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PC gamers, whats your upgrade history?

B

Brandonv

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
One thing about being a PC gamer is that every couple of years you have to invest in some new hardware, if you want to play the newest games. This is my history of hardware, as best I can remember it.

CPUs:
1999: AMD k6-2 475 Mhz
2001: AMD Athlon 850 Mhz
2001: AMD Athlon XP 1600+
2003: AMD Athlon XP 2700+
2007: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2009: AMD Phenom II X2 550

Video Cards:
1999: Voodoo 3 3000 16MB PCI
2001: GeForce 2 GTS 32 MB
2002: GeForce 4 Ti4400 128MB
2005: GeForce 6 6600GTS 128MB
2007: GeForce 8800GTS 320MB

I really do like PC gaming, but I have to say that looking back at all the money I have spent, it makes me wonder if I should have picked a cheaper hobby. :lol:
 
CPUs:
1994: Intel Pentium "P5" 60MHz
2000: Intel Pentium III 667 MHz
2003: AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8GHz
2004: AMD Ahtlon XP 3000+ 2.16GHz
2007: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Dual Core

Video Cards:
1994: Diamond? can't remember the exact one
2000: Voodoo 3 3000 16mb AGP
2003: Radeon 9500 PRO 128mb
2007: Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb
 
Brandonv said:
One thing about being a PC gamer is that every couple of years you have to invest in some new hardware, if you want to play the newest games. This is my history of hardware, as best I can remember it.

CPUs:
1999: AMD k6-2 475 Mhz
2001: AMD Athlon 850 Mhz
2001: AMD Athlon XP 1600+
2003: AMD Athlon XP 2700+
2007: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2009: AMD Phenom II X2 550
Click to expand...
Easy with the AMD fetish!

Video Cards:
1999: Voodoo 3 3000 16MB PCI
2001: GeForce 2 GTS 32 MB
2002: GeForce 4 Ti4400 128MB
2005: GeForce 6 6600GTS 128MB
2007: GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
Click to expand...
Well, at least you seem like a god fearing Nvidia man.

I really do like PC gaming, but I have to say that looking back at all the money I have spent, it makes me wonder if I should have picked a cheaper hobby. :lol:
Click to expand...
The dates here are pretty rough:

1993 - 486 DX2 66mhz w/ some kind of VESA SVGA onboard video card, packard bell, horrible machine, probably the most expensive I ever got too!
1997 - Pentium II 266 mhz, Hercules(? - one of the big 2d cards at the time anyway) 2d card, and Monster3D (3dfx Voodoo), first computer I built
1999 - Celeron 300A OC to 450mhz (that overclock was all the rage back then) with I believe a Voodoo3 card (2d/3d all in one, WOW!)
2002 (I think) - AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (with a modest overclock) with GeForce3 Ti 200 vid card
2006 - Pentium D 205(?), 2.66ghz oc to 3.8 ghz, ATI x1800xt 512mb vid card (worst video card I ever owned, overheated at underclocked speeds, artifacts and crashes)
2008 - Replaced worst video card of life with Nvidia 9800GT 1gb, or something like that
2009 - Planning a new system, definitely going to be an intel chip and nvidia for graphics. I actually tried to buy a new computer from newegg last year, but my credit card company rejected the charge because it was a 'suspicious usage pattern' and I never got around to reordering it :lol:
 
Not sure if I can really remember all of that info, honestly...but I'm on about my 4th or 5th rig.
 
CPUs:

Intel 386SX
Pentium 90Mhz
Celeron 300Mhz x 2
Pentium III 866Mhz
Pentium III 1Ghz x 2
Athlon XP 1900+
Athlon 64 3000+
Intel Core2Duo 2.13Ghz
 
CPUs:
1993 Intel 486 DX33
1999 Intel Pentium II 350 MHz
2003 Intel Mobile Pentium 4 3.06 GHz
2005 AMD Athlon FX-57 2.8 GHz
2008 Intel Core2Duo T9300 2.50 GHz

Graphics cards
1993 Some make of SVGA card, 1 Mb
1999 Intel i740 onboard graphics, 8 Mb
2003 ATi Mobility Radeon 9000 64 Mb
2005 NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256 Mb
2008 NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS 512 Mb
 
Yoda said:
Easy with the AMD fetish!
Click to expand...

Fetish? :lol: I guess I just like supporting the underdog. ;)

I have almost switched to Intel the last couple of CPU upgrades. Intel is clearly the performance leader right now, but for budget gaming CPUs I think that AMD has some very competitive prices, and that's why I have stuck with them.

LutherSloan said:
Not sure if I can really remember all of that info, honestly...
Click to expand...
I had to look at my Newegg.com order history to get some of it straight.
 
My last gaming rig was one of the Athalon 64s, been gaming on my MacBook Pro ever since. I, however, have become a mostly console gamer with this generation.

I am thinking of building a new PC for shits and giggles, though. It is super fun and I need to get up to date on any new techs.
 
People who've had both AMD and Intel based computers what are your opinions on their processors and which brand do you prefer and why?

It's too bad 3dfx went out of business I really liked their graphics cards that's why I went with ATI back in '03 I was still upset at Nvidia for buying them out but now I don't care since that's ancient history, I'll go with whoever makes the better product at the time than being brand loyal.
 
Used to upgrade like crazy ... toning it down for a while. Once I get a better job, I'll get better hardware. But for now, I'm currently using the following setup:

Athlon 64 X2 6000+ dual 3.0 ghz cpu
ATI Radeon HD 4770 512 mb vcard
2 GB (upgrading to 4 GB within a week) of DDR2 6400 ram
500 GB Western Digital 7200 rpm drive
800 watt psu
etc. etc. etc.

I also prefer AMD to Intel because they make processors that are better able to overclock in a stable fashion.
 
Everything from the 90s is VERY approximate.
1993 - Intel 386 DX 33
1995 - Intel 486 DX2 66
1997 - ??? 586 DX4100
2000- Intel Pentium 3 667mhz
2004 - AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton"
2006- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ "Windsor"
2008 - AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+

Video -
1990s - No idea anymore
2001- Nvida Gforce 2 32mb
2004 - Radeon 9600XT 128mb
2006 - Radeon X1900XT 512mb
2008 - Radeon HD4850 512mb
 
Rii said:
Leroy said:
People who've had both AMD and Intel based computers what are your opinions on their processors and which brand do you prefer and why?
Click to expand...

Whichever offers better value for money at the time. :lol:
Click to expand...
Bingo. But those Intel Core2 chips are so damned sexy!

As for vid cards I'll say that I miss 3dfx too. My sole ATI card was horrific, so I guess I'm an Nvidia man, though they're far from perfect!
 
CPUs:
1996 - Intel Pentium 75
1998 - Intel Pentium 133
1999 - Intel Celeron 466
2001 - AMD Athlon 1.4ghz
2004 - AMD Athlon 2.8ghz
2006 - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13ghz

Graphics (I might be a bit fuzzy on the details here)
1996 - Cirrus Logic 1mb Integrated
1998 - 4mb S3 Virge DX + 4mb 3DFX
2000 - 32mb nVidia GeForce
2003 - ??? nVidia GeForce 4400Ti
2004 - ??? ATI Radeon 9700
2005 - ??? ATI Radeon X800XL
2006 - 256mb nVidia GeForce 7900GT
2009 - 512mb ATI Radeon 4650
 
I honestly can't remember my upgrade path anymore.

I started with a 386 with a 2mb ATI card.
Moved up to a P1 with 4mb ATI and slapped on a Voodoo card.
Then to a P3 with what must have been a low end GeForce card, which I upgraded to a P4.

Then I switched to gaming laptops - a P4M with a GeForce 6800, a P4 with a GeForce 7800 and now I have two laptops with Core2s and GeForce 9600s.
 
Jeez. I've been building PCs since 1992, and have had a shit memory since 1984.

I used to build a rig, upgrade the gfx card and memory maybe twice in 2-3 years, then sell it on and build a completely new machine. My favourites have been the dual 1ghz Pentium III rig I built when I started college, for video editing. Had a pinnacle DC30 mjpeg video capture/decoder card, which was later upgraded to a Pinnacle DV500, 1gb of ram (which was pretty huge at the time) and 2x 200gb hard discs (ditto).

Sold that on to build a 2ghz Athlon (barton core) with 2gb of memory and a Radeon 9600somethingorother graphics card, which served as a gaming/media production machine for a good 4 years. Brilliant runner, never had any problems with it. By then I had accumilated a crapload of drives/cards/etc, so it had 3 hard drives totalling 750gb (I think) and 3x DVD burners at the front. It was a beast of a workhorse.

My current (getting on now) machine is an Athlon 64 3500+ with 2gb of DDR ram, 3 internal hard discs and 2 external coming up to 1.5tb of space (mostly filled, dammit) and an Nvidia 9600GT card which replaced an ATi Radeon x1800xt - a slight downgrade, but I was so fucked off with ATi for dropping driver support for a barely 4 year old card that I decided to get a budget Nvidia model and never looked back.

I hated ATi for doing that. Next time I build a machine (probably not for a few years) I will not be using AMD/ATi components. Felt royally cheated by them completely dropping support for a component I'd paid about £200 quid for in 2006.

I know 3-4 years is a lifetime in computing terms, but they supported the old 8500s for far longer and I believe Nvidia still support their earlier cards.

Sorry for the rant. Ach, it still pisses me off today.
 
January gforce 9500 gs or gt forget.
may a new board and recently a terabyte harddrivie one of eco friendly type. Voodoo Banshee 3 was best video card ever
 
Leroy said:
People who've had both AMD and Intel based computers what are your opinions on their processors and which brand do you prefer and why?

It's too bad 3dfx went out of business I really liked their graphics cards that's why I went with ATI back in '03 I was still upset at Nvidia for buying them out but now I don't care since that's ancient history, I'll go with whoever makes the better product at the time than being brand loyal.
Click to expand...

I prefer Nvidia because they have had, in my experience, superior driver support.
 
I can't remember my specific upgrades, but several years ago, I got an extra 2GB of RAM and a new video card to keep my computer semi-up-to-date. It couldn't paly everything, but it did decently overall. Last year, I got a brand new Alienware. Not the top of the line, but it plays everything I ask it to at top performance.
 
TheBrew said:
Leroy said:
People who've had both AMD and Intel based computers what are your opinions on their processors and which brand do you prefer and why?

It's too bad 3dfx went out of business I really liked their graphics cards that's why I went with ATI back in '03 I was still upset at Nvidia for buying them out but now I don't care since that's ancient history, I'll go with whoever makes the better product at the time than being brand loyal.
Click to expand...

I prefer Nvidia because they have had, in my experience, superior driver support.
Click to expand...

Whereas I have only ever had two video cards die on me and they were both nVidia cards.
 
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