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[DR4G0NZ0RDx]

I've always used whatever computer my parents had until I built my gaming rig in 2012

AMD Phenom II Black Edition 3.4 GHz
ASRock 970 extreme3
Sapphire HD 7850 2GB
8 GB RAM
2x1TB HDD's

 

[Vlaphor]

First computer was 300mhz, 32mb of ram, and a 2mb video card. I played games on that system I had no right playing, such as Omikron (which ran like crap and was missing most of the effects) and Gabriel Knight 3 (also ran like crap unless I kept the camera pointed at the floor). Got a 16mb video card about 6 or so months later it was like a night and day change.

One of my earliest computer builds was screwed up somehow and would crash on any game not running a Quake engine. Anything running on Quake 1, 2, or 3 ran great, everything else caused an immediate BSOD.

Another build of mine went a bit over budget, so I had to settle for an underpowered video card (No AGP slot on new MOBO), so my brand new build ran worse than my older build. Ordered an 8800 GTS several months later, arrived on the same day as a flood hit my house

Current PC is Intel I7 930 (will overclock in a few days when new cooler arrives), GTX 570 (just underpowered enough to show, but powerful enough that nothing else is worth the current price), and 12gb of DDR3 1333

 

[Nonentity]

First PC that was mine that I owned was a hand-me-down Packard Bell PC.

486/33 with 8 megs of ram, 120 meg hard drive, and a 3 1/4 floppy drive. No sound card.

Playing the Doom shareware version on that thing with the PC speaker... man.

 

[bodeiseifer]

1998

amd pentium equivalent 166MHz
16mb ram
2gig HDD
windows 95

later added a 4mb 3dfx voodoo card
32mb ram

the difference that card made was astonishing, quake 2, turok, gta looked amazing in 480p with coloured lighting and bilinear filtering running around 25fps.

I later bought half life and it wouldn't run without a patch and as I had no modem, had to use my mates even clunker setup and download it over dial up, I later bought a 56k modem and downloaded mame, had to run all then old games in 30fps without sound but was so amazing.

 

[Herne]

Various C64's and two C128's - 1991 to 1999

2x Commodore 1541-II drives
TV + 80-column 14" CRT
Commodore 1670 1200kbps modem
Commodore 1351 mouse
Quickshot Python

AST 7133 - 1997

Pentium 133MHz
16MB RAM
1.2GB HD
CD-ROM
S3 Trio 64+ 1MB
AST 14" CRT
Windows 95

While I started with the C64 way back in 1991, after years of wanting an Amiga I finally got this pc. It was bloody awful - the sound card was hooked up via the 33.6k modem attached to an ISA port, which was constantly giving trouble. I sold it and went back to using my C64 for another two years.

Compaq Presario 6xxx - Portia - 1999

K6-II 450MHz
64MB RAM
6GB HD
CD-ROM
SiS 630 8MB > 3DFX Voodoo Graphics 4MB > S3 Savage 4 Pro Plus 32MB > 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 PCI 16MB > 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 64MB
Compaq 15" CRT
Windows 98 SE
My mother bought me this for my 21st birthday due to a deal she'd made with me years before - if I did well in my Junior Cert, she'd get me an Amiga. Unfortunately we moved house that summer so she had no money to get me one - instead she saved up for years and bought me this pc that cost about a thousand pounds - much more than an Amiga. It was the pc that made me move away finally from my C64, and made me a pc gamer (though I did supplement it with an N64). I remember calling her Portia for having such a lovely, curvy case design. I continued to use names for pc's after this, typically after the cases they were installed in.

Self-built - "Purple" - 2001

Duron 650MHz
128MB RAM
20GB + 60GB HD
CD-ROM
Voodoo5 5500 64MB > GeForce 4 TI4200 128MB
15" CRT
Windows 98 SE
My first self-build, I thought I knew it all and screwed the motherboard directly onto the case without using the risers and of course, it was destroyed. One replacement with risers later and I was ready to go. I called it Purple due to the transparent purple door it had on the front.

Self-built - "Thunderbird" - 2003

Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz > Athlon 1.3GHz
256MB RAM
20GB + 80GB HD
CD-ROM
GeForce 4 TI4200 128MB
17" CRT
Windows XP

My second, but I don't remember much about it. I know the initial board I had for it could only run the Thunderbird at 863MHz, but I eventually replaced it. I don't know what case it had - possibly the same as with the previous build.

Self-built - Unknown - 2004-5?

Athlon Palomino 2GHz > Athlon 2500+ XP > Athlon Barton 3GHz
512MB
60GB > 250GB
DVD-ROM
GeForce 4 TI4200 128MB > Radeon 9800 128MB > Radeon X800 GTO
17" CRT
Windows XP

I remember even less of this, but I do remember the processor upgrades. I know I got the Palomino chip while working over in Scotland, and I remember getting the Radeon from a guy on a long-gone forum, but that's it really. No idea what case I used and I'm really not sure of the hard drive sizes, to be honest. It may even have been just a series of upgrades from the previous machine. The X800 had it's pipes unlocked so it was basically a more powerful card, but I can't remember which.

Self-built - "Nemesis" - 2006

Core 2 Duo E6420 2.13GHz > E8400 3GHz
Asus P5Q Pro
2GB > 4GB > 7GB RAM
120GB + 1TB + 500GB HD
DVD-ROM
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB > Radeon 4870 1GB > Radeon 6870 1GB
NZXT Nemesis Elite Silver case
HP W19B 19" LCD glossy
Logitech G15 1st revision
Logitech MX1000
Windows Vista/Windows 7

One hell of a workhorse of a machine, it's still going to this day, used in succession by my brother and then my flatmate as a gaming machine. Multiple processor, memory and graphics card upgrades were installed over the years, with the 6870 having been installed only a few weeks ago. Built in 2006, thanks mostly to the E8400 it's been a relevant gaming machine for many years now.

Self-built - "Phantom" - 2011

Core i5 2500 3.3-3.7GHz
Asus P8H67-M
12GB RAM
Blu-Ray/DVD-RW
Radeon 6870 1GB > Radeon 7970 3GB
NZXT Phantom White/Red case
Samsung P2450H 24" LCD matte
Logitech G15 1st revision
Roccat Kone+
Windows 7

My current pc and has served me very well for the past two years, with only a graphics card upgrade to keep it going. I've been looking at the possibility of a cpu upgrade, but apparently the latest i7's (such as the 4770K which I was eyeing) offer only a roughly 20% performance upgrade, and that's not nearly enough for me. Should do me a for another two years at least. Well equipped for the upcoming games requiring 64-bit and more main and graphics memory, I'm very happy with this machine.

Self-built - "Media PC" - 2007/8?

Pentium Dual Core 1.8GHz > Core 2 Duo E6420 2.13GHz
2GB > 4GB > 8GB RAM
120GB > 1TB + 1TB + 1TB + 500GB
Blu-Ray
GeForce 9500GT 512MB
Antec NSK-80 case
LG 32" LCD
Windows Vista/Ubuntu/Windows 7

I'm not sure when I built this exactly, but I know it was close enough after Nemesis. It's running Windows Media Centre with the Media Browser plugin, which pulls down metadata and generally looks much, much better than the basic UI. I kept adding hard drives to it over the years - I think it started out with a single 500GB as the media drive, but now it's all split between the 3 terabyte drives and the 500GB. And I'm running out of space again... may have to rebuild it with a bigger case and whenever my flatmate upgrades, the E8400 from the Nemesis machine.

Phew...

C64G - 2012

x2 Commodore 1541 II
1541 Ultimate II with 16GB SD card

Amiga 1200 - 2012

ACA1220 accelerator, 18MHz 68020
2MB Chip RAM + 128MB Fast RAM
4GB Compact Flash card
Workbench 3.0 with Scalos

My two most recent additions, sitting next to my desktop. The perfect retro gaming station!

 

[Professor Lich]

That was 2009, the phenom II x6 wasn't out until late 2009.

I also used to have a razer lachesis, by far the best mouse I've ever owned, it's too bad all of them had a hardware defect, the scrollwheel click would eventually stop working after a few years (took 3 years with mine), I assume that is what broke for you too?

Guess I mixed up the dates then.

What happened to me was my left mouse click just stopped working. Scroll wheel was just fine. It was only a few days ago. Thing is though, I might go wireless because I just hooked up my PC to my Plasma HD, so it happened at a perfect time, haha.

 

[ss_lemonade]

My older brother gave us his old computer, a 486, back in like 99. It was my first PC so I didn't know or cared if it was slow lol. I was playing stuff like Theme Park, Raptor and Eye of the Beholder there while my friends were playing Counterstrike.

My parents bought a new computer a year or 2 later. It was an Athlon XP (2000+ IIRC), geforce 4 mx that was upgraded to a geforce 4 ti 4200 the same week and 256mb ram and I was happy to be able to play some newer games. This PC started seeing updates with first a RAM upgrade to 512mb, then a mobo/cpu change to a athlon 64 3200+, then a gpu upgrade to a vanilla NV 6600, PSU update (generic lol), then another GPU upgrade to a NV 8800 GTS 320mb.

A few years later, I started buying stuff with my own money. Built a new PC with an e8400 CPU, 2gb RAM and a GTX 275 which lasted for quite a while. I then boosted my ram to a weird 6gig config, got a 2500k + new mobo, bought a 6970 and got a Samsung 830 SSD.

I built a new PC again after I moved to the US just this year since I couldn't bring my old rig with me. Thanks to mkenyon, I was able to get one up running really quick. Its my current PC and it has an oc'ed 3570k, 4gig ram and a NV 780 GTX. Hopefully this won't need any major upgrades for a while (I'll probably get an SSD)

 

[Toki767]

First PC was a Mactinosh Performa 575 back in 1993. A whole 33mhz!

Second was the original iMac in 1998. This was when I discovered slot loading drives. It was so cool back in the day.

Third was a custom PC in 2002 which I built mainly to play Warcraft 3. I think it was some AMD Athlon 2500+ or something CPU with a GeForce 4 video card.

Fourth was a Dell PC in I believe 2006 when the original dual core CPUs first came out.

Currently on my fifth PC which is a custom gaming PC that I built in 2010.

In hindsight, I hadn't realized that I upgraded computers every 4-5 years. Looks like I'm due for a new one next year at this rate.

 

[terrisus]

My first computer was a Tandy-brand 386 computer in 1992 running I don't even remember what OS. It had a 3.5 Floppy drive, but no 5.25 Floppy drive.

My second computer, in 1996, was custom-built by a friend of the family. It was a 166 Pentium, with a 2GB Hard Drive, running Windows 95. It was awesome.

Had a couple more after that, the most recent one being in 2000. After that, I've just been using laptops (current one is a quad-core i7, with a geForce 230m 1GB, 8GB RAM, and a 120GB Intel SSD and 500GB 7200RPM drive. It's 3 years old at this point, but it gets by fine).

 

[JBuccCP]

My first build was a disaster. It was in 2005 or so and I decided to use the money I had saved up over the summer mowing lawns to build one. I didn't know what I was doing and got the wrong socket mobo and a crappy no name PSU. I tried to shove the CPU into the mobo and just bent some pins. Figured out it was the wrong kind and sent it back to newegg and got one that fit. Then when I put the new one in and turned on and it worked long enough to install Win XP before the PSU went up in a puff of smoke. I just gave up and rma'd everything and didn't try again until a couple years ago when I knew a lot more. That one went great and I've primarily been a PC gamer since then.

 

[Relix]

My first PC gaming meeting was in 2000.

Dell
Celeron 566MHZ
256MB RAM
WIN98SE

I remember I purchased (well my father did) a GeForce 2 MX400 PCI. I remember that, oh and Unreal Tournament. Yep... UT was my first ever online experience. Loved it. Facing worlds? uff. Then I followed up with Half Life GOTY edition. DAMN! So many memories. I'll just keep the PCs I bought to the PC I built last year at around... November I think (its been a year, damn).

i7 3770K
16GB DDR3
WIN7 Ultimate
1TB HDD BLACK
400GB HDD BLUE
GeForce 670GTX WindForce OC 2GB GDDR5

Man time flies fast. Now I have like a 100 Steam games that i never play !

 

[shandy706]

Ugh, I'd have to start in the 80's.

I think my first was a C64...I think. My dad started me out very early on. I was messing with games before I was 5.

I've built so many computers over the years for people, companies, myself.....I'm not sure I could get it all straight. I've probably hand built/upgraded 50+ computers over the years.

Heck...I freaking built an ITX system TODAY...lol...for my own office at work.

I upgraded my current rig, literally, yesterday with a second GTX 660Ti for an SLI setup.

 

[Baron_Calamity]

Nice man.

 

[Smokey]

First rig I'm still using parts of today, but here it is :

Summer 2011

Core i7 2600k @ 4.6ghz
Asus P67 mobo
Corsair H50 CPU cooler
8GB RAM
ASUS DCII GTX 580
SAMSUNG 2tb HDD
Intel 160 GB SSD
Windows 7
ASUS 120HZ monitor

 

[grosvenor_92]

1st rig Current. My brother gave it to me when he got his new one

Geforce GTX 660 (previous card died so I upgraded last week)
4GB RAM
Intel Quad Core Q9450 @ 2.66 GHz

I'll need to upgrade the RAM sometime in the future

 

[-tetsuo-]

I remember the first time I opened her up was to add in some RAM and Voodoo3 card. Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 all day.

 

[FrontalMonk]

I don't remember when we bought our first pc, it was probably around 1990 or maybe the late 80's. It was a 386/16 with 2mb of ram that my dad bought at a Computer Show & Sale (a bunch of vendors/dealers collectively renting out a hall of a hotel). We ran all kinds of games on that old beast. Some were edutainment games like Math Blaster and "Super Solvers: Challenge of the Ancient Empires" (we loved us some broderbund in the C64 days which bled into PC) but my brother and I played X-Wing, Wing Commander 2, and I finally got my hands on DOOM...which ran like ass unless you lowered the screen size down real low. By the time Duke Nukem 3d came out, we upgraded it to a 486 DX120 (basically a 486/66 with the clock doubled) and 8mb of ram which we eventually upgraded to 16. I (somehow) got Quake to run on it, but it ran like ass. This computer we kept as our main machine until my sophomore year of high school...

1997:
I don't remember all the specs on it, but it was an HP Pavilion...I want to say it had a Pentium 2, running windows 95, and I eventually got a voodoo 3 2000 to get some real 3d graphics, which let me run all kinds of crazy shit, like Quake 2, Unreal Tournament, Diablo 1 & 2...the works. It was a computer my parents bought but I convinced them to let me use as my own comp in my own room if my grades got good enough. When my grades weren't, I scanned my report card and photoshopped it to look better and lied to my parents. Yeah, that came back to bite me in the ass later, but eventually they trusted me enough to let me have this beast back by the time I went to college.

2001:
I asked for/received a gaming laptop that I specced out to the nines as a graduation present (ended up costing ~$2500). It was a Dell, with a GeForce 2 mobile card, and I think about a half a gig of ram. It was beastly enough in the graphics department that it could beat the desktop I had, but the desktop I had eventually upgraded the ram on so some stuff ran faster there. This computer I only used until....

2003-2004:
My memory runs a little fuzzy at this point, but I think a combination of christmas money and income from a part time job I was working cobbled this badass together. I finally assembled my own rig, and it was a bit of a mess. I got a Radeon 9800XT, an AMD Athlon processor, and as much ram as I could afford, but cheaped out on the power supply, which ended up frying my card a year later. Because I couldn't afford more at that point, instead of getting a proper power supply and another 9800XT, I ended up just getting a 9600 Pro and calling it a day.

2008:
I bought a Gateway P-6830FX gaming laptop because they were running a special deal at Best Buy and shortly thereafter convinced a buddy of mine to get one, too. Great little machine, running a GeForce 8800 GTS and a Core 2 Duo, but there was one main problem with it; the damn thing overheated like a motherfucker. I ended up craigslisting a that same year...

2008:
I picked up an old Dell XPS desktop that someone was selling on craigslist for about $500, and over the next year or so ended up replacing almost everything about it. New case, new power supply, new video card...pretty much all that remained was the CPU/Mobo. This computer served me well, but at this point I was committed to having something able to run any game I threw at it. It was only a couple years...

2010:
This is the rig I have today.
Athlon X6 1055T
8gb Ram (originally 4gb)
GeForce 560ti (originally a GTX260)

Some really dumb decisions went into this rig (more cores = more power! everything will take advantage of six cores, right?) but it's served me well. I'll hold out until maybe a year after PS4 to start the next big gaming rig overhaul. I've replaced the case with something nicer and quieter (Fractal Design R4 case) but I'm waiting until I can justify dropping another 500+ on gaming hardware. I'm married and have a house now, and that sort of expense needs to be justified pretty strongly these days (it was basically work on a new PC or get a PS4).

Man, this post went way longer than I expected, and I rambled quite a bit. Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane, as fractured as it was.

 

[-MD-]

Bought the parts last October, never built a computer in my life and didn't really know anything about it. Watched some youtube vids and picked my parts.

Took me about 7 hours overall because I wanted to take my time with it, still managed to break 2 of my ram slots in the process though (8GB single channel represent.) Haven't had a single problem with it outside of a fan rattle in the year that I've used it.

660ti
3570k (OC'd)
8gb ram

Whole thing cost $1000 to make.

 

[Nafai1123]

First rig I built for myself was right around F.E.A.R./HL2/Doom 3 days. Good times.

Intel P4 3ghz
512mb RAM (I think, maybe it was 1gig)
Nvidia 6800GT

Built a rig for my dad back in the day too. AMD that ran way too hot.

Didn't build anything else for many years, mainly due to being on the move. I bought a Dell XPS for my gaming needs + consoles.

Most recent and current build (from about 2-3 years ago)

Intel i5 2500k
12 gigs DDR3
AMD 6850HD

It's gotten me through this gen just fine, but I will be upgrading the GPU in another year or two.

 

[DietRob]

Been building for about 6 years now. Don't remember old ones.

Current rig is:

P8z77-Pro
8gb DDR3
i5 3500k
HD 7950
120gb SSD
1tb WD Black
Xonar DG soundcard
Bitfienix Ghost case

Only thing I have to add is I FUCKING HATE THERMAL PASTE.

 

[FrontalMonk]

Only thing I have to add is I FUCKING HATE THERMAL PASTE.

*brofist*

 

[something fishy]

It was 1990 and was a 286 if I recall correctly. Prior to that it had been various home computers ,earliest being a Zx81.

 

[Motley Grue]

Sold my Amiga 500 in 1992 to my 12 year old girlfriend for $500. (Don't freak, I was 15 and she was VERY mature.)

Then I got:

486SX 25Mhz
4MB of RAM?
CD-ROM drive (wowee Myst and 7th Guest!)
Cirrus Logic VGA card
160 MB hard drive (or was it 300?)
Sound Blaster 1 (maybe?)
CTX 15" monitor
Windows 3.1

My first upgrade attempt was to a smoking fast 486DX 60MHz I believe, by AMD. I plugged the CPU in backwards, smoke came out, and I called for an RMA saying "DOA" to which I still recall the guy on the phone saying "Yeah right" under his breath. I guess he did not believe the 17 year old voice on the phone.

I think I was rocking a 100MHz AMD 486DX/2 chip when I reached college.

Then it was a Pentium.

Then a Pentium III with a Voodoo card. Still remember that funky sideways slot mounting Pentium III.

Then the rest is foggy, but I'm still running my Core 2 Quad 3.0GHz from 2008! Longest time without a CPU/motherboard upgrade EVER because now I mainly only play console games.

 

[pleunv]

Compaq Pentium 1 166Mhz with 16MB of ram, 2.1GB harddrive, Windows 95, 1 MB SiS onboard video, no soundcard. Passive cooling. Massive. Played the shit out of Grand Prix 2 & Carmageddon.
Still have it around somewhere. Ended up with 256MB ram and Windows XP at some point, that was a bit pushing it.

 

[Motley Grue]

Amiga 1200 - 2012

The perfect retro gaming station!

But it can't run any of the Shadow of the Beast games, now can it, thanks to no OCS. So I think you are mistaken. I bought a 1200 back in '92 or so and was SO pissed at the lack of compatibility with A500 game collection and the SQUEALING hard drive inside that I returned it and bought a PC finally. Really sad day because I was an Amiga FANTATIC. And I still don't know an A500 emulator to this day that can play Shadow of the Beast with perfect smoothness.

 

[pestul]

Been gaming since Vic20 but I guess the first machine that I was old enough to purchase and build myself was a Pentium III 450 oc'd to 600MHz. I've been building and overclocking machines ever since.

 

[shandy706]

As I was saying...JUST Yesterday and today. I've been busy..lol

Putting the SLI in place at home yesterday. Liquid cooled i7, Dual GTX 660Ti in SLI, 9GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD

Work Computer before cable maintenance and power supply today.

Finished work PC on desk. i3-3220, GT 640 2GB. 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD

 

[Tymerend]

My first PC is relatively easy to remember. Got it as a senior in high school in 1994. It was an IBM 486/DX2, ran at 50 Mhz came with 4MB of ram, but we upgraded to a total of 8 for the measely cost of 200 bucks. It had a 400MB hard drive, which I thought was a HUGE amount of space back then. This was the dawn of multimedia, so it had a CD-ROM drive on it, which made the super low res encyclopedia videos awesome, and ran windows 3.1.

But the BEST part is that it came with a copy of Kings Quest 6 on CD. It's nostalgia talking, but I still consider that one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Chamai]

1998 (1st comp)
hp pavillion celeron 500, 64mb ram upgrade to 192, not sure which gpu

2002
amd 1.3 ghz i think, radeon 9200 i think, 1gb ram, soudn blaster platium 2 (balling), 17" samsung lcd

2005
pentium 4 3ghz, nvidia 6600, 2gb ram, carried sound card over from previous build.

2008 (first custom build i knew what i was doing kinda)
Q9300, EVGA 780I, (2)EVGA GTX 260 SC, 4GB OCZ ram, spin q heatsink, coolermaster armour full tower, samsung 2440bw monitor, cooler master 1000w psu

2010 (mobo fried, EVGA gave me a 790i upgraded to 8gb ram, died in half ayear, gave me another, just died again.

2012: EVGA rma'ed my 790i, gave me a z68 SLI, and my GTX 260SC died, so upgraded both GTX 260's to GTX 460.

current: EVGA z68 SLI, (2) EVGAGTX460, 8GB Patriot 1600 ram, intel i5 2500k, sandisk 128gb ssd, 750w EVGA gold psu, monitor: 39" 1080p insignia led, 24" samsung 1920x1200. + 2 more random hd from hold build.




20

 

[Herne]

But it can't run any of the Shadow of the Beast games, now can it, thanks to no OCS. So I think you are mistaken. I bought a 1200 back in '92 or so and was SO pissed at the lack of compatibility with A500 game collection and the SQUEALING hard drive inside that I returned it and bought a PC finally. Really sad day because I was an Amiga FANTATIC. And I still don't know an A500 emulator to this day that can play Shadow of the Beast with perfect smoothness.

I'm pretty sure there's only a few OCS games the A1200 can't support. And more importantly, my A1200 can play all of the Shadow of the Beast games just fine! If you want me to, I can film myself booting each one up and playing them

Also, thankfully I have a compact flash card as opposed to an old hard drive, so no squealing, and I have unplugged the floppy drive so no noise there, either.

 

[Chakan]

That was the min spec for Doom, of course you were gonna have issues. Should've stuck to adventure games.

I did that hehe and also played Wolfenstein.

I only played Doom later on when I got a 486 DX2 66mhz with 16MB Ram.

 

[hellocld]

First PC I got was some beater Business Machine someone gave me (2000-ish, I wanna say it was a dumpster dive find) with an 8088 processor, 128K(?), and no internal storage (5.25" boot floppies FTW). Best game I had for that was probably ZZT, maybe Zork.

My first actual usable rig had a Pentium clocked around 100MHz, 64MB RAM, an ATI RAGE card of some kind, some knockoff Soundblaster and a 100MB hard drive. Played the crap out of Descent 2 and MechWarrior 2 on that thing.

Running a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo now with 4GBs RAM and a ENGT430, and I'm not happy with it. The 13-year-old me would punch me in the face for such ridiculousness.

 

[gryz]

1993 Insight with 25 MHz 486, 8MB ram and 150 MB hard drive, soundblaster 16, gravis gamepad, and a gigantic CDROM

get on my level

 

[Dennis]

GAF, I know longer remember.

 

[Backfoggen]

The first PC I played on was a sick 133 MHz, 8 MB RAM, no 3d accelerator machine. Played Monkey Island on it and lost the code wheel, because I was very young.

Built my first own PC in 2004, with a dope 9500 Pro or something. Far Cry 1 blew me away.

Been building for about 6 years now. Don't remember old ones.

Current rig is:

P8z77-Pro
8gb DDR3
i5 3500k
HD 7950
120gb SSD
1tb WD Black
Xonar DG soundcard
Bitfienix Ghost case

Only thing I have to add is I FUCKING HATE THERMAL PASTE.

Worst part about my first PC build. I thought I was gonna ruin it all with that shit.

 

[ys45]

Pentium 90mhz , 4 mb of ram with Windows 3.1 , it was a Compaq .

Spent a lot of time trying to make old games like Ultima 7/Underworld and bunch of gold box games work (had to create boot disk with the correct EMS and XMS memory, it was a pain)

I also remember playing my first RTS game : C&C
And i played the hell out of the demo of Duke Nukem 3d until it was released .

And then i discovered emulation, this was awesome I was able to play all those games i missed from Japan I saw in Nintendo Power and other magazines when i was younger.

Good old time .....

 

[GameAddict411]

not so exciting consider my first personal computer has a core i7 + 8GB for ram lol. though i have used much much older computers before, one desktop with win 98 in it and it had a few megs of ram + 4GB HDD!!

 

[Lyte Edge]

The first computer we had in my family was an Apple IIgs, purchased in 1986.

But the first gaming 'rig' I had wasn't until 2004- my father generously shelled out $3,200 for an Alienware desktop-replacement class 15.4" laptop.

And it wasn't worth it. This thing required a backpack to be hauled around, since the AC brick was heavy as hell, had piss-poor battery life (45 minutes max...and that was in low power mode), and the built-in wireless, which was new at the time, never worked right. I got this particular model because it was touted as easily-upgradeable, but after Dell bought Alienware, support for this was dropped and I was stuck with an outdated mobile graphics card.

I pretty much stopped gaming on it after the 360 came out at the end of 2005 and it mostly just sat on my desk as bringing it around sucked. Started having some fan issues in 2007 and finally replaced it with a smaller, sleeker, and much lighter 13" MacBook in 2008 (which is still going strong- my wife uses it all the time).

Since then I just stuck with cheap netbook/notbook laptops and finally got a budget gaming rig (Cybertron model from Amazon) in May. Desktops definitely feel better for gaming, and hey- I can actually UPGRADE this thing without any bullshit.

 

[Bleepey]

I ain't ever built a PC but my first proper PC was something that could only play Quake 1, Age of Empires 1, Alpha 2 and tetris. It was garbage that could not run even Quake 3. It stopped being able to run MDK 1 properly and didn't have a sound card.

 

[Tain]

Started on my brother's 386 and my mom's 486 laptop playing LucasArts games, Doom, Lemmings, whatever I could get my hands on. I'd also occasionally use my dad's PowerMac.

In 1998 I got some K6 powered prebuilt IBM thing. Lots of Duke Nukem 3D and Jedi Knight. I could barely run Quake and Quake 2 on it due to the lack of OpenGL support for my 4MB video card, but I still played them. Half-Life wasn't going to run on it though. Learned a lot on this thing.

In 2000 I got my first custom-built PC which was a Pentium III 600mhz and a GeForce 256. I used it for Half-Life, Tribes, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and so on.

At the tail end of 2003, I did a pretty cheap upgrade to an Athlon XP 3200+ and Radeon 9800 Pro. I largely built this for Half-Life 2. This one lasted me a while.

Upgraded again at the end of 2008 to a Core2Duo and a Radeon HD 4850. Played a lot of current-gen stuff with this.

And then, in early 2011, I built the first PC that didn't make me feel like I was cutting corners (lol). An i7 2600k with a GTX580. This is what I'm using today, and it's still serving me well. I'll see how console port performance goes with some upcoming multiplatform games like Watch Dogs and then I'll decide if I need a new CPU+GPU or just a new GPU.

 

[jrcbandit]

Wow, some of you guys have really good memories. I can't remember much regarding my old PCs, lol.

I started with an IBM XT, then proceeded to a 286, next a 486 DX, then some sort of AMD processor, next was a Pentium II, then Pentium III, Pentium IV, Pentium D, e8400, I7 920, and finally an I5 3570K.

My first 3d graphics card was a 3DFX Voodoo, then a Voodoo 2, next was a Riva TNT2, and I don't remember what was next exactly other than some sort of Geforce card (I think I owned a Geforce 3 and 4). For AMD, I had an ATI 9800 Pro (lasted a long time), AMD 4870, 5850, and now a 7970. I used Nvidia inbetween the 9800 Pro and the 4870 - I clearly remember a 8800 GT and I think a 7900GT.

 

[hlhbk]

Bought the parts last October, never built a computer in my life and didn't really know anything about it. Watched some youtube vids and picked my parts.

Took me about 7 hours overall because I wanted to take my time with it, still managed to break 2 of my ram slots in the process though (8GB single channel represent.) Haven't had a single problem with it outside of a fan rattle in the year that I've used it.

660ti
3570k (OC'd)
8gb ram

Whole thing cost $1000 to make.

Of all of the parts to put into a computer how did you break your RAM slots? It seems pretty straight forward how to put them in?

 

[batman2million]

I remember I used to get AOL discs in the mail all the time with some obscure game drawn on it. I kept thinking they mailed me a game but never had a PC to try it. Was really upset when I figured out what it was.

 

[fijim]

I think rig should probably refer to the first computer you built or upgraded specifically for gaming, but I'll just list everything.

Rig 1 - Kaypro II :

2.5mhz Z80 Processor
64Kb RAM
Dual 5 1/2" floppy drives
9" green monocrome CRT

Games: Alien (Space Invaders clone), Ladder (Donkey Kong clone)

Rig 2 - Gateway 2000:

Intel Pentium 90
8MB Ram
Windows 3.1

Games: Rodent's Revenge, Rattler Race, crappy DOS games

Rig 3 - Gateway 2000:

Intel Pentium 133 MMX
16MB Ram
15" Gateway 2000 CRT
Windows 95

Games: Mechwarrior 2, Descent, Torin's Passage, Battle Beast

Rig 3 - IBM Aptiva:

Intel Pentium 166
32MB Ram
ATI 3D Rage II
17" Gateway 2000 CRT
Windows 95

Games: Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, SPQR, Deadlock, Descent 2,

Rig 4 - Upgraded Rig 3:

Intel Pentium 166 oc'd to 200mhz w/ Alpha Heat sink
Modded case with new intake and exhaust fans
64MB Ram
3DFX Voodoo 2 12MB
17" Gateway 2000 CRT
Windows 98 SE

Games: Unreal, Quake 2, Half-Life, Starcraft, Civilization 2, Jedi Knight

Rig 5 - Custom build #1:
Intel Celeron 300A overclocked to 450mhz w/ Alpha heat sink
128MB Kingston Ram
Voodoo 3 2000 overclocked to 3000 speeds
4x HP CD Burner
Some cheap case
17" Gateway 2000 CRT
Windows 98 SE

Games: Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, TFC, Counter-Strike, Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Rig 6 - Custom build #2:
AMD Duron 900mhz overclocked to 1ghz
256MB Mushkin Ram
GeForce 2MX
Random cheap case
17" Gateway 2000 CRT

Games: Max Payne, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Operation Flashpoint, Serious Sam

Rig 7 - Custom build #3:
AMD Athlon T-Bird 1.2Ghz overclocked to 2Ghz
512MB Crucial Ram
Geforce 4 Ti-4200 128mb
Modded Chenbro case with 120mm fans and metal mesh filters
DVD Reader
19" Sony CRT

Games: Battlefield 1942, Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2K3, Morrowind, Warcraft 3, Medal of Honor: AA, Half-Life 2 alpha

Rig 8 - Custom build #4:

AMD Athlon XP 2400+ overclocked to 2.4ghz
1GB Crucial Ram
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
Same Chenbro case
17" Samsung LCD

Games: Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Source, World of Warcraft

Rig 9 - Gifted build from a friend

Intel Pentium 4 3.4ghz
2GB Corsair Ram
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
Same Chenbro case
17" Samsung LCD

I later upgraded this machine with an ATI X800 XT and a 21" Widescreen LCD.

Then upgraded it again with an ATI X1800 XT and 4GB Ram.

Rig 10 - Dell refurb

Intel Core i7 920
6GB Ram
ATI HD 4850 1GB
23" NEC IPS

Later upgraded the 4850 to a 4870.

Rig 11 - Upgraded Dell refub

Intel Core i7 920
6GB Ram
ATI HD 6970 2GB
New case + better PSU

 

[Chucker]

First computer I had was a Packard Bell 486SX. 25mhz. Found an advertisement with it.
$1499 WHAT A BARGAIN

 

[Jay Shadow]

The Milestones:

First PC:
386/33
Given to me for good grades in 9th grade. My only non-tower. I opened it up to see about upgrading before going ahead and buying a new one instead.

First PC I bought myself:
Pentium 90
That's when I got comfortable rooting around inside of a computer case. I had a bad fan that would cause my cpu to overheat. Before I finally replaced it, I would occasionally pull the heat sink out, ice it down, dry it off, and then put it back on the cpu to cool the processor back down. I also eventually overclocked the processor to 120....after I had a working fan.

First video card: Voodoo Banshee. Didn't wanna deal with separate 2d/3d cards so I held out for this.

First PC built from scratch:
Celeron 300 oc'd to 450
It was a pretty common cpu to overclock at the time.

CPU history:
386/33
Pentium 120
Celeron 450
(Some single core Athlon in between here that I don't remember the speed on)
Athlon X2 2.4
Phenom II X6 3.2

GPU history:
Voodoo Banshee
Geforce 256
Geforce 4
Geforce 7900(a later RMA gave me an 8800 back)
Geforce 560

 

[kbozz71]

My first true "build" was a 486DX4 100mhz back in '97. 24megs of EDO ram and 2 425 meg hard drives. This monster put out to a 14" SVGA monitor @ 800x600 via an S3 ViRge 3D graphics de-cellerator. Sound was provided by an ISA Ensoniq sound blaster clone. Speakers were Altec Lansing and were almost bigger than the CRT monitor. Windows 95c and an old HP printer. I was living good until I tried to play Need For Speed 2 SE. Choked my feeble creation to it's knees. Went to Circuit City and purchased a Creative Graphics Blaster Exxtreme 4meg video card. Shit yeah, I'm rolling now.....until I seen the same game on my buddy's computer with a 3Dfx VooDoo card. Damn!?! And so it began, my obsession with PC gaming. My wallet has cried ever since.

 

[gothamghost]

I don't remember all the specs of my previous PCs but I begged my parents for a computer so I could play Oregon Trail. My friend had a copy I could borrow on a floppy disk.

The first PC I built myself was around like 94 or 95 I guess because I watched a friend play Warcraft and was hooked instantly. I had to mow so many lawns to be able to buy everything but it was glorious.

 

[diffusionx]

My first PC was an IBM Aptiva with extremely easy-to-remember specs: 166mhz Pentium, 16 megs of RAM, 1.6gb hard drive. The graphics card was incredibly bad and I wasn't confident enough to upgrade it myself, but I still played a lot of games on it like Civ 2, War 2, Quake, Duke 3D and every game on every PC Gamer demo disk from 1996 through the end of 1997.

My second PC was a Dell with a PII-450mhz and, I think, 128 megs of RAM. It had a Riva TNT but I put Voodoo 2 SLI and later, a GeForce 256. I loved that machine. I played everything on it in the best time for PC gaming. My dad even sprung for a "top of the line" 21" Trinitron monitor. We were one of the first people with DSL in my neighborhood too. Ultimate gaming machine right there.

After that I got another computer which had an awful Pentium 4 Willamette CPU. I was in college and didn't play many games on it. I rode that thing out until I built an Athlon64 4400+ with a GeForce 7800. That time period - 2006-2008 or so - not so great for PC gaming.

Now I have an X51 I just use as a glorified console and it's great.

 

[hlhbk]

I don't remember all the specs of my previous PCs but I begged my parents for a computer so I could play Oregon Trail. My friend had a copy I could borrow on a floppy disk.

The first PC I built myself was around like 94 or 95 I guess because I watched a friend play Warcraft and was hooked instantly. I had to mow so many lawns to be able to buy everything but it was glorious.

You pirate (according to the game inustry)!