Upgrading an HP Blackbird 002 gaming PC with Dan Robideaux from the team that brought us the award-winning Blackbird 002. A serious gaming PC for serious PC gamers, the Blackbird was built for super easy upgrading and Dan shows how quickly and easily an upgrade can take you from ~60 fps in Call of Duty 4 all the way up to over 300 fps! You have to see this upgrade to believe it – the Blackbird’s “tool-less architecture” doesn’t mean a thing until you see it in action.
Original config:
- Dual Core - Intel Core2 Duo 2.66GHz E6750
- 2 GB 667 MHz PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
- NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
Upgraded to:
- Quad Core - Intel Core2 Extreme Quad-Core 3.0GHz QX6850 performance enhanced
- 2 GB 1066MHz CORSAIR PC2-8500 DDR2 SDRAM SLI Ready
- Dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 ULTRA with 768MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
hp.com/blackbird
This time on two platforms. Platform on the left: Core 2 Extreme X6800 2,93 GHz, GeForce 9800 GX2, ASUS Striker II Extreme (nForce 790i Ultra), 2 GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1800 MHz, 1000 W Thermaltake PSU, 750 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drive, 30" Samsung SyncMaster 305T monitor, Windows Vista SP1 Business English.
Platform on the right: Core 2 Extreme QX9770 3,2 GHz, GeForce 9800 GX2, EVGA nForce 790i Ultra, 2 GB Crucial DDR3 2000 MHz, 1100 W Topower PSU, 2 x 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives @ RAID 0, 30" HP LP3065 monitor, Windows Vista Ultimate PL with latest hot fixes.
Both platforms running nForce drivers 9.64 and ForceWare 174.53 drivers for GX2.
I decided to test my new rig on a new game, the new Need for Speed to be exact, and i'm not the best driver even on my new Logitech G25 wheel.
Specs: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850
4GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-10600 Memory
two 8800Ultra's in SLI
150GB Raptor HDD @ 10,000rpm
two 500GB HDD's @ 7200RPM
Game Specs: Run at 1920x1080 with Highest Settings and 16x Antialiasing and 16x Antitrosphic Filtering