Blackbird 002 gets a little cheaper for the holidays, now starting at $2,399

The Blackbird 002 has always been a little pricey, but HP is taking a little of the sting out for the holidays, letting gamers score the base model of the high-powered system for $2,399 instead of the usual $2,700. The limited-time deal includes a liquid-cooled 2.66GHz E6750 Core 2 Duo, 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT graphics, 2GB of RAM, and a Logitech gaming mouse and keyboard. HP is also throwing in a copy of Valve's The Orange Box, and you can bump the OS up to Vista Ultimate for free if you're so inclined. There's no word on how long this price will last, however, so interested gamers might want to start shaking out their couch cushions sometime soon.

[rantanamo Posted Dec 17th 2007 10:52PM]

LOL@ some of these comments.

- Mac? Stop it
- Leave Vista out? Obviously some of you have weak rigs and haven't played any games with DX10 turned on.
- Its a computer. I'm guessing you can go everything on your PS3 and 360 that you can do on a computer? Let's compare them to an 8800GT and controllers would be more accurate. The computer kills the consoles at that point.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 18th 2007 12:36AM]

I own the Blackbird Dedicated Edition. It's simply the best computer I've ever bought. I used to be a Mac customer. This baby can play games and act as a work horse. Vista ultimate shames Leopard and given that Vista is a copy of OSX it's quite funny that Leopard feels like an MS product.
But back to the BB, some of us will reverse learn how to build our own rigs when we come to putting in a new motherboard a few years down the road. Having the old Voodoo team is a and added plus. Having it built from off the shelf parts is great...
Also the case is amazing. Well worth the cash. The first computer I have bought that did not bring on buyers remorse.
Just my opinion.

[FueledByPez Posted Dec 18th 2007 2:31AM]

You guys posting prices from pricewatch to show this is 1000 bucks too much are leaving out the disc drive, the razr mouse and keyboard, the power supply, the custom optimization, and the software. You also aren't factoring in how much your time is worth - I suppose if you work at McDonalds, your time isn't worth much. Mine is worth enough that I wouldn't mind paying a bit more to have someone else put this together for me.

You could build a PC for cheaper - even if you used premium parts, but the difference isn't 1000 bucks. Plus, you can't buy this premium aluminum case - it's a substantial piece of hardware. It's well made and would probably retail around 400-600 bucks similar to high-end Silverstone or Coolermaster products.

VoodooPC has always been quite expensive and the acquisition by HP has only helped to make them more affordable. The Blackbird is a complete product, not a project. I'm old and when I was a kid, I got a radio kit where I got to put together a radio using wires and circuit boards and crap. I used it for 5 minutes, but the radio I bought from the store got used for years.

I should also add that I've been running my own computer business for 11 years and I've built hundreds of gaming and multimedia PCS for customers - I'd STILL feel good about paying 2400 bucks for a Blackbird.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 18th 2007 7:57AM]

The case is cool, but it IS almost 1k overpriced. The Dell XPS 720 has the same specs, but starts at 1499.