UGM 2008

Ten years ago we launched ZDTV (which later became TechTV) and The Screen Savers, its most popular show. We wanted to begin with a bang, so Kate Botello and I decided to build the "Ultimate Gaming Machine" basing it on Lloyd Case's design from Computer Gaming World. In 1998, that meant a PII 400 Mhz, 128 MB of RAM, and a fabulously expensive widescreen Sony CRT (and a price tag of over $10,000). Here's what it looked like back then... There have been 9 UGMs built since then, the most recent for Attack of the Show in 2005 (which cost around $6000 and was a lot faster). Since I'm launching TWiT Live 10 years later I thought it would be fun to see what the UGM would look like these days. Only this time, we're going to let you build it. Starting Friday, June 6, we'll be inviting you to pick the parts for UGM 2008. From processors, to motherboard, to video and sound system, the choice will be yours. We'll spend a couple of hours debating the merits of each component, with expert commentary to help you decide, then when we reach consensus we'll buy it. At the end of the month we'll assemble our creation and then give it away to some lucky TWiT Live viewer. I'm not sure exactly how we'll give it away. I know I mentioned this on TWiT and proposed a crazy scheme to get me more followers on Twitter. All I can say is I must have been drunk. It won't be necessary to follow me, or Dvorak, and it definitely won't be necessary to unfollow Kevin. I'm going to check with the legal department and find a fair way to do this that doesn't require anyone to join Twitter! We'll kick things off Friday, June 6, at 3p Pacific, 6p Eastern, 2200 UTC with a processor showdown. AMD or Intel, which will it be? I'll have experts on both sides then I'll ask you to decide. June 13 it's Motherboards and Memory. June 20th, video cards and monitors. June 27th storage and peripherals. We'll finish the machine on the 4th of July, choose the best five games for it, and award it to a lucky winner. So join us Fridays starting in June as we recreate one of the most loved bits we ever did on The Screen Savers. It should be a lot of fun, and who knows, you could walk away with UGM 10!

Comments

[Reid]

What's the biggest OLED display out there? Are they still teeny tiny?

[jerichobp]

my thoughts exactly. here's my idea for ugm if you didnt see it

https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/P...

[Reid]

Holy crap, that Samsung XL30 monitor is really pricey! $4,600!

You could build an entire 95% killer gamer machine for that much!

I like the $175 Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s.

[Brady]

Boy Leo, I forgot how thin and young you looked back then. I must have looked like a newborn!
(I'm 24 now)

[jerichobp]

yeah i figured 4 of them in a Raid 5 would be fast enough

[Denis Wiseman]

Too bad the Twitter contest giveaway didn't pan out. I was already a follower of you and Dvorak and not Kevin and no one asked me to do it. How about just doing a XBox 360 with some cool add-ons? You would get off alot cheaper!

[Schwegler]

That's amazing to hear. I try to watch live as much as possible but, I'm sure I still miss alot.

[Schwegler]

Leo, you should definitely bring back the old Patrick Norton segment about creating an aweseome PC for under 500 bucks.

[Dave Mora]

Looking back I cant believe my HTC packs the same power with a fraction of the cost and it fits in my pocket.

[dj paine]

i was about to ask the same question... come on leo, you know you'd like to hand deliver the prize to me in australia!

[AndyR]

I remember watching that show, it was before I got into IT. I still have my signed Kate Botello/ Leo Laporte ZDTV cube

[sockmonkeyfun]

I was wondering if a free room air conditioner will come with this thing too? ;)

[Blipfish]

Doh... YouTube removed the video. :(

[stevemac]

Awww leo.. I was looking to the fun bitch fight between you and Kevin when we all had to unfollow him to win the pc

[TimELiebe]

LOLOL on the first UGM! I had for the time an even MORE smokin' system - a PII/450 w/192 MB RAM, a 540 MB Ultra ATA 100 7200 RPM hard drive, 10/100 Ethernet, a CD-RW drive running Win98SE, with a FireWire I/O card...and USB ports that really worked! I used that system to capture and edit video, and review Windows-based video software back when I wrote for VIDEO Magazine. It was the first time consumer nonlinear editing seemed even POSSIBLE to the 95% of people who used Windoze.... Good times, eh? :) :) :)

[fool]

LOL that was awesome

[Igor]

Very nice Mr. Laporte

[alex]

Leo, you look so fresh!!

[alexdude]

Leo, you look so fresh :-)

[alexdude]

Hi Leo,

you look so fresh in that video. :-)

[BlahRox]

Eight gigabytes of RAM is extremely small for the UGM. You would need something like 32GB for it to be considered elite.

Also 10K RPM is crap compared to the 15K drives that are out on the market.

[aac74]

loving disqus comments :)

[lauren]

You know what's funny is, just yesterday I came upon an ollllld blog post of mine (I am gathering old archives to create a "life stream") where I referenced this very same video. Funny to see it twice in two days. :)

[Gulfie]

Leo, re TWiT 145 and your recommending the Pratchett books - as a British listener to TWiT I felt you could do with a little education on the subject of Nigel Planer. es, he has a great British accent on the audio books but he is also famous as 'Neil' from the 1980's BBC TV series "The Young Ones". Catch this YouTube snippet - Neil is the long-haired hippy character: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1NOWHd00nA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1NOWHd00nA

[JKSoftware]

For the CPU I would go Intel. QX9770 Quad Core Extreme with a ASUS P5N-T Deluxe motherboard. DDR3 has no real advantage at this point in time. There is no real speed increase over DDR2 in cases its slower then DDR2. 4x2GB 1066Mhz DDR2 memory. 2x 300GB WD Raptors RAID 0 + 4 1TB Seagate 7200.11 RAID 5. Windows Vista Ult x64. With 64-bit Vista more ram can be available to games that need it There are more and more games that take advantage of 64-bit Windows. Everything I run from iTunes to games work fine under 64-bit Vista. 2x XFX PVT98UZHEU GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 for QUAD SLI Video.

I