HP Blackbird 002: Back in Black
by Jarred Walton on September 12, 2007 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Gaming Performance Analysis
For those who prefer a single table to multiple graphs showing resolution scaling, we wanted to take a moment to summarize the results from the previous page in a different format. The two major questions we wanted to answer are: first, how much of a difference does a 1.33 GHz Core 2 Quad overclock make; second, how much of a difference does adding a second 2900 XT make? We averaged the scores across all four tested resolutions to come up with an estimate of how much the CPU and GPU impact performance. Naturally, a faster CPU will make a larger performance difference at lower resolutions while a faster graphics card will affect higher resolutions more. We'll start with a look at the impact the CPU has.
The 57% CPU overclock ends up improving overall gaming performance by an average of 6% with a single 2900 XT or 16% with a CrossFire configuration. Of course, that's not the whole story, with some games showing substantial gains and others showing basically no gain at all. If we omit results without antialiasing (where applicable - Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and to a lesser extent Oblivion don't support antialiasing) the performance gains are even smaller. The single GPU configuration improves by a mere 2% on average in that case, while the CrossFire setup improves by 14%. Battlefield 2 shows the largest gains, improving by 28% with antialiasing and 36% without across the tested resolutions. Far Cry, the Half-Life 2 games, and Oblivion also show substantial performance increases, particularly with a CrossFire configuration.
Bottom line: even with the massive 57% CPU overclock, gaming performance isn't improved substantially. True, part of the reason for that is the fact that even a dual-core E6600 is no performance slouch when it comes to gaming. The bigger factor, however, is that graphics are simply far more of a limiting factor in games. Even Supreme Commander, a game reputed to really hammer your CPU, chalks up less than a 5% performance increase on average. Now let's take a look at the impact adding a second graphics card has.
For the most part, we see much larger gains by upgrading the graphics subsystem. Our entry level quad-core CPU still improves by 28% overall with the addition of a second graphics card, while the overclocked CPU improves by 40%. Not surprisingly, the games that see the biggest boost from the added graphics power tend to be those that are least CPU limited, so Battlefield 2 0xAA as an example actually gets slightly slower with a 2.33 GHz processor running in CrossFire mode. Limiting the analysis to higher-quality graphics modes (4xAA enabled, along with Bioshock, Oblivion, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) results in an even larger performance boost from doubling the graphics power: 40% for the 2.33 GHz processor and an impressive 55% for the overclocked CPU.
Hopefully none of this comes as a surprise to any of you, as we've been making this point for years. Basically, if your primary concern is gaming performance, the graphics card is going to be the major determinant in how fast your computer runs games. There are certainly titles out there that require more CPU power (flight simulators for example), but especially with some of the latest eye-candy-enabled titles the CPU only play a minor role. If you're looking at buying an expensive gaming computer and you plan on pairing it up with a large display, you would be far better off cutting corners on the memory and processor and focusing on the GPU(s) than the reverse.
However, that's not to say that processors aren't important. Flip back a couple pages and look at the performance gains several number crunching applications achieved. If you do any video encoding or 3D rendering work, very likely you can make use of all the CPU power you can lay your hands on. Or for the best of both worlds - and as a convenient space heater to boot - you can just pick up something like the HP Blackbird 002.
For those who prefer a single table to multiple graphs showing resolution scaling, we wanted to take a moment to summarize the results from the previous page in a different format. The two major questions we wanted to answer are: first, how much of a difference does a 1.33 GHz Core 2 Quad overclock make; second, how much of a difference does adding a second 2900 XT make? We averaged the scores across all four tested resolutions to come up with an estimate of how much the CPU and GPU impact performance. Naturally, a faster CPU will make a larger performance difference at lower resolutions while a faster graphics card will affect higher resolutions more. We'll start with a look at the impact the CPU has.
The 57% CPU overclock ends up improving overall gaming performance by an average of 6% with a single 2900 XT or 16% with a CrossFire configuration. Of course, that's not the whole story, with some games showing substantial gains and others showing basically no gain at all. If we omit results without antialiasing (where applicable - Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and to a lesser extent Oblivion don't support antialiasing) the performance gains are even smaller. The single GPU configuration improves by a mere 2% on average in that case, while the CrossFire setup improves by 14%. Battlefield 2 shows the largest gains, improving by 28% with antialiasing and 36% without across the tested resolutions. Far Cry, the Half-Life 2 games, and Oblivion also show substantial performance increases, particularly with a CrossFire configuration.
Bottom line: even with the massive 57% CPU overclock, gaming performance isn't improved substantially. True, part of the reason for that is the fact that even a dual-core E6600 is no performance slouch when it comes to gaming. The bigger factor, however, is that graphics are simply far more of a limiting factor in games. Even Supreme Commander, a game reputed to really hammer your CPU, chalks up less than a 5% performance increase on average. Now let's take a look at the impact adding a second graphics card has.
For the most part, we see much larger gains by upgrading the graphics subsystem. Our entry level quad-core CPU still improves by 28% overall with the addition of a second graphics card, while the overclocked CPU improves by 40%. Not surprisingly, the games that see the biggest boost from the added graphics power tend to be those that are least CPU limited, so Battlefield 2 0xAA as an example actually gets slightly slower with a 2.33 GHz processor running in CrossFire mode. Limiting the analysis to higher-quality graphics modes (4xAA enabled, along with Bioshock, Oblivion, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) results in an even larger performance boost from doubling the graphics power: 40% for the 2.33 GHz processor and an impressive 55% for the overclocked CPU.
Hopefully none of this comes as a surprise to any of you, as we've been making this point for years. Basically, if your primary concern is gaming performance, the graphics card is going to be the major determinant in how fast your computer runs games. There are certainly titles out there that require more CPU power (flight simulators for example), but especially with some of the latest eye-candy-enabled titles the CPU only play a minor role. If you're looking at buying an expensive gaming computer and you plan on pairing it up with a large display, you would be far better off cutting corners on the memory and processor and focusing on the GPU(s) than the reverse.
However, that's not to say that processors aren't important. Flip back a couple pages and look at the performance gains several number crunching applications achieved. If you do any video encoding or 3D rendering work, very likely you can make use of all the CPU power you can lay your hands on. Or for the best of both worlds - and as a convenient space heater to boot - you can just pick up something like the HP Blackbird 002.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
You have to do a bit more accurate math on the cost. Yes, it's still expensive, but it's not at all a 2-3X mark up.Crazy ATX Case: I'd say this is easily a $500 case. Not that most people need it, but this is not some flimsy plastic thing.
1100W PSU: It looks like this might be a TOPOWER 1100W PSU (it says "TOP-1100W DVT" on a sticker). The 1000W TOPOWER at Newegg costs $330 shipped, so call this on $350.
QX6850: $1200, not overclocked
ASUS Striker: $300
2 x 1GB 2900 XT: $1000
2x1GB Corsair Dominator 8500: $210
160GB Raptor: $190 (technically 10GB more than the normal 150GB Raptors)
750GB Seagate: $210
Logitech G11: $55
Logitech G5: $60
Asetek cooling: $400 for this particular kit seems likely
Blu-ray/HD drive: $880 (Yup, look up the GGW-H10NI - crazy!)
DVDR slot load: $40
Total for parts alone: $4200, and that's going by cheapest online prices.
Still expensive, still a ~50% markup, but then the factory overclock with warranty is worth at least something, right? Anyway, I'm not saying it's a great deal, but if someone told me they wanted me to build them a system like this? Yeah, I'd probably charge at least $1000 to do it, just because I'd want to have some extra for the invariable support costs. "My OC'ed computer just crashed...."
jonnyGURU - Friday, September 14, 2007 - link
Actually, the Blackbird's 1100W is based on Topower's 1200W platform. Tweak and guideline requests (OCP settings, efficiency at different loads, etc.) from HP put the continuous output rating at 1100W. So that's another $50 we need to add for the PSU. FWIW, it's based on the same unit as the ABS/Tagan 1300W (looser standards than HP) which sells for $400.yyrkoon - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
OF al lthe OEM system manufactuers HP probably has one of the better warranties, or so I have been told. Since I do not personally OWN a HP machine, I have to go by word of mouth here. Anyhow, I would venture to say that the warranty on these blackbird system would probably have to be close to Dells Gold service plan.What does this mean ? It means you do not have to play the idiot on the phone for some E. India 'technitian' who probably has less of a clue what is wrong with your system than you do, but rather get to deal with stateside technitians who can actually be helpfull . . . It also means you do not have to wait for some lowly tech to wade through the 'chain of command' to get things replaced/fixed.
Slaimus - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
Is it true that for this system HP somehow got CF to work on a SLI motherboard? If so, does it need special modded drivers like the ULi "GLI" motherboards?wolfman3k5 - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
I doubt that, I will do some research on that and post back. Raul Sood said that they didn't do it with NVidia's help, so if anything was moded, it must be special Catalyst drivers that are being made available only to HP. Sooner or later the "secret" will come out. But I don't imagine that it's something that difficult to do, since ATI uses two CF bridges, and they transfer all rendering data over those, hence, they don't have to rely on the chipset.RamarC - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
but the blackbird line is shipping with at least two motherboard options since there's an amd x2 based blackbird. so two additional mobos could be available for cf/sli.JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
No need to do any research:"ATI CrossFire requires peer-to-peer writes in order to function, and ATI has always maintained that support for this feature is the only thing preventing CrossFire from working on other chipsets, like NVIDIA's SLI chipsets."
If the BIOS is updates so that peer-to-peer PCI-E writes work, CrossFire should work. SLI of course is a given, and getting SLI on non-NVIDIA chipsets is what usually requires hacked drivers. I'll let you know if the stock 7.9 drivers work properly later today when I've had a chance to verify.
n7 - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
I was excited to see this review, mainly because i wanted to see how well their cooling system worked.But there's not a word in this review about the cooling setup, what temps were, was it better than others for OCing etc...
And as for the system itself, sure, it looks nice, & getting SLI or CF working is nice, but 2 GB of RAM?
That's just a big joke when many of us already run 4 GB in our "lowly systems"...
JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
For a 32-bit OS, there's not much need to go beyond 2GB of RAM. Users will almost certainly get the option to install 4GB in the online configurator - and they might even be able to select a 64-bit OS; I don't know yet because the system isn't officially on sale for a few more days.As for the water cooling setup, I haven't tested any other water cooling configs so I can't say whether the Asetek unit in the Blackbird is better or not. It appears to deal with a fully stressed Core 2 Quad @ 3.66 GHz, though I can't be 100% sure that the overclock didn't cause a crash or two. I can look into temperatures for the follow-up, but honestly I think stability is far more important. If a system can manage to run Folding@Home SMP without excessive failures and/or crashes, that's usually a pretty good indication that the overclock is "safe".
wolfman3k5 - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
HP should have known better than installing a 32 bit OS on such a system, because the OS will never be able to address all the video memory. It's about the same as installing 4GB Ram on a 32 bit OS, except that in this situation with 2GB system RAM and 2GB Video Ram, the OS will be able to address closer to 4GB Ram. Other devices also take away some of the 4GB addressing space.As far as CrossFire is concerned, it's not so miraculous that it works on a Striker Motherboard. After all, native crossfire will transfer all data over the two bridges, so it can be chipset agnostic.
It looks like the high performance PC market is pretty profitable, and HP and other companies are going after the boutique manufacturers to try and take away what business is left. But if I want this kind of computer, I'd rather buy from Falcon NW, Puget or build my own. Sorry, not my cup of tea.