-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
PCGaf, share your 1st PC rig story! and then on!
- Thread starter batman2million
- Start date
Rogue_Ledr
Banned
I can't even recall when I got my first PC rig.
It was in the early 90's. Probably around 92 or something like that. It was a Gateway computer with a 486Mhz CPU.
The friggin thing was a archaic by today's standards.
It was one of those computers that used 5.2' floppy disks.
Yes, actual floppys where the disks could bend. I wished I had saved it. IT would be a cool antique today.
It was in the early 90's. Probably around 92 or something like that. It was a Gateway computer with a 486Mhz CPU.
The friggin thing was a archaic by today's standards.
It was one of those computers that used 5.2' floppy disks.
Yes, actual floppys where the disks could bend. I wished I had saved it. IT would be a cool antique today.
gothamghost
Member
You pirate (according to the game inustry)!
Yea, by their definition I think all kids are "pirates". I can't think of many games I played that I didn't borrow or didn't loan when I was growing up it is just what you did.
Gherid__lacksGPS
Banned
Amiga 500
My family won it in a raffle or something at a tech shop like 24 years ago or something. Played the fuck outa' Tetris - my dad actually started to get addicted to it, lol. Played Where in teh World is Carmon Sandiego. I actually got my first taste of FPS games on it; some dungeon thing with skeletons and chickens, also some space game.
We then moved onto an Apple Performa some years later. Stayed a mac guy through high school and into college with the G3. Built my first winbox about 12 years ago and such is history.
My family won it in a raffle or something at a tech shop like 24 years ago or something. Played the fuck outa' Tetris - my dad actually started to get addicted to it, lol. Played Where in teh World is Carmon Sandiego. I actually got my first taste of FPS games on it; some dungeon thing with skeletons and chickens, also some space game.
We then moved onto an Apple Performa some years later. Stayed a mac guy through high school and into college with the G3. Built my first winbox about 12 years ago and such is history.
Haven't built my own in years but when I did, I learned a valuable lesson.
I had just finished putting together all the components, which was made a little difficult by the lack of any manuals for the mobo or the case. Figured it out though - put it together - plugged it in and.......nothing! No power what so ever - no lights, no spinning drives. I spent hours checking connections and trying again.
Then I noticed some tiny pieces in the mobo box. Spacers! I had screwed the motherboard directly onto the case without them so it was shorting out somewhere.
I felt like a moron for not seeing them but after I put them in, my rig worked like a dream! I miss that beast
I had just finished putting together all the components, which was made a little difficult by the lack of any manuals for the mobo or the case. Figured it out though - put it together - plugged it in and.......nothing! No power what so ever - no lights, no spinning drives. I spent hours checking connections and trying again.
Then I noticed some tiny pieces in the mobo box. Spacers! I had screwed the motherboard directly onto the case without them so it was shorting out somewhere.
I felt like a moron for not seeing them but after I put them in, my rig worked like a dream! I miss that beast
greatnorthern
Member
1994
Intel 486
33 Mhz
4mb RAM
Games: Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Blake Stone, 4D Boxing, and more!
Intel 486
33 Mhz
4mb RAM
Games: Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Blake Stone, 4D Boxing, and more!
mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
In 1991, my first one was an IBM 25mhz with a hard drive that could barely hold a few floppy disks, no sound card and a monochrome 12" monitor. As primitive as that was, playing my first computer game on it was relevatory (helps that it was Secret of Monkey Island).
It's all pretty hazy but my parents bought me a Commodore 64 which I used to play a whole lot of games on, a lot of which I forget the names of. Dizzy games, Jet Set Willy, a bmx game, a formula 1 game. It was the "Hollywood" pack which came with Top Gun, The Great Escape, Platoon, Miami Vice, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit.
Then we got our first "proper" PC, a 386 Olivetti which I played a load of Shareware games on such as Doom, Commander Keen and the like.
We then got a Pentium 75!!! 75MHz of blistering awesome...I played C&C, Quake and Warcraft to death on this thing.
Then I got a 333MHz Cyrix PC. I think it was an eMachines. On which I played stuff like Unreal, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital.
This is where it gets vague, I can't remember what I had next because this is where I started building my own PCs and tinkering with the insides. I think it was a Pentium 4 with a GeForce MX420. Lots of Counter-Strike 1.6...too much probably. There was a 9800pro somewhere around this point in time but I can't remember whether it was in this machine or the next one.
Then an AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ machine with a 3850. It's still kicking around under the bed. I might turn it into a Minecraft machine for the boy.
Now I have an i3-2120/HD6850 machine as a desktop PC and a i5-3570/7870XT machine as a SteamBox.
My love of PCs and tinkering with them is how I am where I am today, an ICT Support Technician. Until this week, I've pretty much been entirely self-taught on what I know..I'm currently on a Microsoft led Server 2012 course. Last day tomorrow!
Then we got our first "proper" PC, a 386 Olivetti which I played a load of Shareware games on such as Doom, Commander Keen and the like.
We then got a Pentium 75!!! 75MHz of blistering awesome...I played C&C, Quake and Warcraft to death on this thing.
Then I got a 333MHz Cyrix PC. I think it was an eMachines. On which I played stuff like Unreal, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital.
This is where it gets vague, I can't remember what I had next because this is where I started building my own PCs and tinkering with the insides. I think it was a Pentium 4 with a GeForce MX420. Lots of Counter-Strike 1.6...too much probably. There was a 9800pro somewhere around this point in time but I can't remember whether it was in this machine or the next one.
Then an AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ machine with a 3850. It's still kicking around under the bed. I might turn it into a Minecraft machine for the boy.
Now I have an i3-2120/HD6850 machine as a desktop PC and a i5-3570/7870XT machine as a SteamBox.
My love of PCs and tinkering with them is how I am where I am today, an ICT Support Technician. Until this week, I've pretty much been entirely self-taught on what I know..I'm currently on a Microsoft led Server 2012 course. Last day tomorrow!
Dr Mayonnaise
Member
My first rig was some shitty ass Emachines Intel celeron single core at 2.8Ghz with a 256MB pci video card and like 1.5 gigs of ram played FFXI and vanilla Wow on it had it from 2005-2007
In 2007 I built my first computer AMD dual core cpu 2 gigs of ram and an Nvidia GTS 8600 and though I was pretty hot shit turning up wows graphics to higher than low haha had that computer till about 2010 with only upgrading to a HD5570
In 2010 I sold some stuff and built a rig with an AMDx4 965 Black edition but since I was on a budget I reused my HD 5570 and an old case had 4gigs of ram in it
In 2013 my previous computer died so instead of just replacing parts I treated my self to a new build. I am currently rocking an AMD FX9370 (ya ya just a factory overclocked 83xx blah blah) at 4.8Ghz (liquid cooled), 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 at 1866, Corsair 750w bronze certified PSU, and a GTX 760 overclocked to 1256/6500 at 1.212 volts all on attached to a gigabyte mother board. Looking to buy a R9 280x/7970 Ghz edition before xmas.
In 2007 I built my first computer AMD dual core cpu 2 gigs of ram and an Nvidia GTS 8600 and though I was pretty hot shit turning up wows graphics to higher than low haha had that computer till about 2010 with only upgrading to a HD5570
In 2010 I sold some stuff and built a rig with an AMDx4 965 Black edition but since I was on a budget I reused my HD 5570 and an old case had 4gigs of ram in it
In 2013 my previous computer died so instead of just replacing parts I treated my self to a new build. I am currently rocking an AMD FX9370 (ya ya just a factory overclocked 83xx blah blah) at 4.8Ghz (liquid cooled), 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 at 1866, Corsair 750w bronze certified PSU, and a GTX 760 overclocked to 1256/6500 at 1.212 volts all on attached to a gigabyte mother board. Looking to buy a R9 280x/7970 Ghz edition before xmas.
First computer was the family Dell and I remember getting my Dad to take me out to a Computer Expo near me to find a graphics card so I could play the original Call of Duty. Didn't work out and I ended up going to Bestbuy and buying some $80 dollar one off the shelf.
Eventually I saved up some cash and bought a CyberTron Barebone kit from Tiger Direct. It was a 2.4ghz P4 with 512mb of ram. I still remember starting up FarCry right after setting it up. Really wish I knew more about computer hardware though because I got a mobo with an AGP slot and that stopped me from upgrading for many years.
The P4 PC lasted me through high school through the majority of college mainly due to only playing WoW. I ended up buying a Ps3 when the slim launched because my PC really couldn't play much. I eventually got back into PCs when a WoW/Internet Friend sent me his Core2Duo when he upgraded to a QuadCore. (Internet friends are the best)
That lasted for a year or so until I graduated and started doing individual upgrades. Now I am running an i5 2500k with various upgrades to memory and graphics over the years.
Eventually I saved up some cash and bought a CyberTron Barebone kit from Tiger Direct. It was a 2.4ghz P4 with 512mb of ram. I still remember starting up FarCry right after setting it up. Really wish I knew more about computer hardware though because I got a mobo with an AGP slot and that stopped me from upgrading for many years.
The P4 PC lasted me through high school through the majority of college mainly due to only playing WoW. I ended up buying a Ps3 when the slim launched because my PC really couldn't play much. I eventually got back into PCs when a WoW/Internet Friend sent me his Core2Duo when he upgraded to a QuadCore. (Internet friends are the best)
That lasted for a year or so until I graduated and started doing individual upgrades. Now I am running an i5 2500k with various upgrades to memory and graphics over the years.
First PC ever was a 486 but I don't remember ever playing more than minesweeper or solitair on that. First PC that I've played on though was a Pentium 3 800MHz with a Matrox GPU and maybe 128 or 256 MBs of ram. I think I still have some 64MB ram modules around.
I still remember playing UT on this for the first time. Glorious times. I was so blown away when I found out about emulators and mods. That was back when not everyone had internet at home, so we would swap demos and mods in school.
I'm not quite certain what came after that, I think something with an Athlon. After that came a Pentium D with an AMD GPU that I later upgraded to a GTX 8800 (amazing card). I played a ton of WoW on that machine and didn't use it much for any other games. The next time I upgraded was to my current i5 with a GTX 270, that was when I really got back into PC gaming (more like played other games than WoW). Since then I've upgraded to a GTX 570 and I'm now on a GTX 680.
I still remember playing UT on this for the first time. Glorious times. I was so blown away when I found out about emulators and mods. That was back when not everyone had internet at home, so we would swap demos and mods in school.
I'm not quite certain what came after that, I think something with an Athlon. After that came a Pentium D with an AMD GPU that I later upgraded to a GTX 8800 (amazing card). I played a ton of WoW on that machine and didn't use it much for any other games. The next time I upgraded was to my current i5 with a GTX 270, that was when I really got back into PC gaming (more like played other games than WoW). Since then I've upgraded to a GTX 570 and I'm now on a GTX 680.
TheChocolateWar
Member
My first PC was one of those dinky shuttle cases that are really tiny. I think it had a 5700le in it. I thought I was so pro back then.
MrFrankFontaine
Banned
My memory sucks and I'm writing this at an airport bar.
First PC was a Commodore 128 that my dad bought me. Played a lot of games, but the only one to really stick was Ultima IV.
Can't remember the PC I had in college, but this was also a gift from my dad and was his contribution to my college education. Didn't really play games on it though, but I did meet my future wife on AOL chat.
Next PC was one I built in 2004 before my son was born. I built it for Half Life 2. I just recently set this up in his room to use for school and to teach him about computers. He's a little gamer that shares my hobby.
Next was an Asus G72GX laptop with a dual core processor and a GTX 260M. Played everything except for BF3.
Just built a new rig a few months back. I5 3570K OC to 4.5. Evga GTX 780 SC. 8 GB 1600 ram. 256GB Samsung 840 Pro. This is the rig I always wanted, but if it wasn't for my dad buying me that Commodore way back when, not sure I would be into PCs like I am today.
First PC was a Commodore 128 that my dad bought me. Played a lot of games, but the only one to really stick was Ultima IV.
Can't remember the PC I had in college, but this was also a gift from my dad and was his contribution to my college education. Didn't really play games on it though, but I did meet my future wife on AOL chat.
Next PC was one I built in 2004 before my son was born. I built it for Half Life 2. I just recently set this up in his room to use for school and to teach him about computers. He's a little gamer that shares my hobby.
Next was an Asus G72GX laptop with a dual core processor and a GTX 260M. Played everything except for BF3.
Just built a new rig a few months back. I5 3570K OC to 4.5. Evga GTX 780 SC. 8 GB 1600 ram. 256GB Samsung 840 Pro. This is the rig I always wanted, but if it wasn't for my dad buying me that Commodore way back when, not sure I would be into PCs like I am today.
It was not my first PC rig but it's the most memorable Story I have to share fellow GAFfer:
Some years ago I had spent quite some time saving every little bit I could to build a "proper" PC. I made my goal to reach about 700-800€ and after a long time I finally had the money.
I went to a local store, the prices were a bit high then ordering parts from dfferent places but the manager is very kind and patient. He got all my parts and then he built it without extra charging since I was bad at building things. Then I took it home and cleaned my place, dusting off my desk, organizing all the cables, etc. I was incredibly happy. Finally, after so many time saving money I had something decent to play some games.
Then, in recent times a family member who never had internet, ever and never had the need to have a PC started talking that would like to have a Computer, to have an email, a Facebook account to be possible to talk to other family members and to share pictures from the Holidays and so on.
I gave it my brand new PC. Just like that. The one I spent so much time saving for it. I was very happy for doing this but not much time after I started to missing it already.
This means that right now I'm starting all over again, from scratch.
When there was a sale on Steam I would got it while saving for my upcoming PC. In recent times I've spoke to the manager about that Store I did purchased my Gaming PC back in the day. He said he had to come back to the city I live because the rent was too high on the previous location and in here at least he had some clients already. I said to him: "I hope I can come here one day and say that I'm building a PC and I want some parts, that way I know that it would be a good day to both of us." He smiled and said: "Oh sure! I'll do my best to help you as always!"
This year I started to get some money on the side but then Medical bills came out of nowhere on a normal check-up. Recently I did 2 Dentist Surgeries in order to remove 2 Wisdom Teeth and I had 3 more treatments to do for the last 2 Months. The money I payed so far it's ridiculous to the point it can destroy any motivation you may have. Times in here are difficult and the Economy is quite harsh so my dreams of being able to play most of my (most demanding) Steam Backlog is on hold, again.
This year I will be recovering from all the bills so I'll stick with the PC Screenshot Thread that so many great GAFfers post in there and one day, I hope, one day, I can come back to a similar thread like this and tell the amazing Story how I built my PC rig after so many time waiting and fighting the bad times I'm having. Thank you for reading my good fellow GAFfers.
Some years ago I had spent quite some time saving every little bit I could to build a "proper" PC. I made my goal to reach about 700-800€ and after a long time I finally had the money.
I went to a local store, the prices were a bit high then ordering parts from dfferent places but the manager is very kind and patient. He got all my parts and then he built it without extra charging since I was bad at building things. Then I took it home and cleaned my place, dusting off my desk, organizing all the cables, etc. I was incredibly happy. Finally, after so many time saving money I had something decent to play some games.
Then, in recent times a family member who never had internet, ever and never had the need to have a PC started talking that would like to have a Computer, to have an email, a Facebook account to be possible to talk to other family members and to share pictures from the Holidays and so on.
I gave it my brand new PC. Just like that. The one I spent so much time saving for it. I was very happy for doing this but not much time after I started to missing it already.
This means that right now I'm starting all over again, from scratch.
When there was a sale on Steam I would got it while saving for my upcoming PC. In recent times I've spoke to the manager about that Store I did purchased my Gaming PC back in the day. He said he had to come back to the city I live because the rent was too high on the previous location and in here at least he had some clients already. I said to him: "I hope I can come here one day and say that I'm building a PC and I want some parts, that way I know that it would be a good day to both of us." He smiled and said: "Oh sure! I'll do my best to help you as always!"
This year I started to get some money on the side but then Medical bills came out of nowhere on a normal check-up. Recently I did 2 Dentist Surgeries in order to remove 2 Wisdom Teeth and I had 3 more treatments to do for the last 2 Months. The money I payed so far it's ridiculous to the point it can destroy any motivation you may have. Times in here are difficult and the Economy is quite harsh so my dreams of being able to play most of my (most demanding) Steam Backlog is on hold, again.
This year I will be recovering from all the bills so I'll stick with the PC Screenshot Thread that so many great GAFfers post in there and one day, I hope, one day, I can come back to a similar thread like this and tell the amazing Story how I built my PC rig after so many time waiting and fighting the bad times I'm having. Thank you for reading my good fellow GAFfers.
SRTtoZ
Member
My first purchased PC was an IBM Aptiva Pentium with MMX technology. I played my first game on it which was "Lion" and I had no idea how to play it.
The first PC I built was an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ system, I honestly forgot the other specs but my first big purchase for it was an Nvidia 4600 ti which was a beast at the time, I then sold it off and bought the 4200 ti which was a lot cheaper and could be OC'd to 4600 specs.
When the 360 came out I gave up PC building because I saw Gears of War and it blew me away, the next day I went to Best Buy and bought a 40" Sony Bravia and an xbox 360. Now about 6 months ago I felt like getting back into serious PC gaming and built an x79 platform which included:
i7 3820
Gigabyte UP5 Wifi mobo
16gb Kingston Ram
MSI Twin Frozr 680 4gb
2tb Seagate HDD with 128mb SSD (mostly for OS and some other things)
800 Watt Cooler Master PSU
So far I love it, it runs everything I need to perfectly. Some games right now including FFXIVARR, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Diablo 3, Planetside 2, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, TW2 etc.
When I need the power I'll upgrade to another 680gtx.
I should mention before I built this PC my gaming 'rig' of choice was Alienware laptops because I used to travel a lot so it was the best thing for me. I had everything from the m11x to the m14x and then the m17x (with the 7970m) before I sold it to buy my newest rig. The M17x served me well but I had stopped traveling so I wanted to build something that I can always upgrade instead of having to selling my old laptop and having to buy a new one every year. I have nothing bad to say about Alienware even though a lot of people hate on them. They have always endured everything I threw at it and always had a warranty just incase. I also got some sick discounts on them so it wasnt that big of a dent in my pocket like some people think.
The first PC I built was an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ system, I honestly forgot the other specs but my first big purchase for it was an Nvidia 4600 ti which was a beast at the time, I then sold it off and bought the 4200 ti which was a lot cheaper and could be OC'd to 4600 specs.
When the 360 came out I gave up PC building because I saw Gears of War and it blew me away, the next day I went to Best Buy and bought a 40" Sony Bravia and an xbox 360. Now about 6 months ago I felt like getting back into serious PC gaming and built an x79 platform which included:
i7 3820
Gigabyte UP5 Wifi mobo
16gb Kingston Ram
MSI Twin Frozr 680 4gb
2tb Seagate HDD with 128mb SSD (mostly for OS and some other things)
800 Watt Cooler Master PSU
So far I love it, it runs everything I need to perfectly. Some games right now including FFXIVARR, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Diablo 3, Planetside 2, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, TW2 etc.
When I need the power I'll upgrade to another 680gtx.
I should mention before I built this PC my gaming 'rig' of choice was Alienware laptops because I used to travel a lot so it was the best thing for me. I had everything from the m11x to the m14x and then the m17x (with the 7970m) before I sold it to buy my newest rig. The M17x served me well but I had stopped traveling so I wanted to build something that I can always upgrade instead of having to selling my old laptop and having to buy a new one every year. I have nothing bad to say about Alienware even though a lot of people hate on them. They have always endured everything I threw at it and always had a warranty just incase. I also got some sick discounts on them so it wasnt that big of a dent in my pocket like some people think.
1995: Store bought 486 DX2 66Mhz, with 8MB ram. I later upgraded the ram to 16MB and the processor to a 133Mhz chip.
1997 or 1998: Custom built Pentium MMX 200 Mhz with 32MB of Ram and a Voodoo 2, 8MB videocard. This was my computer for a quite a while in my broke high school days. I eventually bumped the RAM up to 96MB, but I didn't get a true upgrade for 3+ years. This was the golden era of JRPGs, so I didn't really care much about PC gaming beyond Might and Magic and Blizzard titles.
Late 2001: Store bought Pentium 3 1Ghz, with shitty integrated graphics, 128MB ram, and a 40GB HDD. This was a PC bought for me when I started university. I upgraded the RAM to 384MB, and threw a 120GB HDD in it, but I didn't keep this PC for too long.
2002: Custom upgrade to a AMD Athlon 1800. Most of the other components were harvested from my previous rig. The last time I paid someone to put the PC together for me. While I had installed RAM, processors, and optical drives in the past, I was afraid of building an entire rig for some reason. A year later, I added a Geforce 5600 vid card.
2004: My previous rig died in a fire (literally). Serves me right for cheaping out on the PSU. I replaced it with a Pentium 4 (can't remember the model, but at least 3.0GHz) with 512MB RAM. My videocard and HDD were the only salvageable parts, so I kept those.
Early 2006: My first completely new rig in over 5 years. The first rig that I spec'ed out and built myself. I was pretty early to the dual core game with an Athlon X2 3800. At the start, I had a 250GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and a Geforce 6800. This PC went through a ton of revisions before my next Major rig 3 years later. By the time I retired it, I had 3 HDDs (1TB total), 4GB ram, Athlon X2 5400, and Geforce 8800.
Mid 2009: My current rig more or less. I upgraded to a Phenom X4 945, with 4GB of RAM, and a 1GB Radeon 4870. Moving to a full tower, I had plenty of HDD bays, and became a bit of a Hardrive Hoarder. In addition to the 500GB, and dual 250GB HDDs I already had, I added a 1TB drive to act as my game drive. Fairly early on, I upgraded to Windows 7, and added another 4GB of RAM.
Since then I have made very few changes. I upgraded the videocard to a GTX 560 last summer, and was forced to grab a 2TB HDD when my Steam folder alone broke 700GB (now at 1.2TB). Thanks to the long console generation, this PC has been able to run pretty much anything in half decent settings on my 1080P screen. When that seems ready to change in the next few months, I will probably hold on to this rig for another year. I have a baby on the way, and until my wife finishes her PhD, money isn't flowing.
My next Rig will be a Intel-based machine. Since I am looking at a late 2014/early 2015 build date, I won't even guess what make yet. AMD drivers were shit during the last year I used my HD 4870, so I will probably stick with Nvidia as well, even if they are a bit pricier.
EDIT: I have built several other PCs for other people in the last 7-8 years. My wife's PC has also gone through a few revisions, mostly using cast off parts from my PC.
1997 or 1998: Custom built Pentium MMX 200 Mhz with 32MB of Ram and a Voodoo 2, 8MB videocard. This was my computer for a quite a while in my broke high school days. I eventually bumped the RAM up to 96MB, but I didn't get a true upgrade for 3+ years. This was the golden era of JRPGs, so I didn't really care much about PC gaming beyond Might and Magic and Blizzard titles.
Late 2001: Store bought Pentium 3 1Ghz, with shitty integrated graphics, 128MB ram, and a 40GB HDD. This was a PC bought for me when I started university. I upgraded the RAM to 384MB, and threw a 120GB HDD in it, but I didn't keep this PC for too long.
2002: Custom upgrade to a AMD Athlon 1800. Most of the other components were harvested from my previous rig. The last time I paid someone to put the PC together for me. While I had installed RAM, processors, and optical drives in the past, I was afraid of building an entire rig for some reason. A year later, I added a Geforce 5600 vid card.
2004: My previous rig died in a fire (literally). Serves me right for cheaping out on the PSU. I replaced it with a Pentium 4 (can't remember the model, but at least 3.0GHz) with 512MB RAM. My videocard and HDD were the only salvageable parts, so I kept those.
Early 2006: My first completely new rig in over 5 years. The first rig that I spec'ed out and built myself. I was pretty early to the dual core game with an Athlon X2 3800. At the start, I had a 250GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and a Geforce 6800. This PC went through a ton of revisions before my next Major rig 3 years later. By the time I retired it, I had 3 HDDs (1TB total), 4GB ram, Athlon X2 5400, and Geforce 8800.
Mid 2009: My current rig more or less. I upgraded to a Phenom X4 945, with 4GB of RAM, and a 1GB Radeon 4870. Moving to a full tower, I had plenty of HDD bays, and became a bit of a Hardrive Hoarder. In addition to the 500GB, and dual 250GB HDDs I already had, I added a 1TB drive to act as my game drive. Fairly early on, I upgraded to Windows 7, and added another 4GB of RAM.
Since then I have made very few changes. I upgraded the videocard to a GTX 560 last summer, and was forced to grab a 2TB HDD when my Steam folder alone broke 700GB (now at 1.2TB). Thanks to the long console generation, this PC has been able to run pretty much anything in half decent settings on my 1080P screen. When that seems ready to change in the next few months, I will probably hold on to this rig for another year. I have a baby on the way, and until my wife finishes her PhD, money isn't flowing.
My next Rig will be a Intel-based machine. Since I am looking at a late 2014/early 2015 build date, I won't even guess what make yet. AMD drivers were shit during the last year I used my HD 4870, so I will probably stick with Nvidia as well, even if they are a bit pricier.
EDIT: I have built several other PCs for other people in the last 7-8 years. My wife's PC has also gone through a few revisions, mostly using cast off parts from my PC.