Input:

Keyboard:  Microsoft Natural Pro USB
Price: $51.55 (latest price here)

As much as everyone rags on Bill for just about everything, the guy makes some damn sweet keyboards...  This has to be the smoothest, most comfortable, and with the exception of the 'B' key which I think is on the wrong site (yeah so maybe it's only me), most perfect keyboard out there.  It's got a few extra USB ports that make it damn easy to plug in peripherals, and they've finally tanked the stupid cross arrow key placement of the Elite version with the standard T configuration.  Not really much else to be said here, sure there are lots of auxiliary buttons that Microsoft has bound to thinks like email and the like, not really of much concern for gamers but something that some people might find useful.

Mouse:  Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer USB
Price: $52.00 (latest price here)

It's silver, it's nice and big, it's got a glowing red eye...  it's my pick for the best gaming mouse out there.  While some might argue that it doesn't pick up extremely fast flicking movements well enough, in my experience the mouse does just fine.  This has to be the smoothest and most consistently tracking mouse out there and if it doesn't do wonders for your rail aim, nothing will.  Because it uses an optical sensor to track movement the mouse never needs to be cleaned meaning you get consistent performance and never have to worry about dust and gunk accumulating on the nonexistent ball or rollers.  Take the four buttons and silky smooth mouse wheel and you've got plenty of control in your hand when it comes to gaming.  The only unfortunate thing about this mouse is that it doesn't work for people who mouse with their left hand.  Now I know some southpaws that use their right hand to control the mouse so some lefties can use this mouse... for the rest of you Microsoft does offer the Intellimouse with IntelliEye which works for both left and right handed mouse users.

Game Controllers:

This section is pretty open-ended and depends more on the kind of games you play and your preference for controllers...  You could go with anything from wheels and pedals to force feedback joysticks to arcane and oddly shaped controllers here and be happy, it's really just a personal preference.  Since the majority of games out there can be controlled with the keyboard and mouse, and since that's what the majority of us have grown used to, that's what I'm going to leave it at for now...  however if you're big into controllers, driving or flying sims, or arcade style games you probably already have a controller you've grown to like.

Conclusion:

Well there you have it, the ultimate system.  You can call it stacked, amped, loaded, whatever you want but if someone ever builds this thing it's going to blow the doors off anything else out there (and hey, if you do build it, build two, money is obviously not an issue for you and you can send me the second one ;p ).  Hope you enjoyed by little exercise in gratuitous spending...  and now for the moment you've all been waiting for, the final price for this behemoth... a whopping $14,839.41. Time to get the credit limit upped I think, hehe ;)  

[Page 1] [Page 2] [Page 3] [Page 4] [Page 5] [Page 6] [Page 7] [Page 8] [Page 9] [Page 10]