Features - QOTW: What's the best PC component you ever bought?

[Noxvayl]

The best parts I've have bought so far are: Gigabyte 8800GTS 512Mb, Coolermaster CM690(original version), OCZ Vertex 2E 120Gb, Corsair 550D and probably my Gigabyte Z77-UD5H + i5 3570K.

The 8800GTS is in there due to its longevity, lasted me 2 years before I started reducing game settings. The coolermaster case lasted for 3 builds before the 550D was released and I just had to have that one, the Corsair 550D is the best case I've worked with and will be building many more machines in it. The OCZ SSD is self explanatory. I am hoping my new mobo and CPU will last me a good few years, I am happy with VirtuMVP boosting my graphics performance enough to easily handle Ultra settings in Shogun 2.

[d0dge]

4MB Voodoo PCI Voodoo graphics card and loading quake in OpenGL(Glide) for the first time.

Yes! This!

[aidanjt]

Voodoo 3 3500 - first real 3D card and wiped the floor with everything else on release. Brilliant drivers and very high quality TV out, which just didn't happen back then.

Came with a copy of Unreal - which pretty much defined my life from that point. I work with Unreal tech on a daily basis in a professional capacity now

Man I remember UnrealEd back in the day, you had to save every 10 seconds with a sigh of relief that you managed to get another piece of the map in place lol.

Ok, not really *that* bad, but there sure were an awful lot of.. um.. quirks.

(And yes, Unreal + Glide was orgasmic).

[dahools]

There have been lots of good buys over the years but very few stand out as the best!
I've had intel an PII, PIII, PIV, c2d and have just moved up to an ivybridge chip. All massive boosts from each other but enough to stand out as there is always a faster chip round the corner.
Same with gfx, voodoo, ati all-in-wonder, several nVidia's and now to my dual 4850's always a big leap at every point but outdated in <6 months.
Hard drives, I remember my first 30Gb being pretty big at the time and remember buying my first WD raptor spinning at 10, rpm thinking this was the future but sat on a Crucial m4 SSD at the moment perhaps there is some way to go.
So whats my best buy then? It was nearly my coolermaster COSMOS chassis, as its awesome! Even if bench pressing it would lead to Olympic gold for team GB. Its rock solid still but showing its age slightly with scuffs and scratches over the years. Just wish the COSMOS II wasn't so expensive or I would upgrade. I would be happy with a front panel upgrade for mine to USB3 etc but alas. . . it appears the case was built to last but built to never be updated. Ay least my PC will survive nuclear war!

So that brings me to my best ever thing I have bought and every time I look at it I still wonder how something so small and so cheap, could be so useful and work so well (the lynch pin of my system).

Having had plenty of motherboards over the years most came with integrated wifi. This being a PCI card with and Ariel that screws in the back, such as my abit IN32 X MAX and my last ASUS board. ASUS still offer this on there top Z77 boards now however they are so temperamental with signal, interference, aesthetics and positioning problems. They just got on my nerves, always dropping out when you need them most and cable in the way when I move my rig. So this led me to search for an alternative.

The EDIMAX nano wifi dongle! - underwhelmed i'm sure!

However never has anything impressed me by being so simple and working so flawlessly! What good is a PC if it ain't online? (rhetorical question but i'm too far away for wires!)






Its so small it amazes me all the time the USB connection takes up 80% of it. It's that small I struggled to focus on it that's why the pics are so rubbish! For me its been flawless (have I said that?) couldn't recommend one enough. I bought it from scan 5 years back for < than a tenner and although they don't stock it any more there are alternatives available
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/dynam...dapter-150mbps
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/belki...ss-usb-adapter

My stand out champ as I cannot see how wireless can get smaller or where it can go from here in the foreseeable future, other than changes in networking standards which will just mean a model revision.

[ntrik]

My first self built system included the AMD Athlon XP-M Barton 2500. Great price performance ratio and of course fantastic overclocking potential

[rover214]

Shuttle SN85G4 v2

Catapulted into 64bit computing (in a sff way)

[MrBozack]

Tough question. So many choices.

XFX GeForce4 4200 Ti. Best value card of that era. It offered pixel shaders and played Unreal Tournament great! (I also found the UnrealEd comments funny)

Any Corsair PSU I've bought. They've all been great.

My first SSD. OCZ Vertex 3. Talk about performance boost!

Cyrix 6x86 was a great CPU for entry level PC in the mid 90's too! 233mHz!


...but the winner? It's got to be my last graphics card HD 3870X2. Now that really made me happy back in the day. An incredible component.... and very beefy!

[1pnoe]

I think I will have to say my Crucial M4 128GB SSD. It's a godsend. My computer has never crashed since I got it and is so fast. It was worth every penny. It also was a great finish to my first PC build.

[Gallarian]

My GTX 580 - so impressed by it

[mark22]

Ok you drew it out, 99 I was going to uni late bougt a dell xps something or other. Well over 2 grand oops, but it ruled, altec lamsing leading speakers

[cah]

E6600+680i+ATI5850.....still strong. Could do with SSD though.

[darkreize]

Upgrading from HDD to SSD

[pp05]

My Lian Li PC-60 Aluminum chassis.

I had never thought about spending so much on a case at the time, this just made pc building more enjoyable.

[krsboss]

Depending on your interpretation of the word best, I would have to say that my 800D was my best purchase!

Though not the most glamorous of computer components, it's really the only part I still have of the original build that went in it...with every other component being switched out at least twice...

...I even like that I was able to buy a SATA6 upgrade panel for the hot-swap drives and a USB front panel upgrade...so whilst I know that I'll be changing out the internals multiple times again in the not so short future, the 800D will still be doing it's job for years to come...best component ever!

[alpha channel]

Hard one this, it's a toss up between the Viper 40MHz 68EC030 accelerator card for my Amiga 1200 all those years ago (waited for it for ages, came with 8MB of RAM, the aforesaid 68EC030, a 50MHz FPU and a SCSI interface which lead to a SCSI x2 CD drive, a flatbed scanner and an EZ Flyer drive), the 120GB Mushkin SSD that I had in my desktop machine (now in my laptop) or the Radeon 5850 which delivered quick a kick in the pants to my work in Vue Infinite (as well as my gaming) before it self destructed.

[iranu]

Refurbished Ati Radeon 9700 Pro. Was something like half the cost of a new one and the 9800 pro had only just come out. I've still got it because I never wanted to sell it. Some day it will get encased in clear plastic and mounted with a brass plaque.

Logitech MX1000 cordless laser mouse. It's got a laser in it! 8 years on it's still running perfectly (after I opened it up and cleaned all the gunk out of it! - what is that stuff? On second thoughts I don't want to know.) Cost about £60-65 new. I never want it to die. No one else makes a mouse with a rocker above and below the scroll wheel. Logitech G700 will be the closest I think.