a3e-tech

The VoodooPC inspired HP Firebird system announced today at CES highlights two design themes that HP believes will be prominent in 2009: power efficiency and affordability. VoodooDNA based PCs haven't been described as affordable or power efficient in the past--the flagship Blackbird system is known for its powerful hardware and equally intimidating price, but the coming year is going to be challenging for consumers and industry trends in component design have opened the door for power-efficient gaming systems.

The new HP Firebird system shares the same floating-wedge shape as the Blackbird 002, but in a much smaller package, roughly one third of the size of the Blackbird chassis. Designers achieved the space savings by switching to smaller, power-saving components and by moving the power supply to an external 350W power brick. You won't find an Intel Core i7 CPU or dual GeForce GTX 280 cards in this system, but the Firebird will have plenty of gaming performance with its Intel Core 2 Quad processor and Nvidia GeForce 9800S GPUs. Power-efficient components don't generate a lot of noise because they don't need as much active cooling and the Firebird will be quieter than most PCs thanks to its liquid cooling system.The GeForce GPUs come in laptop MXM modules which are great for power and heat, but will make upgrading difficult if not impossible later on because aftermarket GPU upgrades generally aren't available in MXM format.