What components would I need to build the Ultimate Gaming Machine?

[DietDrThunder]

I saw the trailing end of a story last night on the news. It was said that companies were building Ultimate Gaming PCs for $10,000 and up. I missed the part that said what was in them. What would your opinions be?

 

[merlocka]

I would start with a K6-2 300MHz (4.5x66 not 3x100 mind you) on a ultra-stable VIA MVP3 motherboard.

Add a S3 Trio VX, with the 4MB option.

Cough up the extra cash for 32MB of that new SDRAM.

Soundblaster 16 ISA for that 16bit stereo sound.

If you want to really get nuts, definatly get one of those Voodoo Graphics cards. They are supposed to make games run up to 30 frames per second!!!

 

[DietDrThunder]

You make me laugh. Ha! Ha! Haaa!

 

[harbinger52]

Heh Heh Heh merlocka Good one

 

[SupermanCK]

why voodoo...just use the 1MB Diamond Video card...it has blocky 2d graphics

 

[merlocka]

Sorry, couldn't resist.

As far as the fastest gaming machine... kinda silly. As you spend more and more cash, you get diminishing returns. That $10,000 box is probably some ultra-overclocked with special cooling. For 1/10th the price you could get a box with a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 and a Geforce 4 card which would probably perform at 75-80% of the speed of the $10,000 box.

I'm more interested in the worlds fastest $500 gaming rig

 

[Flashram]

$10,000? That would be one hell of a machine.

 

[SolrFlare24]

Yeah UGMs are usually dual processor mobos with a high end graphic card, a big old SCSI Raid setup, big high qualty monitor, etc, etc.

For a more realistic price...an Ultimate gaming machine would be, based off on the market components:

P4 2.53 ghz processor
GF4 ti4600 video card
1 gig DDR 333 or higher(or 1066 Rambus) using an 845e(g) or 850e chipset respectively
Lian Li or Cheiftech based case
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
two 80gb IDE drives in Raid configuration
High quality ethernet card to avoid using system resources with built in nics/cheap nics

19-21 inch high quality flat screen CRT
DVD+(or -)RW drive
40x CDRW drive
Logitech z560 or Klipch 5.1 speakers
USB keyboard
Optical Mouse
Windows XP Pro

Then take all that, slap water cooling on the processor and overclock the P4 up there. That should get you in the area of 15000+ 3dmarks

That would be the costly but still consumer friendly setup. For something a bit more affordable, replace the 2.53ghz P4 with a 1.6a using air cooled HSF and overclock to 2.4ghz. Get an OEM Audigy, drop the speakers down to Logitech z540s, replace the DVD burner with a DVD-ROM drive, kill the Raid and just buy a single 60-80gb drive, and drop the vid card to a ti4400 or ti4200/Radeon 8500 128mb. That will kill a good $1000-$1500 off the price.

 

[oldfart]

What components would I need to build the Ultimate Gaming Machine?
These ones!. A bit less than $10K though. Either that or merlocka's setup.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: merlocka
Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm more interested in the worlds fastest $500 gaming rig

Its called an Xbox and it runs about $199 US

Long live HALO!!!

 

[Necrolezbeast]

Halo kicks ass, but a little higher fps would have been better, especially in mulitplayer and co-op....I've seen it drop a little too much in co-op...for some reason I wish there were a boss in that game.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

hell.. just cough up the cash and buy yourself a server farm!

 

[OatMan]

Does a CREY have an AGP slot? or would i be stuck with V5 PCI?

Oh wait you said $10,000 not $10,000,000

 

[dude]

Originally posted by: merlocka
I would start with a K6-2 300MHz (4.5x66 not 3x100 mind you) on a ultra-stable VIA MVP3 motherboard. Add a S3 Trio VX, with the 4MB option. Cough up the extra cash for 32MB of that new SDRAM. Soundblaster 16 ISA for that 16bit stereo sound. If you want to really get nuts, definatly get one of those Voodoo Graphics cards. They are supposed to make games run up to 30 frames per second!!!

You forgot, to bring this smokin' rig up another $9,991 to the $10,000 mark, add in an old 10 year old Rolex watch.

 

[acidvoodoo]

Originally posted by: merlocka
I would start with a K6-2 300MHz (4.5x66 not 3x100 mind you) on a ultra-stable VIA MVP3 motherboard.

Add a S3 Trio VX, with the 4MB option.

Cough up the extra cash for 32MB of that new SDRAM.

Soundblaster 16 ISA for that 16bit stereo sound.

If you want to really get nuts, definatly get one of those Voodoo Graphics cards. They are supposed to make games run up to 30 frames per second!!!

i've got a via Mvp3 motherbaord in another rig and i find it to be quite stable

 

[BFG10K]

A 2.53 GHz P4 Northwood paired with 1 GB of DDR333/PC1066 RDRAM is a must.

 

[Jeff7]

Hmm...
Quad P4 Xeon 2.53GHz processors
2048MB PC1066 RDRAM
3x120GB HDD's in RAID 5 (think that's the one with 2 striped and one for parity)
16x DVD ROM
40x12x40 CD-RW Drive
GF4 Ti4600 (or Matrox Parhelia when it comes out)
BIG monitor, maybe 3 with a Parhelia.
5.1 dolby sound card
Klipsh 5.1 speakers
Good NIC
Good keyboard
Belkin Speedpad n50
Logitech Dual Optical

Mmmmmmmm.....did I miss anything?