voodoopc posts

The founder of a well-know gaming PC maker has now got himself a new job. Rahul Sood, the founder of VoodooPC, announced this week on his official web site has now joined Microsoft as the general manager of "System Experience in the Interactive Entertainment Business." If you are wondering what that means, Sood doesn't give us much more saying, "I'll be working on some really....really...really cool stuff come January 2011."

Sood founded VoodooPC in 1991 and in the late 1990s and early 2000s began gaining a foothold in the gaming PC market thanks to its well designed systems. In 2006, VoodooPC was bought by HP. However the marriage between the two companies didn't seem to work with HP releasing only a few new VoodooPC products since the merger. HP no longer sells PCs with the VoodooPC label.

[Via Engadget]

First it was Dell buying Alienware and then HP decided to buy VoodooPC. So in October of 2007, OCZ Technology, who made and sold PC memory, hard drives and other hardware parts, decided to buy their own gaming PC company too. Their pick was Hypersonic PC, a company established in 1996 and had a solid reputation for building fast gaming oriented PCs.

Alas, it looks like that particular marriage didn't work out. The hardware site Techgage reports that OCZ is no longer accepting any new orders for their Hypersonic PC business as OCZ will concentrate on their core products like memory, hard drives and power supplies. Anyone who bought a Hypersonic PC will be happy to know that their warranties will still be covered by OCZ.

[Via Engadget]

Several years ago the gaming PC company Voodoo PC was bought by HP a few months after Dell purchase Alienware. While the Alienware brand has stayed front and center in Dell's marketing plans to PC gamers, HP's plans for the Voodoo brand haven't quite been as direct.

Today the founder of Voodoo PC, Rahul Sood, gave an update on what's going on with the Voodoo brand on his personal blog site. Unfortunately he's still being rather vague about what we can expect in the future saying only, "Voodoo has been transitioning from 'desktop & notebook' manufacturing to something beyond." While there might still be HP PCs with the Voodoo branding and/or Voodoo "DNA" inside there seems to be something else going on. What exactly we don't know.

Voodoo's last major gaming PC release was the Firebird desktop which was branded as a cheaper alternative to a very expensive gaming rig. Sood states, "For you Firebird fans out there - remember I said that was the future of desktop gaming? Well we haven't forgotten about that."

[Via Engadget]

The news on the HP Firebird gaming PC was leaked out last week but this week HP and its subsidary Voodoo PC made the news official this week. The slimmed down and powered down gaming PC product will be made available for purchase online later this week with the starting price of $1,799.

However, many people (including some of our comments at Big Download) have questions whether the new HP Firebird is indeed a bargain at its price with some saying they could make a PC using the same or better componants for less. On his official blog site, Voodoo PC owner Radul Sood says HP worked with Nvidia to create new video cards that are smaller but have comparible perfomance to their larger counterparts. Creative Labs was also asked to make a smaller version of its X-FI sound card for the system.

That and other changes make the Firebird unique, according to Sood. He states, "You're going to hear a lot about the HP Firebird with VoodooDNA, because I truly believe it breaks new ground for the performance PC industry. It's the first of its kind, not only for HP, but for all of our partners." He adds, "Sure there will be people who say things like 'I can build one for less' – but they simply cannot. You will not be able to build a PC that offers a balance of performance, silence, size, scalability, reliability, and efficiency for less."

Earlier this week we reported that VoodooPC and its parent company HP would officially launch their "cheaper" gaming-oriented PC at CES next week called the Firebird. However, both VoodooPC and HP have also been working on concepts for a gaming-oriented PC laptop. Now Laptop Magazines's web site has the exclusive first hands-on look at this concept laptop, the HP Firefly.

This massive laptop weight 13 pounds and that includes a one pound power brick. It has a 17.1 inch-screen, backlighting for the keyboard buttons and a multi-touch trackboard. It also has a 4.3 inch LCD screen below the main screen. It can act as a second screen for people who want to play World of Warcraft on the main screen but check an email or watch a YouTube video on the smaller display. It also has a night vision camera for people who want to game in the dark but still have a video chat with friends.

As VoodooPC head man Rahul Sood states in his blog entry about the HP Firefly this product is being shown at CES next week but is a concept model only and will not actually be sold to the public. However you can bet that some of the ideas in the Firefly will be put in future HP and VoodooPC laptops.

The gaming PC hardware industry has been reeling from Voodoo PC head Rahul Sood's recent remarks that declared the era of the super powerful and super expensive gaming PC is "dead". Next week Sood and Voodoo PC's owners HP plan to put their PCs where their mouths are with the launch of the HP Firebird.

Our sister site Engadget reports that the Firebird will be much smaller and more compact than the huge Blackbird gaming PC (the first product created after HP bought Voodoo PC in 2006). Inside the Firebird will have quad-core 2.83 Ghz Intel Core 2 processors, 4 GB of RAM, and dual Nvidia Geforce 9800S video cards. However the power supply for the PC is placed outside the case and only uses 350 watts of energy, far less than the typical high-powered gaming PC. The catch? The Firebird is not designed to be easily upgradable. PC World reports that the Firebird will go on sale online at voodoopc.com on Jan. 9 for $1,799.

Voodoo PC founder Rahul Sood posted up a note on his personal blog about his opinion that the super-powerful and super expensive gaming PC era was coming to an end. That editorial generated a ton of spirited comments (including some here at Big Download) so Sood has now posted up a follow-up to his original post.

Sood claims a number of smaller PC makers have made some negative comments about his editorial but he stands by his statements, saying, "I do believe the high end personal desktop will change - and you will see at least one new fresh direction in the extreme high end space later this year." He added, "It's time to take a step back and look at the big picture and re-think the way performance PCs are built. I'm speaking mostly to the small companies out there who work 24/7 to stay afloat - because I do believe there is a strong need for 'boutique' companies to stay competitive in order to keep things interesting."

Earlier this week rumors were flying that HP was going to shut down its Voodoo PC business, two years after the PC maker bought the boutique gaming PC creator. Today the Voodoo PC blog responded to the rumors with a message from HP's vice president and chief technology officer Phil McKinney, who stated Voodoo PC's business would be "transitioning to HP's broader infrastructure to gain better scale and efficiencies."

McKinney said such a move would include moving the marketing, engineering and manufacturing parts of Voodoo PC's Calgary based offices to HP locations. As far as layoffs he stated, "At times, there are downsizing moves in HP's business units just as there are hiring moves. We're always adjusting the work force to meet business needs and market dynamics. Is Voodoo immune from this practice? No, it is not." He did not give specifc numbers. Voodoo PC just released its Envy 133 notebook and that $7,000 Omen desktop "won't be far behind" according to McKinney. And why haven't we heard from outspoken Voodoo PC founder Rahul Sood? A picture on the blog site has the answer as Sood is shown holding an Envy notebook but also with a cast on his left arm and hand due to a biking accident.

Just about two years ago, HP announced that it was buying Canadian based Voodoo PC, a gaming PC maker who had achieved some notoriety for its powerful and stylish desktops and notebooks (Some believe HP bought Voodoo PC to keep up with Dell who a few months beforehand had bought gaming PC maker Alienware). Since then Voodoo PC founder Rahul Sood has been promoting how HP has been using his Voodoo PC brand of making products into items like last year's Blackbird 002 desktop.

Now there are rumors going around that HP may be shutting down Voodoo PC's manufacturing operations in Canada. The web site Techgage started the ball rolling with the usual unnamed sources claiming that layoffs would be coming for the division soon. News.com got an HP spokesperson to say that that while the rumor that HP was shutting Voodoo down was "incorrect" it would not comment on any possible layoffs.

The Voodoo PC division just relaunched a few months earlier and only began to start shipping its new Envy 133 notebook PCs earlier this month. It has yet to released its promised Omen desktop PC which is supposed to start at $7,000.

Three months ago gaming PC maker Voodoo PC (now a part of HP) relaunched with the announcements of a cool new notebook PC, the Envy 133 and a new Omen PC desktop. This week Voodoo PC announced that the first Envy 133 were finally shipping out for people who pre-ordered the notebook.

Just in case you are unfamiliar with the Envy, the notebook starts at a "mere" $2,099 and is made out of carbon fiber; it weighs less than 3.4 pounds. Configurations go up to $3,339 and have an Intel Core 2 Due SP7700 processor at 1.8 Ghz with a 13.3 inch screen, a 64 GB solid state drive and 2 GB of memory. Sadly it has an integrated Intel graphics processor so gaming on this notebook might be a chore. Voodoo has yet to reveal when they plan to take pre-orders on their Omen desktop which will start at a whopping $7,000.