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.

VoodooPC is showing off a new gaming laptop that includes two NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX GPUs running in NVIDIA SLI mode and powered by AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core mobile technology as well as a a 20.1" screen.

"It's like we crammed a desktop into a notebook form factor," said Rahul Sood, chief technologist, VoodooPC, part of the Global Gaming business unit of HP (NYSE:HPQ)(Nasdaq:HPQ). "It may be large, and the battery life is non-existent, but this is one insanely fast notebook."

I couldn't seem to find a price for this laptop anywhere, but seeing as other Envy models sell for $4,500, I'm guessing upward of $5,000. Besides the insane price, the main thing preventing me from making this purchase is that I'm not sure how much sense it makes to buy a gaming PC you essentially can't upgrade. Brian Crecente

VoodooPC, the world's leading architect of highly personalized, high-performance PCs, today introduced the Voodoo ENVY HW:201 Notebook PC. Featuring two NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX GPUs running in NVIDIA SLI mode and powered by AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core mobile technology, the HW:201 also features the biggest notebook display on the market today - a 20.1" high-resolution screen - making it the perfect laptop for PC gamers who demand a more immersive portable PC gaming experience. The HW:201 is set to begin shipping to customers on January 8, 2007.

At the core of the ENVY HW:201, users can choose between two NVIDIA graphics cards: the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX with 512MB of RAM for high-performance PC gaming or the NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M with 512MB of RAM for those looking for a high-performance portable workstation. Users can additionally select a choice of a single graphics card or two in NVIDIA SLI mode for the ultimate in gaming performance and image quality. For the hardcore PC gamer, this means the BIG screen provides dual graphic cinema quality gaming with blistering fast response times that are sure to turn heads.

Driving the system is AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core mobile technology, which delivers exceptional multi-tasking and multi-threaded performance. This high-performance CPU allows users to simultaneously run multiple applications at the same time - all with increased performance. Performing tasks such as burning CDs, reading email messages, editing digital photos and listening to music all at the same time with no slow downs means a richer overall experience for the user.

The ENVY HW:201, which measures 18.75" x 13.5" x 1.9", also supplies tremendous storage (up to 320GB using two hard drives), allowing users to save more of their favorite photos, music, games, and more, as well as headroom to install additional office and entertainment applications. Customers may also choose RAID 0 for the ultimate transfer rates and application load times.

"It's like we crammed a desktop into a notebook form factor," said Rahul Sood, chief technologist, VoodooPC, part of the Global Gaming business unit of HP (NYSE:HPQ)(Nasdaq:HPQ). "It may be large, and the battery life is non-existent, but this is one insanely fast notebook."

"Voodoo is always at the peak of performance," said Rene Haas, general manager of Notebook GPUs at NVIDIA. "With two of the fastest NVIDIA GeForce notebook GPUs in NVIDIA SLI mode or a NVIDIA Quadro GPU, this new graphics powerhouse is the ultimate mobile gaming and workstation machine."

Additional features include: Voodoo ENVY webcam; Voodoo ENVY Bluetooth and Wireless A/B/G networking; and a Voodoo ENVY HW:201 theater audio system for a truly immersive experience.

Now that his two biggest competitors have been absorbed, some PC enthusiasts, like me, don't consider them boutique PC makers anymore. Reeves says he, and likely everyone else on the planet, was surprised by the Voodoo/HP deal, but that he hopes the purchase, and Alienware's purchase, will help streamline the process of getting enthusiast hardware to the mainstream gamer.

We found that as Alienware grew, they strayed further from the enthusiast/custom/boutique market. The Dell deal seems to have clinched that. It works out well for us because essentially we're serving two different markets. Alienware may be sleeping on a big bed of money these days, but it hasn't seemed to come at our expense...the net effect on us is neither Dell nor Alienware seems to be on our turf anymore, and strangely, their combined impact on us is less than it used to be with Alienware alone.

HP's aquisition of Voodoo PC seems to be structured much more effectively, and if it works, it could keep the rest of the boutique market on its toes. It appears HP understands that a boutique's real value isn't from volume, but as a proving ground for showing off new technologies and getting real-time enthusiast feedback. And most importantly, filtering enthusiast PC ideas to mainstream products quickly. Another Web site likened it to HP buying a Formula 1 team. In that sense, they could be very valuable to all of us enthusiasts by bringing enthusiast PC thinking to more mainstream customers.

The good news is that Reeves says that he doesn't seen Falcon getting bought up anytime soon. They've passed on a number of "opportunities" because they want to keep Falcon NW boutique. Brian Crecente

Interview: Falcon Northwest CEO Kelt Reeves on the HP-Voodoo PC deal [Alpha]

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]