HP isn't a name you really hear with gaming, by this I mean the fact that they are a company based around consumer personal computers but more in a sense that they use proprietary hardware that rarely is ever remotely compatible with anything else and often suffers from driver issues, hardware failures and other RMA based problems that drive consumers nuts at times and keep enthusiasts far away from the company.

Now that I've scared many into hiding from this general summary of their fortune in computer sales, lets step forward into HP after the acquisition of Voodoo PC the infamous gaming PC producer that happened around a year back. Voodoo PC was on quite a roll though while they were producing systems, working on a very highly regarded PC cabling system, working with outside partners on efficient water cooling systems and trying to work the design of cases to offer the most airflow within chambers as they could.

The Blackbird is a unique system in the creation, a case produced out of pretty much all steel with fins all around to serve as a radiator. The drive bays are hot with SATA connections ready for quick installs. The design of the case is entirely tool-less from the sidepanels out and it comes with a number of enhancements to make the design choice more work for more than just aesthetics. The base of the system is an elevated design allowing for easy access by the bottom mount fan to suck air in straight up and into the PSU, the design though focuses on making this area  chamber seperated from the rest of the components, much like the Take 4 4U case by Antec did (they used the front grill though) the next step was zoning the case for the PSU / GPU / CPU, all of the areas getting their own ambient areas.

In the hardware arena they change things up dramatically from their usual work, the standard HP parts are dropped in favor of retail boards, the systems will offer AMD and Intel chipsets with obvious future plans for new chips as well such as Phenom. The video setup will offer matching between Crossfire and SLI setups, various grades of ram, sound board solutions and other parts as well. Given that the company is moving from in-house production to consumer parts it makes things a bit more interesting, the bonus here is that old overclockers that just don't have the time anymore can step into these systems and not miss a beat. Voodoo PC / HP test out their configurations so that the end user has stability. From off the shelf retail parts at newegg I was able to come almost part for part with the $5500 model for $5300, so given shipping and time it's not that bad of an offering on their side of things.

Right now the list models available are pre-configured but in time they'll be expanding the availability more. It will be interesting to see where they go from this point, one of the biggest attractions is their tool-less system allowing for upgrades throughout the system all the way to the motherboard.