HP Phoenix h9se: The Pavilion Goes Beyond Thunderdome
by Dustin Sklavos on February 29, 2012 12:00 AM ESTIntroducing the HP Phoenix h9se
Outside of the Envy series and the bygone era of Voodoo (anyone remember the Blackbird?), HP hasn't exactly been a brand associated with high performance gaming desktops, at least not on the consumer side. They're a large vendor and we tend to expect basic computer systems from them--the type of system we'd buy for our parents or grandparents, not something that would be competitive with the kinds of desktops we can get from boutiques. Yet companies like HP or Dell can leverage their size to produce slick, heavily customized chassis designs for their builds, and that's exactly what HP has done with the Phoenix h9se.
In its nearly sub-midtower dimensions, HP has crammed the Phoenix with a heck of a lot of power while producing something with a unique aesthetic. It's attractive without being gaudy, and in true big-box fashion they've managed to keep the price down. Is the Phoenix worth the gaming dollars of you and yours? Here's the quick rundown of our review unit.
HP Phoenix h9se Specifications | |
Chassis | Custom HP Phoenix |
Processor |
Intel Core i7-3960X (6x3.3GHz, Hyper-Threading, Turbo to 3.9GHz, 32nm, 15MB L3, 130W) |
Motherboard | Custom X79 Chipset Board |
Memory | 4x4GB Micron DDR3-1600 |
Graphics |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB GDDR5 (OEM) (512 CUDA Cores, 772/1544/4008MHz core/shaders/RAM, 384-bit memory bus) |
Hard Drive(s) |
Intel 320 Series 160GB SATA 3Gbps SSD Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 500GB 7200-RPM SATA 6Gbps HDD |
Optical Drive(s) | Blu-ray/DVDRW Combo Drive |
Power Supply | 600W Custom |
Networking |
Ralink RT5392 802.11b/g/n Wireless Realtek RTL8168 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet |
Audio |
IDT 92HD89E2 Speaker, mic/line-in, surround jacks, optical out for 7.1 sound |
Front Side |
Optical drive 4x USB 2.0 SD/MMC/CF card reader |
Top |
2x USB 3.0 Headphone and mic jacks |
Back Side |
Optical 4x USB 2.0 2x USB 3.0 Ethernet Speaker, mic/line-in, surround jacks 2x DVI-D (GeForce) 1x Mini-HDMI (GeForce) |
Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 |
Dimensions |
16.22" x 6.89" x 16.34" (412mm x 175mm x 415mm) |
Extras |
Integrated 802.11b/g/n Closed CPU liquid cooling loop |
Warranty | 2-year hardware and 1-year software support |
Pricing |
Starts at $999 Review system configured at $2,899 |
Our sample system is very nearly as beefy as it gets (and then some!) outside of some upgrade options on storage and memory. While you might think the Phoenix is an Intel-based system from looking at the above table, HP offers the Phoenix with every major processor series. At the $999 price point you start with an AMD FX-8100, which is upgradeable to the FX-8150, but at that point you're within spitting distance of the vastly more powerful Intel Core i7-2600. Ours comes equipped with Intel's Sandy Bridge-E Core i7-3960X, an extremely powerful but costly processor.
HP will also be refreshing the Phoenix with Ivy Bridge once those processors become available. In the meantime, you're also free to overclock any of the unlocked processors that the Phoenix can ship with, although HP won't overclock from the factory and their overclocking support matches Intel's: you're free to do it, but don't come crying to us if/when the overclock is bungled.
Worth noting is that the video card specifically has gone end-of-life from NVIDIA, presumably in anticipation of the release of Kepler, so it's no longer available for order. That leaves the highest performance users hanging in the breeze until March 7th when the AMD Radeon HD 7950 will become available; until then, only the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti and AMD Radeon HD 6850 are currently offered. When we asked why the 7970 wasn't being offered, HP's representatives said it was an issue of maintaining a price point. That's a fair response; the 7970 is still pretty fresh in the marketplace, and AMD has seen fit to command a very pretty penny for it. When the 7950 does become available, it'll actually come in at $10 under the GTX 580 configuration.
For the rest of the setup, we've got our preferred SSD + HDD combination for storage, a Blu-ray combo drive, 16GB RAM, and pretty much everything else you'd want from a top of the line system. About the only thing you can't get from the factory in the Phoenix is dual-GPUs; HP sells this strictly as a single-GPU chassis, and the 600W PSU is fitting for such systems. The rest of the components cover all the bases, with USB 3.0 on the top and rear of the chassis and integrated WiFi. Let's hit the benchmarks before discussing the finer details of the build.
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faster - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
I went to HP's website to check this bad boy out. Their base model was $2349, not $999. Thats a huge difference.SteveKosh - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
The H9 series startsat $999. But I do agree that it looks like it says it for the h9se.JarredWalton - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
If you'll read the text, we specifically mention that the SNB-E config is the least sensible of all the H9 options.faster - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
It is also worth mentioning that they only offer 2 choices of video card - a 550ti or 6850. Fairly lame for a "high end" desktop costing over $2000.StrangerGuy - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
...That's ugly as sin. And nothing screams cheapness like glossy plastic.Gunbuster - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
Did you have a pizza party before the photo shoot? Wipe those fingerprints off!Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
I did.TrackSmart - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
I appreciate that this comment leaves it ambiguous about whether Dustin had a pizza party (I hope) or wiped off the fingerprints (less fun). Good stuff!SteveKosh - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
"That leaves the highest performance users hanging in the breeze until March 7th when the AMD Radeon HD 7950 will become available."To my knowledge the 7950 is out already. I think you mean the 7850.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
No, it means that HP is not offering the HD 7950 in the Phoenix until March 7.