Computer maker HP late yesterday held its 2007 Gaming Summit and said it would more aggressively chase after gamers with a future line of PCs. Using car analogies, HP's gaming CTO Rahul Sood said that the company needed to develop a "Mercedes" PC which had much of the performance of the flagship Voodoo PC line, but which didn't have the exotic cases and cooling that add to the cost of Voodoo's Omen and similar luxury systems.

Without going into specifics, Sood indicated that desktops, notebooks, and even handhelds would produce the added speed by the end of the year. The move will put HP in direct competition with Dell's XPS series, which sits in between its mainstream systems and its deluxe Alienware label.