Digital Trends

HP Firebird 802 March 25th, 2009 | by Nick Mokey

Features and Design

With the Firebird, HP has set out to reach for a relatively rare design aesthetic in gaming computers: understatement. Compact, low-key and solid could all be used to describe the chassis itself. In fact, if Apple set out to design a gaming desktop, it might look something like this.

Unlike your typical block-shaped case, the Firebird looks more like a wedge when viewed from the top down, tapering off from over six inches wide in the back to about half that size in the front. The top, front and rear have all been trimmed in silver, while the side panels get a glossy black treatment overlaid with hip looking line drawings in a matte finish. With the entire chassis suspended on one foot-like pedestal that reaches down from the rear and stretches forward, it almost looks like some sort of futuristic power equipment you might find in the original Tribes games. The fuscia-and-blue LED lights that bleed onto the floor around it and up out of the top fan grilles only help that analogy.

Next to a normal-sized gaming system (especially Alienware’s excessive X58,) it looks downright miniature. And there’s good reason for that. Inside, things are quite a bit different. Lifting a latch hidden discretely below the front panel, swings open the left-hand panel, which easily lifts off, revealing the guts of this pony. While the motherboard, Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz processor and 4GB of DDR2 RAM are all standard desktop fare, the hard drives and video cards are another matter. HP reached for two of Nvidia’s notebook-like GeForce 9800S cards in the video department, which have been tailored by Nvidia for lower power consumption and size. And the company accomplished the same goals by using dual 2.5-inch, 250GB notebook drives, rather than 3.5-inch desktop drives.

Of course, there’s also fluid pumping through this well-manicured case, because the Firebird is liquid-cooled. All of the black plastic tubes (which look like wire loom) running into mirror-polished heat sinks on the motherboard and graphics cards return to an extremely compact radiator buried overhead, just beneath a grille in the top of the unit. Only two quiet, discrete fans blowing up past the radiator and out of the grille are needed to keep the entire case cool.

And another thing: There’s no power supply in here. HP has taken another design cue from notebooks and externalized the entire fanless, brick-like unit. With only 350 watts on tap, you’ll also note that this is also one power-efficient computer. (More typical gaming machines often require over 750 watts to feed their hungry graphics cards and processors.) A laptop-style connector feeds the Firebird through a power port on the back panel. There’s also a menagerie of other connectors back there, including six USB ports, a FireWire connector, two eSATA ports, analog inputs and outputs (plus one optical), and an Ethernet jack. For video, you’ll find both DVI and HDMI connectors, making dual displays a possibility.

Though a Mini PCI Express port will allow you some very limited upgrade potential, tweakers will be disappointed to find that they can’t replace the video cards, and there aren’t any open internal expansion slots to add cards to, either. That’s a definite caveat, but we suspect most buyers of this wrapped up, all-inclusive system won’t miss the expandability.

Accessories

Though even the classiest boutique builders are prone to outfitting their systems with cheap mice and keyboards (perhaps under the assumption that hardcore gamers will replace them with their peripherals of choice), HP has kept the quality of the Firebird’s accessories extremely high. In fact, we weren’t even tempted to replace them with the aftermarket peripherals we do have hanging around. The slim-line wireless keyboard feels solid, and the wireless mouse suffers from zero lag – both extremely important factors for gamers. Setup is also effortless: After plugging them in, there’s not much to remind you they’re wireless besides battery-life indicators in the system tray in Windows. The mouse could use a few extra buttons for hardcore FPS games, and the keyboard’s shallow keystrokes might not satisfy button mashers, but both left us happy during our gaming stints. A large, rigid mouse pad with graphics matched to the ones on the side of the case also makes a nice touch.