Is the PC gaming industry dying? According to a recently revealed new non-profit organization, the answer is a resounding "No!". The PC Gaming Alliance was first announced last February at a press conference at GDC with companies that normally compete with each other. Hardware companies like Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Acer, Dell and Antec are full members and game software developer/publishers like Microsoft, Epic Games and Activision are also members of the group (contributors include Capcom, Razer, Logitech, the Guildhall at SMU, Wildtangent, and the Entertainment Merchants Association).So what is this diverse group doing to promote PC gaming? The organization is aiming to come up with ways to improve marketing for PC gaming, trying to fight new ways to combat PC game piracy and looking to do research into PC game revenues beyond the normal retail sales. Perhaps their most important mission is to establish a minimal hardware requirement for a PC to run most games and to create guidelines for game developers to have their games run well on that minimal platform.While the PC Gaming Alliance is still working on these matters (they are planning to announced their first study results in August), Big Download wanted to get an update on the organization and its progress. We sent some questions to the group's president Randy Stude (who in his day job is the director of the Gaming Program Office for Intel) to see if we can get a sense of what the organization is doing and how they feel about recent criticism from game developer Valve Software. ...

Big, huge PC maker HP bought small gaming PC maker Voodoo PC back in 2006 and since then the merging of the company has produced the powerful (and expensive) 002 Blackbird PC which has gotten a ton of critical acclaim since its introduction in late 2007. Now it seems HP and Voodoo PC are preparing yet another major announcement.According to a new article on the Fortune web site, HP and Voodoo PC are going to reveal new products that " . . . could begin to establish the company as a provider of beautiful technology gear." That's a pretty vague description but we are hoping that these new products won't just look good but have some horsepower as well. HP-Voodoo are competing for the gaming PC space with Dell and its sister company Alienware (while Dell purchased in 2006). Recently it was revealed that Dell would put more emphasis on their gaming PCs on the Alienware side.[Via Engadget]...

What is the next leap that is needed for gaming-oriented PCs? According to Dell's gaming PC subsidiary Alienware it's not a faster processor or graphics card but moving to a more powerful operating system. In a new News.com article Alienware's desktop product manager Marc Diana says the major PC hardware companies (Microsoft, Intel, NVIDIA, AMD) need to move collectively to fully support 64-bit based operating systems.Ever since the release of Windows 95 13 years ago, most PC games have supported 32-bit based OSs with only a few that have fully supported 64-bit systems natively. In fact Diana admits Alienware doesn't even bother to offer 64-bit based PCs because the driver support for such a system isn't available, in their opinion. Yet going to a 64-bit OS would not only increase performance for PCs in theory it would also allow gaming PCs to have memory that can break the current 4GB limit that 32-bit OS have.Diana said other factors could also help in making more powerful PCs in the future including moving to DDR3-based memory that use less power but are clocked higher than DDR2-based memory. At the moment DDR3-based memory is still much more expensive than the norm....

Remember yesterday when we reported that Dell was phasing out its XPS line of gaming PCs, according to a story from the Wall Street Journal? Well, Dell looks like it's doing a little damage control on that item. In a post on Dell's official blog site its Corporate Communications head Anne Camden states, "We don't plan an early phase-out of these systems as the WSJ incorrectly stated, and in fact will continue to refresh them to keep them on the front edge of gaming."However it's also clear that Dell does plan to put more of its gaming PC emphasis on its sister company Alienware, the Miami based company that Dell bought over two years ago. Camden states, "We are going to invest like crazy in product development, design and engineering to propel Alienware as the premier gaming brand in the future." We always thought it was odd that Dell promoted its own XPS gaming line when it already had a gaming line in Alienware. For now it appears things will stay that way but we get the feeling the XPS line will be used for other product lines and less for gaming in the years ahead....

Dell may have just launched their new XPS 730 line-up of hardcore PCs game machines but according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal (the full article is for subscribers) that may be the last XPS gaming PC the company will make. The report states that Dell will begin to phase out the XPS line because it was eating into the sales of its sister company Alienware which Dell purchased back in March 2006.Again, Dell just released its new XPS 730 and the XPS 730 H2C PC systems a couple of weeks ago so it's interesting that they might be considering such a move soon after this new model release. The Wall Street Journal also reports that Alienware plans to release new case models that are made of new materials and look much different than the current design....

The folks at Dell have been selling their XPS line of PCs for some time and while the line has branched out from its initial gaming PC line-up to include laptops and even all-in-one PCs, the company hasn't forgotten about hardcore PC gamers. The company just announced their new XPS 730 and XPS 730 H2C models. As you can see from the image above the new model comes in a new case design that is a refinement from the previous 720 model.The new models both come with an Nvidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset that can support Nvidia SLI graphics cards or an ATI CrossfireX set up with Intel Core2 Extreme processors (with optional overclocking) and support for up to four hard drives. The 730 H2C model (the one with the ultra-cooling hardware) has some improvements from the 720 H2C version with an additional coldplate for the chip set, a separate fan for the CPU's voltage regulator components and a redesigned the CPU coldplate tor more uniform cooling for the PCs's four CPU cores. The H2C models comes in Victory Red and Stealth Blue colors (with 2.4mm anodized aluminum cases) while the regular 730 model comes in a brushed aluminum Silver case.The regular Dell XPS 730 starts at $3,999 while the H2C model starts its pricing at a whopping $4,999. With those prices, Dell claims you will be able to play Crysis at 1920x1200 resolution at over 30 frames a second. If you got the cash you might want to give these a look-see....