QOTW: What's your best tech purchase in the last 20 years?

[bassoprofundo]

This:

https://clickykeyboards.com/product-category/ibm-model-m13-trackpoint-ii/

I picked up 3 of these, 2 of which were NIB, from a coworker in exchange for him buying lunch. He was cleaning out his "new" office in order to move in, and knowing what he'd found, I told him I'd buy them off him. He said, "Just buy me lunch, and I'll bring them out to you." 15 years later, they're still humming along. I wish I'd had the good sense to leave at least one untouched in the box, but I've gotten more use and more enjoyment out of these than any other single tech purchase.

[eugenius]

1. Cherry ErgoPlus MX5000 keyboard with MX5700 number pad
2. HFX Classic case
3. Q6600 CPU (replaced that one with an I5 3570s I'm still using)

[Rand]

1. The old Sound Blaster Live Value narrowly fits inside the 20yr range, that was an exceptional buy for me. Huge boost in audio quality back when this was still meaningful, EAX support... which still mattered at the time. Great price point. Used that for a really long time.

2. The 8800GTX, used the same GPU for about 5yrs and for much of that time it wasn't even far off the high end. Sold it for a decent chunk of money too.

3. Athlon 64 3200+, arguably my best processor buy ever aside from the Celeron 300 of long ago. Reasonably priced, great performance, sipped power. Used it through several systems.

4? It's too early to say but Mushkin 1TB MLC SSD a few years ago, and I strongly suspect that drive is going to last a very long time in use for me. Reasonably capacious, and the performs quite well. Got it at a ridiculously cheap price on sale too. I have every confidence it will be in use for a long time through many systems, even after I outgrow it as my primary drive... which itself isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Not a specific device, and not computer related but I have to give a nod to GPS tracking too. Be in in phones, or dedicated GPS devices, or built into cars or whatever. It's been incredibly useful ever since it became commonly used at the consumer level.

[the_Unforgiven]

mine is a toss up between 1080 ti Kingpin & ASUS Rampage V Edition 10 mobo

[the_Unforgiven]

mine is a toss up between 1080 ti Kingpin & ASUS Rampage V Edition 10 mobo

[OpenGT]

The i7-2600K, working at 4,8 GHz and cooled by air, amazing!!
And my loved Dell 2711, these are my best purchase until now.

[IVLCGJC]

My now 10 years old Core2Duo E8400 setup, still using every day, although upgraded the system to SSD from HDD 2 years ago.

[daymang]

An extended battery for my Galaxy S5 phone, means it now runs for a few days, without recharging.
'little things, please little minds'!!!

[Nemz0r]

Well Hexus, you've already answered this one for me!

I guess it wasn't MY purchase since I was only 9 or so (I think it was after 1998, but I couldn't be certain!), but our first PC was what sparked my interest in technology and at its heart was the AMD K6 266 MHz, as pictured in the news post (or a similar K6)!

The PC actually had some issues when we bought it, and kept blue screening all the time (I guess Windows 95 did that from time to time, but this was something more...). We had a couple of techies out from HiTech (I think that was the company, probably long gone now), but no one found any problems. After a while I took it upon my young self to take the computer apart and fix it (as I did for mowers and other things, with, thinking back, a surprising amount of success)! Upon removing the processor I discovered that one of the pins on the CPU was completely bent, "This must be it!" I thought, so I bent it back into shape, replaced the processor and put everything back together. Great success! The PC was cured ! Shortly after, I remember installing a Voodoo 1 to it in order to play an F1 racing game (I forget which one, but it required 4 MB of VRAM and we only had 2 MB), but my most vivid memory -- and maybe some of you will remember this too -- was of playing The Sims. I will always remember that when it was time for my Sim to go to work, the taxi would 'arrive', and, I say 'arrive', because it would start arriving offscreen, but then the game would lag for about 5 minutes and my friend and I would know it was time for a cup of tea !

My best purchase -- and this was mine alone, that I saved up ages for! -- was an Athlon XP 2400+ T'bredB (and motherboard, RAM etc.), which was the first PC I built myself from scratch at the tender age of 12. None of my family or friends knew anything about computers so I was very proud of this achievement!

[johnroe]

It would be interesting to know from this data. Is it the best; technologically, stylishly, or longevity and price/value for money(that makes a difference).

This is the best bit of tech I own today.>

[Ttaskmaster]

An extended battery for my Galaxy S5 phone, means it now runs for a few days, without recharging.
'little things, please little minds'!!!

What is your evidence for this assertion and how many tins of biscuits did you have to eat through during the tests?

[Spreadie]

My first SSD, back in 2009.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has had a greater positive impact on my PCs performance before or since.

[g8ina]

Hmmmm, there are a trio of items I bought ages ago and still use daily :

My Kindle, 3rd ed with keyboard.
My iRiver H120 upgraded to 128GB HDD
My Sennheiser HD580

Flippin typical !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I praise my Kindle and 3 days later, that damn thing wont switch on Sitting with no battery inside, just waiting for the caps to discharge, then I'll try a reset.

[Arashmickey]

logitech G602. For gaming, it had the best wireless connection for a long time. For productivity and general use, the extra button are sometimes better than the extra scrollwheel on the MX master. Good sensor and battery life. Unfortunately, it's big and heavy.

[elites2012]

AMD ryzen 5 1600. a 6 core chip with threads, that beat intel i7 7700k in so many real world test. THE ONLY reason the i7 7700k beat a ryzen 5 1600 in gaming, is because the i7 base core has not changed since the core 2 duo. so the lazy programmers will still only cap games to recognize up to 4 cores. anymore than that and they claim they run into issues. intel has not made a ground up cpu since the core 2duo.

[g8ina]

Flippin typical !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I praise my Kindle and 3 days later, that damn thing wont switch on Sitting with no battery inside, just waiting for the caps to discharge, then I'll try a reset.

Fortunately, the removal of the battery and a soft reset solved it happy again