Your Best PC

[HorseArcher]

Well, the title is a bit misleading, but let me explain.

This is for the people who had a number of PCs already.

Each gaming-era (since 1994 for me) brought new graphics, graphic cards/new type of CPU etc.

Along with, you had to get a new PC or update your PC to be able to play the latest and greatest games.

So, for example:

Back in 1994, I managed to scrape together some money and also bothered my mom enough to help me out to buy my first PC.

It was a 486 DX2 Packard Bell, with a whooping 16 MB of RAM and a 500MB hard drive, along with built in graphics and sound, ....costed me $2800 G.Washingtons.

I told my mom, I needed it a lot, for school etc...but deep down, I had greater plans, I bought it to play Doom.

Back then, PC was thriving, stores were filled with PC games. I remember I had a hard time buying a flight simulator game, because there were literally at least 30 titles to choose from, and that's only the flight sims, beside the even more numerous doom-clones, hex-strategy games and various other stuff.

I would say, about 20 times more games were released/per year for the PC, than today. (per month, there were about 10-15 new PC games)

Later on, as I learned how to use the PC (I was more of an Apple-guy, because that's what we had in school), the new games couldn't run, and there came the new Pentium machines (1995?) P60 then P90, which would be the "most awesome" power you could have with 32MB of RAM and more.. (yeah)

So I ended up buying the most expensive Gateway PC at the time (3500 grand), packed with the latest (48MB of RAM) and even a graphics card (Riva something /-- the predecessor of nvidiaGF) and a sound card (sound blaster pro). So as soon as I got it, I bought the newest games ever and they all ran smooth as butter, and no hickups and slowdowns, I had the best time ever playing games at max graphics....for a while.

Since then, I had like 3-4 PCs, mostly just rebuilt, refurbished components from my older PCs... ( I still got the ball-mouse from my first PC the packard bell, but i don't use it only as an emergency or testing), but I don't think I ever been on the top ever since, meaning: none of my newer PCs ever were the "latest and best" , but always kept it in the middle-top way.

So, my best PC was the Gateway Pentium 200 Mhz (giant CPU cooler heatsink) I had back in 1996-or 97, can't remember when I bought it.

How about yours, did anyone had older PCs that were considered top-of the line, at a certain point of time?

[King Edward I]

yep, when I was really young I had a 1984 Apple; with a 2MB HDD (128K of ram) and 400k disc drive - it booted off the floppy when I first bought it and i fiddled around inside it and added a total of 2MB of RAM, a 2MB HDD and an 800k drive.

my new one once overclocked will be somewhere near top of the line;

E6600 @ ~3.5GHZ
8800GTX
Raptor X
and multiple storage drives

[freekyjason]

i remember building a pc years ago that was close to top of the line at the time:

p3 1gig
asus board who's number i forget, been a while
1gig sdram
80gig wd hd with 8meg cache
geforce ti 4800
cd and dvd drive

i remember when i bought the parts i was assured that this computer was "futureproof" and i fell for that old line (for about 2 months) but it was a good machine, the best id had at that point.

now i dont buy the top of the line parts, but those just below. saves money, and still does everything it needs to. plus i dont feel all disappointed when the video card i just bought is obsolete within a couple of months and cost me $1000

[Shaun]

Well, the PC that I built in October this year is the best PC I ever had, before that I aint ever went above the budget line.

[Pent uP Rage]

Well, I could consider ye olde Commodore 64 as the best for me. It was my introduction into computer gaming. I would sit for hours with a Commodore magazine and code my own games. Back then Commodore magazine was full of code for various programs that you could do yourself.

Actually, now that I think about it....it was really a bear...I was just too young to know any better!

I could harken back to the days of the Tandy 1000. The good ol' 386 and Windows v.1.x. But what I remember most of those days were constant IRQ resource mismatches and conflictions.

I would have to settle on my first self-built XP/P4 system...the one I'm on RIGHT NOW!!!

There is/was nothing better than installing a new component and having it work RIGHT AWAY instead of having to take a course in coding to make it work. Not to mention the ease of use, overclockability(and the increase of effectiveness of the practice with faster chips with multipliers.), driver standardization, etc, etc...

To me...there's nothing like having everything work the first time, every time....well nearly!

[Darkragnar]

My First PC , in 1995
P1 100 MHz , 8 MB ram 1GB ,Win 3.14 after that technology lept ahead of my purse.

[Freddie]

Probably the first PC I ever had which was a Pentium 200 MHz with mmx. It had a colossal 32Mb of ram and a 2Mb Maxtor Video Card with powered a 15” CRT from CTX.

This was back in 1995, but what really blow me away was when I installed a 3DFX Voodoo card, which totally transformed the way games looked. If you want to talk about revolutions and turning points the original 3D accelerator cards from 3DFX and Power VR were nothing short of ground of , supernova, galactic apocalyptic, out right armageddon, end of the world nuclear warfare, earth shattering, eye melting……




There has never been a technology since that has been that groundbreaking. The physics cards that came out this year were taunted as being as revolutionary but so far they are a flop.

[PyrrhusIV]

I remember I had an old computer from the 80's which I used to use at my grandfathers house all the time. No clue about the spec's, but I had to flip 2 switches to turn it on, and it booted off a 5 1/2 floppy, be it a game or a program. Man, I loved that computer....

I think the first computer my family ever got was in 1997. I still have it, actually, it runs pretty fast still. The spec's of it:

64MB RAM
(2) 1GB Hard Drives
200 (or is it 300) mhz Pentium I processor.
and a few MB VC

I have no clue how much we payed for it back then....I still play games like AOE: Age of Kings on it....

My favorite computer so far, has probably been that old dell of mine, which i've championed many times on this forum. With 256MB of RAM, a 64MB GPU, 1.69ghz Pentium 4 and a 40GB HDD, that thing played all games on Max, or close to it, till Oblivion and FEAR.

I really love my current comp that I built, but I suspect it has some hardware issues. It doesnt seem to run as "slick" as it should. I'm thinking of doing an overhaul in the spring....

[wipeout140]

First PC/Computer if want call it was a BBC Computer which my dad was given when i was young

Favorite Computer is possibly my laptop mainly because i worked to get it

[Incinerate_IV]

My best one... A 1ghz Pentium 3 Dell with a 20 gig hard drive and 128mb of ram. Back then when Intel and AMD were racing to get to the 1ghz mark, this PC was top of the line. I couldn't remember the price, but it was probably around 2 grand. It was pretty beastly.

The PC I have now is pretty good also. Considering all the upgrades I did on this thing for the past year or two I think its probably worth about $1000 now.

[krazykarl]

I think the best machine, that I gamed the most on (also due to me being in HS at the time and having time for aforementioned gaming) was my good old celeron 433 192mb PC100 with a Voodoo 3 3000 and an SB128. I miss 3dfx, to this date I still think glide ran better then anything else could even come close to. I dont know what all the nostalgia is about, but my first machine, a Samsung 286 just couldnt cut it when it came to games, sure I had the classics like Duke and Keen, but in the end, it was a pretty poor gaming platform (mostly due to all the games I wanted requiring a 386 ie doom)