Review: HP Blackbird 002 Gaming PC

SEXY BEAST HP may have just announced their groundbreaking gaming rig, but we at the Lab have had the pleasure of playing with one for the last few weeks. Our impressions? Epic. Forget consoles for a second and drill down on this mega powerful monster. In our tests, the Blackbird toasted its PREY benchmark, churning out a whopping 234 FPS. A kick ass liquid cooling system and a ton of overclocked hardware help make that happen. What's inside? We'll get to that in a second. But it's the intricate attention to detail (HP and Voodoo must have analyzed the minds of thousands of gamers) that really made us swoon. Hidden allen wrenches, spades of LEDs, tons of ports, and a few secret compartments made us giddy beyond measure. But don't take our word for it, scroll on down to get the lowdown on the components that make this bird so special.

LUXURY INTERIOR Forward thinking features abound inside. A small foam compartment stores an Allen wrench plus a handful of screws and bolts for DIY types. And a rack-style hard drive bay eliminates the need for SATA data and power cables. Just slide your drive into the ready-made slot and it automatically connects with the motherboard. No screwdrivers required!

FRAGGED AND TAGGED Ultra HD 2900 XT. This DirectX 10 capable video card has 512MB of GDDR3 memory and a whopping 320 stream processors. Two HD 2900 XTs linked with Crossfire is certainly overkill. Just the way gamers like it.

BIG CHILL Liquid-cooling system. For even more performance, HP has routed this H20 chilling network through the video cards. This means you can crank up the cards' GPU and memory allowing you to frag freely without fear of frying.

LINKED IN Burner really set the Blackbird 002 apart. We love its hide-a-way media bay, which pops up for access to front panel USB and FireWire ports, audio, and a media card reader. When you're done, press it down and it stealthily tucks inside the case.

You'd be hard pressed to find a better gaming rig. Our complaints, though small, prevented us from giving the Blackbird a perfect 10 out of 10. First off, the machine is heavy, weighing nearly 80 pounds. It's also pricey (as most gaming PCs tend to be) and it's design may not appeal to everyone. (One Wired editor even remarked that it looks like a fancy radiator from a NYC apartment.) Aesthetics aside, the Blackbird 002 is one of the most powerful computers we've ever tested. Gaming PC manufacturers take note: The bar just got raised into outer space.

• RAM Size: 4 GB
• Clock Rate: 3 GHz
• Hard Drive Size: 160 GB + 500 GB (2 HDs)