The all-new Firebird mates together some interesting components and cooling. Based around Intel's LGA775 processors, the system uses a reduced-size NVIDIA 760S SLI motherboard, a couple of GeForce 9800S graphics cards in SLI, either an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 or Q9500 CPU, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, and an external 350W fanless PSU.
The base system, which uses the Q9400 CPU, dual 250GB drives, and a multi-format DVD ReWriter costs $1,799, whilst a Q9500, twin 320GB drives, Audigy X-Fi, with Blu-ray player will cost $2,099. Add some more cash for a screen.
The cards, performance-analogous to GeForce 9600 GT, hidden under the left-hand heatsinks, aren't much more than mobile MXM parts shoehorned into a desktop chassis.
What's clever here is the presence of a third GPU, just below the CPU, that is based around NVIDIA's Hybrid SLI technology, where it can be activated/deactivated to reduce system load when only running non-taxing 2D applications.
Indeed, the system looks eerily similar to a desktop-replacement laptop, albeit with a desktop CPU.
The fancy cooling, hooked up to a pump and radiator at the top, is reckoned to keep the diminutive system extremely quiet, which was hard to judge with the background din of CES 2009 invading my ears.
A couple of fans hook up to the radiator and that's yer lot. System memory, too, is limited to just two slots.
The size of the chassis predicates that only two 2.5in drives can be installed and, as of January 8th, there's no provision for SSD upgrades at the time of purchase.
Note the fanless PSU on the outside?
Think of the HP Firebird as a larger-than-normal, high-end desktop-replacement laptop, sans screen, and you're pretty much there.
Stay tuned for a fuller investigation of the Firebird's specs on HEXUS.tv. Until then, what are your thoughts? Seems kind of expensive to me.
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