Voodoo computers have long been to standard home machines what beefed-up muscle cars are to production-line autos and bore price tags reflecting their elite status.
Voodoo changed gears at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, showing off a Firebird computer that packs high-performance under the hood but has a sticker price aimed at typical buyers.
"High-performance personal computers got too inefficient; an industry of gluttony and excess," said Rahul Sood, chief technology officer at Voodoo, which was bought last year by US computer-making colossus Hewlett-Packard. Firebird is touted as the world's first high-performance hybrid personal computer due to its combination of NVIDIA graphics and Intel computing (GPU and CPU) chips. Chrome plates cover processors in a liquid-cooled Firebird engine.
The amount of electricity used to run the machine is less than a quarter of that consumed by the previous Voodoo model, according to Sood. Basic Firebirds are priced at 1,799 dollars, while an upgraded model with built-in Blu-ray technology for high-definition DVD movie viewing sells for 2,099 dollars. Voodoo began taking Firebird orders Friday.
Voodoo computers, long revered by "hardcore gamers" as the machines for sophisticated gaming, have typically hovered in the 5,000-dollar-plus price zone.
"You could spend 2,000 dollars this year and get basically the same performance that you would from computer you spent 5,000 dollars for last year," Sood said. "We thought the industry was going down the wrong path and wanted to re-invent high performance computing."
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