Sorry I didn't post the specs on the Blackbird with the last post, but the loaner they sent me seems to have a bad hard drive, ironic isn't it? And the site just went live with the options you can choose for building your own PC.

So far the only specs I could find on their site is for the limited run Dedication Edition of the desktop which comes with:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.0 GHz
Dual Nvidie GeForce 8800 Ultra
CPU and dual GPU Liquid Cooling
15 in 1 Card Reader
Voodoo Razer Gaming Mouse and Keyboard
1.1 Kilowatt Power Plat
10,000 RPM Raptor hard drive
Five hard drive bays

All other Blackbirds will be very customizable meaning you can choose Intel or AMD, ATI or NVidia, Corsair, Hynix or Samsung memory and ASUS or Intel motherboards. The Dedication, which I couldn't find a price for, goes on sale on Sept. 15 and the rest of them on Oct. 1.

Rahul Sood, Voodoo PC founder and now the CTO of HP Gaming, said he wanted to completely revolutionized the desktop PC with the Blackbird. I don't know if it's a revolution, but I sure as hell like it.

What it seems the Blackbird has done is taken all of the things that are important to high-end gaming rigs, airflow, liquid cooling, wiring, and done them in a way that doesn't prevent a user from tinkering without a lot of heartache.

I can very easily get up to my elbows in Blackbird guts after only a few minutes of tool-free work. Popping open the completely plastic free chassis (the thing is made entirely from cast and stamped aluminum parts, is like open a car door, a very expensive car door. This side door even has a gasket built in to reduce sound.

To remove the door you just have to slide it off of its hinges. The guts of the computer are completely propitiatory-free, meaning that everything inside this compute is industry standard but also, in theory, top of the line.

Once inside the PC you'll notice that there is a second smaller removable door, this is to get inside one of those thermal chambers that help keep the heat compartmentalized. Inside that door are a series of separators that also helps with the heat. These separators slide straight out of the PC without the need for tools.

The HP/Voodoo guys also reworked the cabling, maintaining the clean look but designing them in a way that makes it easy to, for instance, quickly unplug and swap out the power supply.

Here's one of my favorite features of the computer. The harddrives are all built into the side of the case above the power supply and come installed in little drawers. To replace a harddrive you just pull out the draw and then remove the harddrive with your hands. No tools required at all. The drawers have tiny little pins that pop into the screw holes on the sides of the drive, negating the need for screws. How sweet is that?

Voodoo was one of the first major companies to introduce liquid cooling to the mainstream, so you know they were going to do something special with it this time around. With the Blackbird, the liquid cooling is pre-sealed, so no leaks. This time around they decided to go with something very simple. Three blocks on the CPU and GPU, a simple radiator and a 120 mm fan.

Working with the cooling system is the case's airflow. Airflow actually comes in at the base of the case through the foot and runs straight past the power supply. A second fan in front of the harddrives creates a second air flow for the GPUs. At the top of the system is the radiator with fans coming out of the top.

The case's wedge shape and hover stand give it both an interesting look and a very aggressive cooling system. The fact that the system is essentially floating means that it has a sixth side for cooling, which helps cut down on potential overheating issues down the line.

On top of the case is a hydraulic Input/Output panel that comes packed with four card readers and your headset and microphone ports as well as USB and Firewire ports.

The Blackbird has two types of lighting: task lighting and accent lighting. The stand and the front grill both, for instance, have accent lighting while the back ports have task lighting. There are also lights built inside the case to make working on it easier.

The case is designed to come apart easily to allow owners to customize the PC with replacement parts or by painting. And when you order your customized Blackbird it will be assembled in Calgary home of Voodoo PC, so you're still getting a Voodoo computer.

The Blackbird 02 is a light-absorbing, monolith of a gaming rig that weighs in at more than 70 pounds. It also happens to be the first lovechild of HP's army of deep-pocketed designers and VoodooPC's boutique gaming PC aesthetic.

The deep space Black aluminum case looks more like something that belongs in a fighting robot than on your desk and the thing sits on a cast-aluminum foot that not only keeps it off the ground but helps provide more ventilation for cooling.

Hit the jump for the details of this customizable gaming rig that runs for $2,500 to $7,100. In a nutshell, the case is one giant heatsink that can support up to 600 pounds, the CPU, GPU and the motherboard are all in separate thermal chambers and it includes a full system, maintenance-free liquid cooling system. Oh and it has a pretty spiffy removable side panel and interior and exterior LED lighting.

Product Highlights
*Industry Standard Components - HP Blackbird 002 is the most versatile and configurable performance PC in its class, simply because industry standard components are used throughout the machine, making modification easy and driver conflicts a thing of the past.
*Full System Liquid Cooling - HP Blackbird 002 is the first in its class to feature full system, maintenance-free liquid cooling that draws heat away from the CPU, motherboard and GPUs. The factory-sealed system does not require the periodic maintenance other systems demand and keeps the machine running quiet.
*Thermals - Heat is the enemy of performance PCs, and the three biggest heat generators are the CPU, the GPUs and the power supply. HP Blackbird 002 isolates each heat source in its own thermal chamber, ensuring that cooling air isn't contaminated with heat from one component on its way to cool off another one. The HP Blackbird 002 can handle the heat.
* Easy Access - The machine invites users to pop the hood and tinker away. HP Blackbird 002 and its removable side panel, interior and back panel lighting, and Voodoo-style wiring provides easy access for enthusiasts to fine tune their machine's performance.
* Tool-less Upgrades - HP Blackbird 002 doesn't come with a toolkit. All the components, from the CPU and GPU to the hard drives and optical drives, can be removed and installed sans tools.
* Flexible Overclocking - The HP Blackbird 002 standard BIOS allows user-controlled overclocking. LCS systems are factory overclocked.

Key Design Elements
*Aluminum Chassis - Every element of the system's unique aluminum chassis tells a story. Its wedge-shaped design and vectored lines hint at the raw speed inside. The fins that line the top and front reflect a heat sink, paying homage to HP Blackbird's extraordinary thermal management capabilities. And the tight fit and finish of the chamfered edges make it clear that this finely crafted machine is tuned to perfection.
* The Hover - The single, cast-aluminum foot supporting HP Blackbird 002 is capable of supporting up to 600 lbs., and only a select number of production facilities are capable of manufacturing it. The cantilevered design allows airflow under HP Blackbird 002, making it possible to seat the 1.1 kW power supply at the base of the chassis.

Availability, Pricing & Warranty
* Purchasing - The machine can be purchased online at www.hp.com/blackbird beginning Sept. 15, 2007
* Pricing - $2,500 - $7,100 USD
* Warranty - One year limited warranty

I received an 80 pound box from HP via UPS on my front door step this morning. Inside the mammoth box was an equally mammoth PC, a prototype to be specific with both the HP and Voodoo names on it. On one corner of the liquid black case were the words "Project Blackbird 02."

After lugging the more than 70 pound computer, no I'm not kidding, up the stairs to my loft I plugged it in to see what this thing was made of... besides really heavy steel.

I'll be posting the spec sheets and my impressions in a few minutes.

Yesterday HP held a little press conference to outline their strategy for making money off of gamers and to show off some of their "advanced technologies" for the industry.

Besides talking up recently acquired VoodooPC and their other PC platform, HP demoed some of their HP Labs goodies including a curbed screen, a super projector, a coffee table with an embedded touch screen and mscape technology that turns GPS-enabled Pocket PCs or cell phones into immersive gaming devices.

Hit the jump for a run down of the four concepts and a video of the mscape in action from Barcelona last year. Brian Crecente

Panoply
Using multiple, inexpensive projectors, Panoply creates a seamless, curved display that fills a gamer's field of view, increasing realism and immersion. The image is created using a fast, automatic, camera-assisted calibration process that avoids the need for precise projector aiming. Beyond gaming, Panoply could be used for a wide range of other applications, including remote collaboration, home theater and scientific visualization. It is being considered for use in HP's Halo telepresence product.

Pluribus
Pluribus is a core enabling technology that combines the power of multiple inexpensive projectors to quickly and automatically create a scalable "super-projector" capable of high resolution, great brightness, deep contrast, high frame rate and a wide color gamut. Pluribus is the only multi-projector system that automatically delivers vivid image quality, no matter how the projectors are configured. It eliminates costly and time-consuming manual tweaking for each projector required by today's multi-projector systems. Pluribus could have a significant impact on display markets including gaming, digital cinema, event projection, collaboration and visualization.

Misto
Misto is a research project that looked at the social dynamic of multiple users in the same location interacting simultaneously with digital content. In this case, it involved a computer with a large touch screen set in a coffee table. The technology could be used for gaming, education and interactive professional or personal media applications. Potential environments include the home, office, reception areas or other places where people congregate, such airports, hotel lobbies and shopping malls.

mscape
mscape is a way to lay multimedia digital experiences - including text, audio and video — on a physical landscape, creating a "mediascape" that enriches the experience of interacting with a specific location. Pocket PCs or cell phones equipped with GPS or other sensing technologies provide users with a way to detect and access information from the world around them. Applications could include gaming, education, tourism and location-based services.

Now that both Alienware and Voodoo PC have been bought out by huge, faceless corporations, I no longer count them on my list of PC builders that I'd buy from. They're dead to me, sorry, that's just the way I am.

But who's left? It used to be that Alienware topped my list, but even before the buy-out they were going a little too corporate for my taste. Then I started eyeing Voodoo, but I can't stand HP.

So you've got Falcon Northwest and who? Maybe Hypersonic, but I'm not to up on them? Or are the days of small, fantastic, PC builders who understand and cater to the gaming market dead and gone?

Who's on your list for next hot PC builder, or do you think there's no such thing anymore? Brian Crecente

Falcon Northwest Hypersonic PC

Looks like everyone wants a premium PC gamer rig manufacturer under their wing. First, Dell bought Alienware; now, HP is picking up VoodooPC. According to Ars Technica:

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but VoodooPC CEO Ravi Sood and his brother Rahul will be joining a new gaming business unit within HP's Personal Systems Group. Rahul Sood describes the two companies as "complimentary opposites" and believes that VoodooPC's expertise with gaming and high-end PCs combined with HP's "innovations, scale, and leverage" will result in "some of the most compelling machines money can buy." (No word on whether HP was monitoring his phone lines and home network as he composed his blog post announcing the deal.)

It's nice to see these companies try to court gamers, but not at the ridiculous premium prices of these silly, overpriced and gaudy neon rigs. Florian Eckhardt

"http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060928-7863.html">HP goes shopping, comes home with VoodooPC [Ars Technica]

Lucasfilm has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard in a three-year deal to design film and video game effects, according to the Associated Press.

Lucasfilm will be using HP technology to create the effects and animation, which is sort of like Michael Jordan picking me for a game of two-on-two.

HP says that more than a thousand of their "high-powered computers" will be sent over to Lucasfilm's new Letterman Digital Arts Center where they will be used to shore up the foundation.