Spitfire_x86

Splendid
Jun 26, 2002
7,248
0
25,780
List your "most expensive" PC components you ever bought and how much you paid for that component (in US $)

Here's my list:

CPU: AMD Duron 1 GHz; $63
Mobo: MSI K7N420 Pro, ABIT NF7 v2.0; both were $125
RAM: Kingston 256 MB PC2700 CL2.5, $55/stick (Bought two sticks together)
Graphics Card: Gigabyte Radeon 9000; $80
HDD: Maxtor D740X 40 GB, $90
Optical Drive: LiteOn 40x/12x/48x CD-RW, $80
Sound Card: Creative SB Live! Value; $36
Speaker: Creaive SBS20; $20

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darko21

Distinguished
Sep 15, 2003
1,098
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19,280
well my most usless investment, like most here was my first PC. I went form concidering a $2500.00 p75 8 meg ram 800mb harddrive, and said nah I will get the future proof p100 16 meg ram 1.6 gig harddrive for $3700.00

A wise investment took me 2 years to figure out how to use it.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.
 

pauldh

Illustrious
I'd have to think way back and don't want to guess right now. But I'd say the worst were definately Hard drives and memory. I paid a rediculous amount for a 1GB back when they were big news (early 1995) And also, remembering some of those early 4-8MB Simm upgrades are hard to swallow. I have those simms all over the place now from piecing old 486's. If I could only take them back in time!!! :tongue:

I remember many months back cleaning out the basement I came upon stacks of PC mags from 1993-1996. Oh my, looking at the pricing was a blast. The video card that came in our 1994 top of the line Gateway P5-90XL was an Ati Mach 64 2MB PCI. It was like a $900+ card I believe, or something like that. I think I saved a couple mags and if I can find them I'll post the exact price. Ugh, that hurts. But anyone who bought PC's through the years saw their money become useless in a few short years. Sad investments for sure.


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 

Frozen_Fallout

Distinguished
Jan 8, 2003
433
0
18,780
A R9700 Pro for $300.00 I got it the begining of last year.

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Remember what your fighting for, Remember why you even started fighting, and Remember who you are
 

Spitfire_x86

Splendid
Jun 26, 2002
7,248
0
25,780
LOL.

My first PC was a K6-2 450 MHz, 32 MB PC100 SDRAM, 13 GB HDD, 8 MB SiS 6326AGP, Yamaha ISA-719 sound card. I spent $600 for this, at 2000 (without software)

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pauldh

Illustrious
A $63 Duron and a $90 40GB HDD was an expensive PC Component buy? Man I feel such the old-timer right now. LOL. You are lucky, you just might not realize how bad things were and how good you have it now.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 

Boilermaker

Distinguished
May 6, 2003
279
0
18,780
my most useless investment...an ls-120 drive for the very first computer i built myself (i think it was like 1998)...i paid around $80 for it and never used the 120mb disk, just used it as a floppy drive before it burned out.
 

pauldh

Illustrious
Judging by that system, you bought just after us. The P5-90XL was the king back before Christmas of 1994. The 100 was just available around the exact day we purchased the P90, but when I ordered they informed me of the newly available chip and since they wanted $300 for the 10MHz upgrade, we decided that at about $4200, the P5-90 was enough. Future proof, LOL. ANyway, that system is still in use in my Dad's small family business today. Still has the original Win 95 upgrade (9 year old install)running and has been a rock in office tasks. Slower than snot even with the Ram maxed out at 128MB (4x32MB sticks), and a P180MMX overdrive. 10 years and used many days a week. 9 years on a single upgrade install of Win95a! Hows that for return on investment? It's had the "don't install anything un-needed" policy for most of it's life though.


So yours was Jan-Apr of 1995 I'd guess?


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 

Johanthegnarler

Distinguished
Nov 24, 2003
895
0
18,980
3,000 dollar Alienware.
p42.8b
9800pro
1gb rdram pc800
intel board
some snazzy case.

Then.. a few months later i made a better computer for 600 dollars... funny isn't it?

<A HREF="http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=277124623" target="_new">http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=277124623</A>
46,510 , movin on up. 48k new goal. Maybe not.. :/
 

darko21

Distinguished
Sep 15, 2003
1,098
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19,280
More like summer of 95. (brian adams anyone) yeah I upt the thing to 48 ram win 98 (first edition) and unloaded it on my parents for abot 4 or 5 hundred 3 years after I bought it. They finally got rid of it last year. I built them a really good nforce system. They just used it for internet really only draw back was that cutting edge 28k modem that came with it. Belive me when I origanly bought the thing 28k modem was bleedingly fast 14.4 was considerd very fast.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.
 

endyen

Splendid
First computer was used, but still cost $1800. It was a 286 with a whole meg of ram, a 5 1/4 floppy and no hdd, or mouse. It came with dos 3? and a couple of games. 1987.
 

P4Man

Distinguished
Feb 6, 2004
2,305
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19,780
That must have been a 512 Kb EMS board for my venerable 286 "workstation". Don't recall exactly how much it costed but surely not far from €1.000 back then. like 15+ years ago. I still have that machine btw, it still runs. And if you think todays computers are noisy, you should hear the wining noise the matching state of the art 640x480x16 colour VGA monitor (flatscreen I kid you not !) makes. If anyone is interested, you can buy it all for only 1/10th the purchase price :D

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 

P4Man

Distinguished
Feb 6, 2004
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My favourite back then was "Santa Paravia" on TRS-80, but I have never found anything on that game later on. It was a text based "multiplayer strategy" game *cough* where you had to run a kingdom, build an army, buy land, feed your people, buy soldiers attack your oponents. All through a dull text interface :) Still it was oodles of fun to play with a couple of friends.

Just found the game ported to windows !!!
<A HREF="http://jeffrey.henning.com/app/paravia/default.htm" target="_new">http://jeffrey.henning.com/app/paravia/default.htm</A>

Gotta go, I *have* to try this !

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 

pauldh

Illustrious
Back in the early days I used to like a game call "The Ancient Art of War" That was a fun one. I still have it on a green monitored AT&T 6300 (8086). Although the system has been in a closet for a couple years, I used to occasionally play that game until space became too valuable to keep that system hooked up.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 

Atolsammeek

Distinguished
Dec 31, 2007
1,112
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19,280
The Games I was use to was elite. And Most expesive computer I had was the one I m running but I was smart how I built it. Amd 1800 with 1.5gb of ram gf3 ti 500 Dual 80 gig hard drives and 21 Inch monitor $900. And remember this was when Amd 1800 Frist came out. So if I did not go in the Auctions It would of been $1,500
 

Auburn9698

Champion
Let's see here......spitfire has a thread titled <font color=red>"Most expensive!"</font color=red> ??? With a little trophy sign, even!

And you'd tried to give the impression you didn't have any money. Very interesting!!!!!!!

Shame on you, spitty!

<pre>Will you carry my children? Pwease!</pre><p><font color=blue>War</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Eagle</font color=orange>
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{FTM}
 

blackphoenix77

Distinguished
Jan 10, 2004
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The most expensive thing I've got for my computer is a Fx5200(64 bit version) for $100 from Staples :cool: , second place is my 80gb hdd for $80. the day after i bought it there was a 120gb for $90. I was like...damn it..because i couldn't take the $90 back. And then I was like...damn it damn it

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Spitfire_x86

Splendid
Jun 26, 2002
7,248
0
25,780
Nice! Coming to CPU forum and trying to pick up more arguments.

Considering cost/durability ratio, these things are waaaaaaaaay cheaper than software/game/dvd/music. I will use my $80 graphics card at least for 18-24 months. But I can finish playing $80 games within couple of weeks. My $60 CPU is 24 months old and still going strong, not completely obsolete yet for me. How long it takes to finish two $30 FPS game?

No more argument about this topic here. We should keep it limited to 1 thread. Detailed reply coming in the original thread.

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phsstpok

Splendid
Dec 31, 2007
5,600
1
25,780
I'd tell you but then everyone would know how old I am.

What the hell, I'll tell you anyway.

Let's see.

1988 - ZEOS 286 system (10 mhz, factory overclocked to 12 mhz), base system was around $1500 USD, floppy, 32 MB hard drive, 256 KB of memory (yes that's KB), monochrome graphics. Upgrades - 256 KB of memory ~$300, 32 MB to 49 MB hard drive upgrade maybe $200, Multifunction card (serial and parallel ports) ~$100. I must be forgeting some stuff because total cost was $2700.

The most painful expense was during one of the DRAM shortages. I paid $499 for a 16MB DIMM in 1995. A year later a second module (but generic) cost me $87 (maybe it was $67).

Since 1988 I've owned 13 CPUs costing thousands of $$$ in total. After the above 286 I've owned, 386DX-25, 386DX-33, 486-25, DX2-50, DX4-100, K6-133, Cyrix something or other 166, K6-200, K6-2 350, Duron 600@1007, Thunderbird 1.0@1.5, Tbred B XP1700+@2.1 ghz. I think the DX4-100 was the most expensive at around $400.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>
 

phial

Splendid
Oct 29, 2002
6,757
0
25,780
jesus you payed 3000 for that? dude ... always build for yourself, youll.. well you see now dont you :D

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phial

Splendid
Oct 29, 2002
6,757
0
25,780
first computer i owned when i was 13 was a 486dx80 ... 8mb/ram, 800mb hard disk, trident 512k graphics adapter, and.. i have no idea what motherboard


i put hundreds of hours playing this combat flight sim called ... oh crap i forget, but it was a GREAT game.. realistic flight models and aircrafts, 256 color graphics, and a campaign/map builder..

i spent days making these insane maps.. funnest one I made was where I had to stay under 500 feet to avoid radar, and there was AA guns and rockets and tanks scattered all over the place.. very realistic, still decent to this day. all the weapons were made to spec (based on some war that happened in russia)

ahh.. good old days. wish i could get engrossed in games like i was able to as a kid

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