So.... who can remember all the systems they built for themselves?

[MSIC]

Who fancies a spot of reminiscing? (Reminiscing BTW is not as good as it used to be..).

1999, my first built PC, actually made for me by a relative (but gave me the first in-roads into the upgrade / build cycle i'm still on) was an AMD K6-2, can't remember the RAM, but i remember wanting to game on it and buying a VooDoo2 PCI card
Good times, it could even nearly play DVDs (at around 10 frames per second).

Next up, having gotten interested in video editing by this point, was my own personal first build, which i did alot of research into.
A P3 733, 256MB RAM, an Intel brand 815 motherboard (no overclocking, i wanted stability) with firewire, and 2 monitors (a very cool and pricey 15" Sony Trinitron, plus my previous 14" piece of rubbish).

The P4 northwood 1.6 was influenced heavily by my developing interest in overclocking, and it hit 2.4Ghz easily (which would still be usable today actually i reckon).
I got a Geforce 4 Ti around this time too, and dabbled with trying to get my 3d mark points up. Yeah, it seemed important at the time for some reason that escapes me now.

The AMD Opteron 146 i blame squarely at Hexus A good chip, nice overclocker, but i didnt need it. The nvidia 6800 was a pretty good card though. What was good, and remains with me now, were the Antec P180 case and Tagan PSU. Still nowhere close to changing those.
I do remember hitting the magic 1GB RAM mark with this system though. Some milestones stay with you.

The Athlon X2 was initially a straight swap in replacement, again I'm blaming everyone here for feeling the need for dual-core, and together with 'upgrading' to an nvidia 7600GT (a slight bit quicker) this was my biggest impulse buy to date, with some buyers remorse

Which bring me up to the Q6600 sitting in my current set-up, after reading about how good they were for a whole year i couldnt hold back. With my Radeon 3870 (my first ATI graphics card, now AMD), it felt fast for quite a while. I wonder when i'll need to upgrade again though...

Thanks to all at Hexus for the info and interest so far, i hope to keep on giving back as much as i take

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My first desktop in early 2004:

XP2800
640mb RAM
80gb +160gb hard disks
9500 pro
VIA KT600 motherboard
DVD-Writer
CD Writer
400w generic PSU(I know!!)

This evolved to the following by the end of 2006:
XP2800
1gb RAM
160gb Hard Disk
6800LE(fully unlocked)
DVD Writer
Shuttle SN41G2 V2 barebones

Replaced it with current desktop in late 2006:
Shuttle SD37P2 barebones
Pentium D805
2gb RAM
250gb + 320gb hard disks
x1900gt
DVD Writer

By the end of 2007 it had evolved too:

Shuttle SD37P2 barebones
E4500 at 2.95ghz
2gb RAM
250gb + 320gb hard disks
HD3870
DVD Writer

Currently:

Shuttle SD37P2 barebones
Q6600 at 3ghz
4gb RAM
320gb + 320gb hard disks
HD4830
DVD Writer

[TAKTAK]

Only one from scratch build: September 25 2007

Ordered products:

Asus GeForce 8600GTS 256MB GDDR3, HDCP, PCI-Express, 2xDVI-I/HDTV, W/STALKER
LG DVD Drive, GDR-H20NRBB, SATA, 16x52, Black OEM
NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7191S, Expected in stock 26.10.2007 SATA, Black (bulk), LightScribe
Thermaltake Soprano DX Black, Aluminium front, Midi tower, Window (Without PSU)
Upgrade Kit AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition, Asus Crosshair, 2048MB
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM

Total Order Amount:

Net 561.50
Freight 17.24
VAT 17.50 % 101.28
Order Total 680.02

Corsair HX640w ~£100

<< Which has since become <<

before that was just upgrades, never complete builds, and then there are numerous builds for randoms.

[Sputnik]

First build was a Pentium2 300Mhz(slot type) Intel Mobo with 32Mb RAM, An Nvidia GPU(can't remember which) and a Huge 6.4Gb hard drive. That HDD cost about £130+ back then !

2 - AMD 700Mhz (slot A?) Asus Mobo, 128Mb RAM, Same Nvidia GPU as before, 20Gb HDD.

3 - AMD XP1900+, MSI K7 Mobo, 512Mb RAM, Geforce3Ti200, 4x 60Gb HDD.

4 - AMD xp2200+, Abit AT7 Mobo, 1Gb RAM, Geforce4ti4600, 120Gb HDD.

5 - AMD XP3500+(64 bit) MSI K8N Neo2, 1Gb RAM, Radeon 9800 pro, WD raptor + 250Gb HDD.

6 - Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, Gigabyte Mobo, 2Gb RAM, Fx5750 ?, 300Gb Hdd.

7 - AMD Phenom2 720, J&W mobo, 8Gb RAM, samsung 1Tb HDD.

[Zadock]

My first build must have been 1997, built it with my dad
(vague recollection)
K6: 500Mhz (slot A, one of the the side wats ones)
Ram: 128mb
HDD: ?? can't remember must have been tiny
GFX: PowerVR! it was a daughter board 3D acclerator card, little thing that went in a seperate PCI slot. I remember we got one because my Dad's work got given loads for free due to bulk purchasing work station graphics cards.

Next: ~2001

CPU:Athlon XP 2100+ (~1.7GHz)
RAM: 256mb
MSI Motherboard
GFX: Geforce 4 MX (rubbish, no pixel shaders), upgraded to a ATI Radeon 9800pro
HDD: 80Gb Maxtor


first one I did on my own I remember cutting my fingers a lot getting everything thing out of the packets.

2003: whilst at uni

CPU:Athlon 3500+
Motherboard: Asus A8N Standard
Ram: 1Gb
GFX: Gigabyte ATi X800, silent heat pipe thingy. I think it may have been a hexus recomended one.
HDD: Seagate barracuda, which now lives in a Icy Box on my desk and is still going stong!

I also built a bunch of PCs for friends and relatives.

Current machine I can't really take credit for apart from design as I paid yoyotech to build it (lazy and all of a sudden I had money! as I'd got a nice new job).

Specs: see my sig. I've not altered it aside from OC'd it.

[Lee H]

EEK - not a blooming chance.

I've built that many for myself and others over the years - 18 years to be exact

Even Carl was laughing as we've had a LOT of systems over the years when we lived at the parents. We had 486 systems, cyrix based systems, AMD based rigs and Intel rigs galore.

I shudder at the thought of how much I've spent over the years on hardware and I even had 160 quid ready for when the geforce 256 cards first lauched many moons ago.

[Madafwo]

First Build, September 2005:

Asus A8N-SLI
AMD 3700+
2 x 512 Mb Geil Ultra DDR400 2-2-2-5 memory
256mb Leadtek 7800GTX
Tagan 530W Easycon PSU
Akasa Eclipse
200GB Maxtor Drive

It then (if I remember the order correctly) was upgraded to a 7900GT, then 2 x 1GB of G.Skill memory which required a board change to a DFI SLI-D as it was incompatible. Then Ig ot rid of the 3700+ and went to a 4200+ X2 which I clocked to 2.6 I think. I then got rid of the 7900GT and went for a 7900GTO. Also during this time the whole system was water cooled.

That was the last upgrade for my AMD rig...

I then got....

Abit IB9 motherboard
Intel E4300 1.8Ghz (it never ran at this, straight to 3Ghz)
2 x 1GB Corsair DDR2-800 4-4-4-12

As I only had a S939 water block I went back to air cooling.

I then got rid of the 7900GTO and upgraded to a 7900GTX (sold the GTO for a profit and bought the GTX brand new for less then &#163;50 )

This is where it gets a bit hazy....

At various points I have had.

Motherboards:

Asus P5E3, Asus P5E VM, Giga-byte EP45-DS5 and a DFI Lanparty P45-T2RS Plus.

CPU's:

E6600, E8400 and E8200

Graphics cards:

8800GT and GTX 260 216 Core

Memory:

Currently own 3 sets of Corsair, 1 4GB kit and 2 2GB kits.

PSU's

Tagan still going strong but also have a 400W FSP for low power systems and a Coolermaster 520W Modular.

Cases:

Currently in possession of 2 x Akasa Eclipses (1 with Omega top and side panels) 1 x Antec P182 and 1 x Silverstone Sugo (all are in black)

HDD's change more than my kecks so can't list those. And do you guys really care about ODD's?

My current system can now be seen to the left (once I have updated it)

I guess the answer is no really... I can't

[scaryjim]

Lordy, dunno: I'd have to extract the ones that were rebuilds against the ones that were complete builds!

I guess first up was a PC Chips / Syntax mobo w. a Duron 1800 (lovely machine that one ).

After I sold that one I built myself an Athlon 2600+ on an ASUS KT400 mobo, originally with an FX5200 but eventually upgraded to a Radeon 9800Pro .

My linux box was a new build ASUS (are we seeing a theme here? ) NForce 2 mobo, Sempron 2300+, that eventually got migrated to HTPC duties with the addition of an FX5500.

Since then I basically just moved bits around (the Athlon 2600 is in the HTPC, for instance!), until I built the monster on the left - originally for my wife, but I use it more now.

I'll be replacing the HTPC in the next couple of months, though, so that'll be another one...

[shaithis]

First system (Built 1990 IIRC):

AMD 386 40MHz
Some no-name motherboard
4 x 1 MB RAM
512k Trident VGA card (ISA)
40mb IDE HDD
SoundBlaster 2.0


From there I never built a complete system again, always upgraded in one way or another.......biggest upgrades after that were as technology changes....i.e. AT to ATX, ISA to VL-BUS, VL-BUS to PCI, PCI to AGP, AGP to PCI-Express.

My worst builds were around the time of the K7 cpus. There seemed to be an abundance of PC-Chips motherboards around with those add-in cache modules........flaky systems seemed quite prevalent during this phase

[PeteSmith]

I remember when i upgraded to a Pentium 2 400Mhz with MMX, i remember thinking it was a beast at the time. Can't remember what i had before that, a Pentium 90 i think, with S3 graphics.

After the Pentium 2 i built various AMD rigs, up until i got my Athlon XP3200, which i still have and use today, probably the most reliable rig i have ever had, including the current Q6600 build.

I still have all the bits too, never throw anything away. I often think i should fire up the old rigs, then i come to my senses.

[Funkstar]

I don't think i'll be able to remember all the systems, but i'll have a think and post back later tonight if i remember

[synaesthesia]

Another first build at 386 level here - was a "souped up" DX40 though! Cost a fortune at the time, even had 4mb of ram and a VLB video card!

Like many of the above, it's been a steady upgrade path from there really, usual suspects of the 486 DX2 66 (classic!), my first Pentium (p75) etc etc. Too many to list, but it's certainly easier now than it used to be.

Certainly done some upgrades on older machines in the past - slapping a whopper of a 10mb hard drive in my dads machine was much fun. I saw whopper, I mean it literally - if someone hit you round the back of the head with one of those, you'd never know about it until you woke up/were reincarnated!

[switchmode]

I've built a few for myself and setup a few for other people as a job a long time ago.

The first PC's came ready built I had an ACT Apricot PC with a daisywheel printer...

I still am amazed at how much more powerful mainstream hardware is now, compaired to the past.

Windows still sucks it all up though

Listed in order 386 sx, 486 sx, 486 dx 66, 486 AMD 120, I really thort I had the dogs do dars with that, 4 meg ram I think.

Various: pentiums mmx, II's, celeron 350 OC to 400 Mhz, Athlon xp, Athlon 64, Opteron OC to 2.9 Ghz, C2D 4600 was it ? at 3Ghz and lastly Q6600 Quad. All with the mix of Hdisks from 20 Meg step drive heads to 640 Gb Hitachi on the way. First cd-rom and sound blaster vibra 16 to play Myst about 1990 something can't remember exactly. later a "Phone Blaster" 28800 modem and sound card all in one from creative strange thing that.

Most expensive mistake was a 2 speed dvd writer pioneer for £200 obsolete almost sraight away for speed and cost.

[synaesthesia]

Did anyone buy any BIG memory in the days of the 286/386s?

To this day I have a keyring which when asked, I proudly announce "it's a £32,000 keyring" - a 32mb EDO 30pin SIMM - which at the time of acquiring, was retailing at the above small price of 32 grand. Obviously being in my hands it wasn't in a working state

[Georgy291]

my first ever pc i had was i didnt build i had it for my bday all i remember 2000 and a 486

then my dad bought a P2 233mhz slot type cpu....i STILL HAVE IT the only thing i have done to it was add a faster grafix card a geforce Mx 400 (PCI) oh and a 2.5gig HDD with 98 on it and 256mb ram

my first complete build was a

atholon 2000 (the 1.6ghz one) not sure on socket etc 1 gig ram and first time ever 80 gig HDD with a geforce MX 4000 (i didnt know anyhing about grafix cards at the time when it came it was rubbish but cheap )

and since then i had a complete build in 2006 with my curent cpu....different mobo (m2n4-sli i think it was) i had a Geforce 8600GT 512 and 512mb ram


btw any of the old stuff you read here i still have and is avalible for taking for a small donation

them over 3 years it evolved in to what i have now....so i think its time for a new cpu? possibly a phenom?

[PeterStoba]

Christmas 2007 - first system built.

Q6600 & freezer 7 pro, ASUS P5KPL-VM, 2x1GB OCZ PC2-7200, 160GB samsung hard drive, black icute case. Then got Gigabyte ga-p35-ds3, 8800GTS 512MB, Antec P182, Scythe Mugen and 2x2GB OCZ Reaper X.

Then an e8400 which got upgraded to an e8600 before it got used, a 4850, then a 4870 and then a mobo upgrade to p5q-e.

1 System, just upgraded alot, completely new and same HDD i suppose LOL