overclocking, and system assembly carries a charge of around $1400 on the Dedication Edition.
A lot of people might initially react to the price of the system with an outraged demand of, "How can they possibly expect anyone to pay that much money for a computer?" While we certainly wouldn't suggest that everyone needs to go out and spend $5,500 on a computer, the reality is that the HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition is hardly a rip-off when compared with do-it-yourself prices. This is an absolutely top-quality computer with a unique case, and you basically get it for a price that is relatively competitive with what it would cost for you to assemble such a system on your own. Depending on how you might want to change things, you might be paying as little as a 15% premium which seems reasonable to us. Update: We initially included a Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive in our price list, as the test system includes one and we mistakenly thought the Dedication Edition did as well. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
For quick contrast, we took a look at a couple of other similarly equipped systems from boutique computer vendors. Specifically, we looked at Alienware's Area-51 ALX, Falcon Northwest's Mach V, and VoodooPC's Omen. The cheapest of these three is the Alienware, which will cost around $6,000 when configured similarly to the Blackbird 002. (Dell's XPS 720H2C also carries a similar price.) The Mach V will cost around $7,600 without a custom paint job, or about $8,200 with a single color paint scheme and as much as $10,000 if you want to go all out on the case graphics. VoodooPC doesn't offer the Omen without a high-end paint job, and the price ends up starting around $8,000. The closest we could come to matching the price of the Blackbird 002 was with ABS Computers, where we ended up at $5,200 but with a pretty generic case.
Other than a difference in case designs and minor component changes, why on earth would anyone even consider one of these more expensive offerings? We can't speak for all of the companies, but we did discuss this with VoodooPC/HP Gaming a bit. What it all comes down to is production facilities. VoodooPC builds all of their systems on an individual basis. From start to finish, each system is handcrafted by a single technician. This goes beyond merely installing the parts and software; after initial setup, each system is tuned and tweaked for optimal performance, and an attempt is made to eke out every last bit of power from each component.
In a sense, you're paying for the modern computer equivalent of a Duesenberg: a system built by hand rather than on an assembly line. The Blackbird (and most likely the Alienware ALX) step back a little bit and give up the last few percent of performance in order to bring a decent amount of savings to the end-user. Not surprisingly, the assembly line approach also results in the ability to roll out systems a lot faster; lead times on most boutique computer systems tend to be a month or more. A customized Blackbird 002 currently has a one-month lead time, but the Dedication Edition is more readily available and we expect the lead time for customized builds to drop down to a couple weeks or less in the future.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
33 Comments
View All Comments
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.