Features - QOTW: What's the most expensive component in your PC?

[Saracen]

Well, I go back to the days when personal computing was expensive. Like, the basic Apple IIe was £1000, and that's before you add the peripherals necessary to make it useful, like monitor, any form of non-volatile storage, etc.

Moving on, I remember a 338MB (yes, Megabyte) ESDI hard drive that was £1500.

And the first CD Recorder was £3000, and the software necessary to drive it was another £1000, so it was a £4000 unit, as although there were a few options on the software, you needed one of them as the unit was useless without them.

Or there was the Minolta 35mm scanner was was close to £2k, or the Epson A3 flatbed scanner, which was about the same price. Unlike that ESDI (ESDI was to SCSI more or less what Betamax was to VHS, i.e. the one that lost the standards war) or the CDR, both scanners are still in use.

Printers weren't cheap, either. About £1300, IIRC, on my first Laserjet, almost as much on an Olympys dye-sub printer, and a good whack on early A3 and A2 printers.

I also had a fully loaded 386 when they came out. I got it at a good discount through a contact, but the normal price was just under £10k, and 'standard' features inclyded about £1500 worth of high-end tape backup drive. Which reminds me, a Tandberg SLR tape drive, many years later, wasn't cheap either.

I'm sure, if I thought about it, I've missed a few.And don't get me started on camera gear.

Or, heaven help me, cars.

[wasabi]

Silver power fanless PSU. Deffo worth it for silence.

My old Samsung T240 (1920 x 1200) monitor would probably be quite expensive to replace but it was second hand so doesn't really count.

[Kovoet]

At the moment I reckon its my GFX card but have bought a second one for half the price I originally paid for the first one.

[luigipogi1234]

graphics card

[bigsnake123]

CPU - Intel 2500K, then GPU 7750 passive (not a massive gamer) closely followed by SSD which was the most significant upgrade in terms of performance I can remember.

[Spreadie]

Most expensive at the time I got it : my GTX 670

Item with highest residual value - probably my monitor.

[hapilynvraftr]

GPU - HD7870
I have AMD budget gaming rig

[cheesemp]

Not sure I can answer this - I rarely spend $500 on a new PC every 4 years or so at the moment... Guess the most expensive component is probably my 3570K but that's probably down to having a free 285GTX that does 90% of everything I want it to do (despite me threatening to replace it regularly).

[The_Gull]

My Core I7 920 D-0 stepping bought brand spanking new. It was many hundreds of pounds, and although I could probably buy a new Motherboard/CPU/Memory combo for the same price nowadays, it was totally worth it.

It still forms the backbone of my games machine, which has went through three graphics cards a new SSD and some other upgrades in the same period.

I love it, because it is so stable. It sits in an Asus P6TSE motherboard with only 6GB RAM, and is cooled by a Titan Fenrir, and on air the chip sits happily overclocked to 3.89GHz constantly.

In fact, unlike the ten years previously, when upgrading the core of the computer was a regular occurrence, I have not once even thought about doing a core upgrade. That's the sign of money well spent I think, and I cannot see where the need to upgrade is going to come from. It play's every game out there on maximum settings, it renders quickly, all of my applications are lightning quick, and when I need to it runs virtual machines like they are full blown machines from 6 or 7 years ago.

In my entire computing purchase history, this, my SSD, and a Hanvon Art Master graphics tablet are the best purchases I've made.

[jonah]

The graphics card, but the ssd would be a close second. Yep, I've had fun with it that's for sure.

[jibjab96]

For me GPU is the most expensive part(which is a Palit GTX 460 Sonic Platinum... One of the best!) and the next expensive part is the Monitor.

[ik9000]

SSD (Samsung 840 pro) and GPU (Gigabyte GTX460SOC) cost about the same - though the SSD is newer and probably worth more 2nd hand atm.

Monitor cost more than either of them, but not really a component.

[ehhhhhhh]

OCZ Revodrive 3 x2 256GB. Still going strong. It was around £600 at the time.

[Ragga]

Defiantly has to be my AMD Phenom 1090T I brought for 150.. i think.

[John P. Myers]

GPU-most expensive: EVGA Hydro Copper Titan. Completely worth it!
Motherboard-2nd most expensive: MSI Big Bang Marshal (well it was expensive when i got it 2 years ago)
Case, CPU and PSU tied for 3rd most expensive: Lian-Li PC-D8000 case, i7-3770K CPU, Thermaltake Toughpower 1350W PSU
RAM-6th most expensive
Water cooling setup for the Titan-7th most: Swiftech MCP655 pump and 3x120 radiator
Water cooling for CPU-8th most: NZXT Kraken X40

Everything else was under $100

[big_hairy_rob]

GPU, Then CPU, Then CASE, Motherboard, Monitor, keyboard, psu