HP Phoenix h9-1120t System Review: HP's Gaming Desktop Round Two with Tahiti and Ivy Bridge
by Dustin Sklavos on June 19, 2012 8:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Gaming
- AMD
- HP
- Ivy Bridge
- Radeon HD 7000
- Phoenix
- Tahiti
Re-Introducing the HP Phoenix
Less than four months ago we had in for review HP's entry to the gaming desktop market, the Phoenix. We found that it was a compelling product that served a market segment that had gone largely ignored by the major vendors, though the Sandy Bridge-E build had a hard time justifying its cost. Worse, by the time our review went up HP had already basically obsoleted our review unit.
Today we go for a second round with the HP Phoenix, and this time we're taking a look at what HP claims should be a much more compelling model than the one we reviewed before. You'll recall Sandy Bridge-E and NVIDIA's last-generation GeForce GTX 580 drove the price up to a staggering $2,880, putting it easily within striking distance of the boutiques you would normally be buying gaming desktops from. Our review unit today exchanges Sandy Bridge-E for Ivy Bridge, and includes the promised update from Fermi to Tahiti.
It's been well established that Sandy Bridge-E's value proposition is a dubious one, and for gamers it's nigh nonexistent. I've actually even upgraded my personal workstation from a Gulftown i7-990X to an i7-3770K; unless you're doing a lot of serious video editing and doing it frequently, the extra two cores just aren't worth the increased power consumption and expense. Even then, editors routinely posting video to YouTube and Vimeo may find more utility out of Intel's Quick Sync than they would from two extra cores (as I have).
Suffice it to say, nine times out of ten, the market HP is targeting with the Phoenix is going to be best served by an Ivy Bridge quad-core. HP has made the necessary updates and here's what we're looking at for round two:
HP Phoenix h9se Specifications | |
Chassis | Custom HP Phoenix |
Processor |
Intel Core i7-3770K (4x3.5GHz, Hyper-Threading, Turbo to 3.9GHz, 22nm, 8MB L3, 77W) |
Motherboard | Custom Intel Z75 Chipset Board |
Memory | 2x4GB Samsung DDR3-1333, 2x2GB Micron DDR3-1333 (max 4x8GB DDR3-1333) |
Graphics |
AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 (OEM) (1792 GCN Cores, 800MHz/5GHz core/RAM, 384-bit memory bus) |
Hard Drive | Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 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 Atheros AR8161 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet |
Audio |
IDT 92HD73E1 (with Beats Audio) 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 1x DVI (Radeon) 1x HDMI (Radeon) 2x Mini-DisplayPort (Radeon) |
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 Beats Audio |
Warranty | 2-year hardware and 1-year software support |
Pricing |
Starts at $999 Review system configured at $1,689 |
Right off the bat it's safe to assume the Ivy Bridge-based system is going to outperform the Sandy Bridge-E-based system we reviewed in February in most tasks. We lose two CPU cores and an SSD in the process, but doing so shaves $1,200 off of the price tag. In exchange, our graphics card has been updated to AMD's Radeon HD 7950, and in fact NVIDIA is now off the table entirely for graphics card options in the Phoenix.
That said, the starting configuration is pretty dire. HP only offers the Intel Core i7-3770K in the Ivy Bridge-based Phoenix, which is fine, but the default graphics card is an anemic Radeon HD 7670 with 1GB of DDR3 (basically a rehash of the HD 6670 but with twice the RAM). At a starting price of $1,199 for the Ivy Bridge system, this is pathetic to the point where an end user willing to sacrifice some CPU performance can actually buy a gaming notebook with better performance at the same price.
Here's the real problem: upgrade prices on most of the components are exorbitant bordering on extortionate, Apple-level gouging. The default configuration includes 8GB of DDR3 (10GB with the current sale), and that's fine, but HP wants to charge you $600 to go up to 32GB of DDR3-1333 when you can purchase the same amount of memory at DDR3-1600 speeds at retail for a third of the cost. Even 16GB (4x4GB) is an unreasonable $160, and that's ignoring the fact that HP still equips the system with lowly DDR3-1333 when DDR3-1600 is roughly the same price at retail. It's just cheap.
The graphics card is worse. Going up to a Radeon HD 7770 will cost you $180, and the Radeon HD 7950 is a staggering $430. That's at least a $50 premium over retail on each, and that's ignoring the fact that they're replacing the existing (mediocre) card; an HD 6670 will generally set you back at least $50, so basically you're paying HP $100 over the cost of retail pricing for the GPU upgrades. About the only place they don't gouge you is on the price of hard drives, but SSDs are also overpriced by about $100 apiece.
I went and checked with boutiques to see if they could compete with HP on price here. They do, and then some, provided you're willing to sacrifice the smaller form factor of the Phoenix. iBuyPower's default Gamer Paladin E810 configuration is $1,519 and ships with faster memory, a faster video card, and a better motherboard with support for Lucid Virtu. Switch to the comparably sized LAN Warrior and it actually gets even worse. Bounce over to AVADirect and their Compact Gaming System, same deal. Where are the savings we're supposed to be able to get from going with a major OEM like HP that can drive prices down? Unfortunately, they're not here.
Okay, so the pricing isn't all that compelling. You can put together a system with better features at gaming shops like the above for less money, or you could even go the DIY route and end up spending around $1475 for a similar mATX build with a better motherboard and RAM, or closer to $1400 if you go with less expensive options. Still, paying $200 extra to get a pre-built system isn't the end of the world, if the performance and other elements are there. Let's see if this Phoenix is able to rise again from the ashes of a burned checkbook.
33 Comments
View All Comments
quiksilvr - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
I think the question you should be asking is: "Why are the best functioning computer cases so fucgly?"Wolfpup - Monday, July 23, 2012 - link
Compared to what? I think this is an attractive design-far more so than most if not all boutique systems.duffman55 - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
HP's website says they're doing free upgrades from 8GB of memory to 10GB of memory with 3 DIMMs. Seems kind of odd that they would use an odd number of sticks. What sort of effect does this have on performance in this day and age?RaistlinZ - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
It's because OEM's like HP don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to high end gaming rigs. 3 DIMMS is silly, obviously. And for that price there really should be at least a 60GB SSD for the OS, 1600 DDR instead of 1333, at least a moderate overclock on the CPU, and a 7970 instead of a 7950.ggathagan - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
3 DIMMS might be more than silly; it might be detrimental to performance.I don't know about the Z75 chipset, but many of the chipsets out there revert to single channel memory control when the DIMMS aren't in pairs.
Denithor - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
Nah, ever since the Nehalem days CPUs have been able to use a hybrid channel memory setup if you use odd numbers of sticks.The matched pair will run in dual channel mode, the single stick will run single channel. Still faster overall than entirely single channel mode.
But yeah, that's basically a moronic 'upgrade' from HP for a system intended as a 'performance' class computer.
ShieTar - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
My guess? It breaks Dual-Channel mode, drives up power consumption by about 5 to 10 W (not just the stick, the CPU will use more power too), and do absolutely nothing for your performance unless by chance you manage to use more than 8 but less than 10 GB of memory. Hint: Gaming won't use more than 8 GB for a long time to come.This seems very much like advertising acted on this "special offer" without consulting engineering about it.
RDO CA - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
why all the 2.0 ports and I think you meant 22nm processor--1333 memory and no ssd??Come on HP you can do better.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
The bandwidth requirements for USB 3.0 are quite steep, and the Z77 chipset only supports up to four USB 3.0 ports natively. If you want more USB ports, you either use USB 2.0 or you have to add a second USB 3.0 controller, which requires PCIe lanes that you might not have. Besides, mice, keyboards, and many other devices have no need of the bandwidth offered by USB 3.0.I'm not sure what you mean by the other comment: "I think you meant 22nm processor--1333 memory and no ssd??" If you're simply saying HP should have done better on the RAM and storage, I'd agree; maybe you're just responding to some other post?
Pennanen - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
Just built similiar system for a friend month or 2 ago, even tough it had i5 2500k but otherwise pretty much the same. Total cost ended up 1100$.Prebuilts are very overpriced but this one does it even harder.