The Ultimate Machine!!!

The ultimate machine would not have a gf2 ultra, it would have a gf3 ti 500 or RETAIL radeon 8500, depending on which side of the religious vidoecard war you happened to be on.

Here is my money is not an issue uber gaming machine

athlon xp 1800+
abit kr7 raid mobo(kt266a with great tweaking)
512 megs corsair pc2400 ddr ram.

Run the system at 150fsb, use the pc2400 ram to its fullest and overclock the cpu, heatsink would be the 80mm swifttech I keep forgetting its model number.

3x 40 gig 60gxp deskstar(IBM) in raid 0 (courtesy of the kr7's onboard raid controler) get a fourth harddrive if you feel the need to have 160 gigs of warp 9 data access!
cdr deffinatly plextor 24x plexwriter, best cd burner bar none.
Video, I personally would get the gf3 ti 500 and overclock the sonofabitch, but the radeon 8500 is nice too, when they dont cheat on benchmark scores that is ;-).
Sound, that is a personal choice, the turtle beach santa cruz is a great soundcard, but I have not heard the sb audiology yet, I personally will most likely be getting an nforce board for its excellent super onboard sound. (at a small cost to performance compared to the kt266a).


for OS, I deffinatly reccomend windows xp, fast stable and compatable with nearly everything(unlike win2k) if you would rather have about 2-3% more performance go with win98se.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

>Run the system at 150fsb, use the pc2400 ram to its >fullest and overclock the cpu

hmm.. unlocking the XP isnt that easy, and I doubt it will do 150 fsb without reducing the mulitplier

>swifttech I keep forgetting its model number

You mean the Swiftech MC462A. superb heatsink. I would put a low noise pabst fan on it though. Keeps my hot athlon 1.4 very cool, even overclocked to 1.6 (less that 50° stressed)

>I deffinatly reccomend windows xp, fast stable and
>compatable with nearly everything(unlike win2k)

? I also have XP (though only RC1), and however much I like it, I cant say its compatible with everything.. far from from it. Im having issues with most virus scanners, Partition Magic and Kazaa to name just a few. Maybe because of the beta status of my XP, but I fear its not just that.

>sb audiology

Audigy you mean. I just got one, and its very nice indeed. Of course there are no games yet to fully support it, and no XP drivers either (win2K drivers work though). I just got it for the built-in firewire; otherwise I think the Guillemot game/home theater XP or whatever its called is about as good.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

What's your money limit? You said "Ultimate Machine", but I'll keep it to a minimum (no SCSI, etc).

Motherboard:
AMD:
SiS735 from Abit (when it comes out). If you want something now, you might try the Leadtek, if you trust them. Otherwise, go for the MSI KT266a.

Intel:
Definitely the TH7-II. No question.


CPU:
AMD:
Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz)

Intel:
P4 2.0GHz


Video card:
Visiontek GeForce 3 Ti500 (very overclockable), or retail Radeon 8500.

Hard drives:
3 20/30/40/60GB IBM 60GXP's in a RAID 5 (get the Promise SuperTrak 100, it supports RAID 5).

DVD:
Pioneer 106s (slot load)

CD Burner:
24/10/40 Plextor

Audio:
<A HREF="http://www.impactsites2000.com/tekreview/audioxp.htm" target="_new">Hercules Game Theater XP</A>

Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech black wireless combo (can't remember the name. I have the mouse, and it's awesome).

Case: Lian-Li PCxx (look around their website, see which one you want).

PSU: Enermax 430w or so

Monitor: Very much personal preference, I never recommend monitors.

NIC: 3Com 3CR990-TX-97


Did I forget anything?

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

You want...

Athlon XP1800+

MB based on the KT266A chipset (Personal preference here which one is better, so take your pick)

IDE RAID using the Promise Chipset (Either onboard or Expansion Card)

at least 3 7200 RPM disks of choice. If you want to be safe, run in Raid 0+1, it's about the same with the Promise RAID addapter as RAID 0 (I think you need 4 HDs then Minimum).

Note, if money is realy no object, get a SCSI controller and run some Solid State HDs in RAID. But that's going to cost you $10,000+

DVD-Burner of choise (Not up on research on these, but why not if money is no object)

SB Audigy Platinum (EA version if you want to be able to move the front panel around a bit outside of the comp)

Radeon 8500 or Geforce3 TI-500, depending on preference. Radeon 8500 All-in-Wonder or something like the Asus V8200 ti-500 Delux would be even better. Gives you all sorts of extras.

at least 512 MB DDR ram. If you can get it, go for PC2400 (150 Mhz) if you are intending to overclock.

Case of choice, preferably a high end modular one with good airflow and easy internal access and a good power supply.

and finaly, Either Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 Pro, or Windows XP, or some combination there of. XP may need to be fine tuned before it will suit some power users.

Just my thoughs if money was no object.

60 FPS, 70 FPS, 80 FPS Crash!
Daylight comes and I have to go to work :frown:

<A HREF="http://www.theoverclockerzstore.com" target="_new">The Overclockerz Store</A> sells unlocked Athlon XP CPUs for prices cheaper than most places have the regular versions. The unlocking processing voids any warranty from AMD, but they put their own warranty on the processors. I think it is 90 days.

<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>

w00t! I forgot to check to see if they had them. Thanks

BTW, a reminder to everyone: last I heard, you can only change the multiplier if you have a BIOS-based multiplier adjustment. Those who can only overclock with jumpers or dipswitches, apparently you're out of luck  

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

"The ultimate machine would not have a gf2 ultra" - nor would it have a AMD CPU.

face it, your not building a "ultimate machine". just a cheap POS.

GL

get over yourself FUGGER, your remarks are moronik and stupid, we got it- you like intel and dislike AMD, now shut the fu#k up!
if you dont have any smart remark to add then dont add anything!

<font color=green>
*******
*K.I.S.S*
*(k)eep (I)t (S)imple (S)tupid*
*******
</font color=green>

LoL, fugger, you are a joke, go away troll.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

Too bad, I thought FUGGER had given up on trolling, too  

<font color=orange>Quarter <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

Do you have a price limit on this "Ultimate Machine"? Also, what are you going to use this "Ultimate Machine" for?

  <b>Rhode Island is neither a road, nor an island. Discuss!</b>  

<font color=orange>Quarter <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

Fuger likely wishes to use a Zilog Z80 or something similar... run CPM too..

<font color=red>When you smoke your CPU, what kind of papers do you use?