The VoodooPC inspired HP Firebird system announced today at CES highlights two design themes that HP believes will be prominent in 2009: power efficiency and affordability. VoodooDNA based PCs haven't been described as affordable or power efficient in the past--the flagship Blackbird system is known for its powerful hardware and equally intimidating price, but the coming year is going to be challenging for consumers and industry trends in component design have opened the door for power-efficient gaming systems.

　　The new HP Firebird system shares the same floating-wedge shape as the Blackbird 002, but in a much smaller package, roughly one third of the size of the Blackbird chassis. Designers achieved the space savings by switching to smaller, power-saving components and by moving the power supply to an external 350W power brick. You won't find an Intel Core i7 CPU or dual GeForce GTX 280 cards in this system, but the Firebird will have plenty of gaming performance with its Intel Core 2 Quad processor and Nvidia GeForce 9800S GPUs. Power-efficient components don't generate a lot of noise because they don't need as much active cooling and the Firebird will be quieter than most PCs thanks to its liquid cooling system.The GeForce GPUs come in laptop MXM modules which are great for power and heat, but will make upgrading difficult if not impossible later on because aftermarket GPU upgrades generally aren't available in MXM format.

　　HP will offer the Firebird in two configuration models available on January 9. The default $1,799 HP Firebird 802 system configuration will include a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 6MB L2 cache processor, two Nvidia GeForce 9800S 512MB graphics cards, two 250GB hard drives, a standard DVD writer, Gigabit Ethernet, and integrated audio. The upgraded $2,099 HP Firebird 803 will have a 2.83GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 12MB L2 cache processor, two Nvidia GeForce 9800S, two 320GB hard drives, 802.11 b/g/n wireless networking in addition to Gigabit Ethernet, Creative Labs X-Fi audio, and a Blu-ray drive. The systems also use the Nvidia nForce 760S chipset for hybrid SLI support that allows the system to power down the GeForce 9800S graphics modules when the power isn't needed.

　　People looking for a stylish, low-noise PC that will play the latest games right out of the box should check out the HP Firebird. Experienced system builders unafraid of upgrading individual system components might want to stick with more traditional, power-guzzling systems that use PCI Express graphics cards to keep that upgrade path open.