- Sunday, February 1: Leo's Pick: The Pyramat PM300
- Monday, February 2: Leo's Pick: There
- Tuesday, February 3: The All Seeing Eye
- Wednesday, February 4: Trick Out Game Boy and Game Boy Advance
- Thursday, February 5: Play Video Formats on Your Mac
- Friday, February 6: Which Console Should You Get?
- Saturday, February 7: Twisted List: Video Games
- Sunday, February 8: Goodies That Won't Break the Budget
- Monday, February 9: How to Cheat at Solitaire
- Tuesday, February 10: Classic Arcade Gaming
- Wednesday, February 11: Games for the Graphically Challenged
- Thursday, February 12: Twisted List: Alien Games
- Friday, February 13: Ultimate Gaming Machine 6.0
- Saturday, February 14: UGM 6.0: Benchmarks
- Sunday, February 15: Twisted List: Top Five Free Arcade Games
- Monday, February 16: Sub-$500 Gaming PC
- Tuesday, February 17: Small-Time Gaming with Linux
- Wednesday, February 18: Help Yourself: Game Peripherals
- Thursday, February 19: NVidia GeForce Chips Explained
- Friday, February 20: Wil Wheaton's Favorite Games
- Saturday, February 21: Are Emulators Legal?
- Sunday, February 22: Warcraft III Strategies and Tips
- Monday, February 23: Twisted List: Dinosaur Games
- Tuesday, February 24: My Cheating Heart
- Wednesday, February 25: The Commodore 64 Is Alive
- Thursday, February 26: The Commodore 64 Is Alive (continued)
- Friday, February 27: Hot Wheels
- Saturday, February 28: Patrick's Favorite Free Games
- Sunday, February 29: Xbox Mod Chips
Friday, February 13: Ultimate Gaming Machine 6.0
Roman Loyola
In case you're not familiar with the Ultimate Gaming Machine (UGM, for shortwe pronounce it "ugh-um" on the show), it's a PC we've put together for the best gaming performance and experience.
Core Components
We didn't go for the most expensive, fastest parts. Instead, we considered price as well as performance. Here's a parts list:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800 (http://www.amd.com)
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X (http://www.asus.com)
RAM: Corsair (http://www.corsairmicro.com) XMS 3500 DDR 433 MHz (two 512MB sticks)
Storage
Storage gets more affordable every day, so why hold back? What might seem gluttonous now will be the norm in six months.
Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar 200GB (http://www.westerndigital.com). A 7,200 rpm drive with an 8MB buffer. You have to partition it to properly use it.
CD burner: Lite-On LTR-52246S (http://www.liteonit.com.tw). The fastest CD burner in the world: 52X write, 24X rewrite, and 52X read speeds.
DVD-ROM: Toshiba SD-M1612 (http://sdmswb01.config.toshiba.com). 16x DVD playback.
Optional Hardware
Although we didn't include the following items in UGM, we did consider them and had them in for benchmarking:
Hard drive: Fujitsu MAN3367MP (http://www.buyfcpa.com). A 36.7GB SCSI drive rated at 10,000 rpm.
SCSI card: Adaptec 29160 SCSI card (http://www.adaptec.com). A single-channel Ultra160 SCSI card that uses a 64-bit PCI interface. This is for our Fujitsu drive, plus future expansion options.
Sound and Input Devices
People often try to save money when buying these components. But because gaming is an interactive activity, it makes better sense to get good input devices and sound components. When sound draws you in and the controls work smoothly, you've got a great gaming experience.
We picked products that offer good price and performance. Picking input devices comes down to how they feel in your hands, so what's comfortable to us might not work for you.
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse (http://www.logitech.com). No dirty mouse ball or cable to slow us down.
Keyboard: Logitech Elite USB Keyboard (http://www.logitech.com). Instant access buttons for quick access.
Joystick: X45 digital joystick and throttle (http://www.saitekusa.com). For when we feel like flying.
Gamepad: Microsoft Sidewinder Gamepad Pro (http://www.microsoft.com). It's comfortable and it looks cool.
Sound card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (http://www.turtlebeach.com). Offers six-speaker support.
Speakers: Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 (http://www.klipsch.com). These are the speakers we used with UGM 5.0. We liked them so much that we decided not to change them.
Video
The video card is a crucial component for the gaming PC's performance. Here's what we picked:
Video card: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (http://mirror.ati.com/products). According to TechTV Labs, it's the fastest card on the market.
Monitor: Princeton Arcadia AR3.2FTX (http://www.princetongraphics.com). Combines XGA-computer compatibility, HDTV compatibility, and a built-in NTSC TV tuner in one monitor.