Best hardware upgrade of your "career"?

[birthdaymonkey]

So I've posted a few practical questions in my short tenure on these fantastic forums, but now I want to post a fun question.

I've been a computer geek for 17 or 18 years, having started tinkering with my family's 386 when I was 12. Over that span of time, there have been a few truly sublime hardware upgrades that the rest will be forever measured against in the back of my mind: my first Pentium (90MHz), first sound card (SB Pro), 3DFX graphics (Voodoo 3 in my case). I think those are the top three, although I may be leaving something out.

For me the trend seems to strongly favour nostalgia, the components I got when I was still pretty much a kid and just getting excited about computers. Honestly, nothing has really superseded the thrill I got the first time I fired up Wolfenstein 3D and heard chirps and blurps of the internal speaker replaced with realistic gunshots, screaming Nazis (aieeee!), and that chill MIDI soundtrack.

I don't game much anymore, but, subconsciously, I think I'm still searching for the piece of hardware that will blow my mind like these ones did. The SSD I picked up recently is pretty snappy--but not on the same level as my first real 3D card, for instance.

So my question to you: What's the sweetest, baddest, most paradigm-shifting computer part you've ever added to your rig?

(Having reflected carefully as I wrote this post, I'm going with the Sound Blaster Pro as my #1.)

 

[lxskllr]

I was in and out of computers since my original Atari, so every major upgrade was kind of mind blowing. After not using the Atari for awhile, I got a 486DX50, and after not using that awhile I got a P4 2.4ghz Dell. For individual components, my TI4200 was my best purchase. That had the staying power to get me through the FX era without having to resort to ATI.

 

[mfenn]

SSD easily.

 

[Lonyo]

Monitors, many times.

 

[Saga]

A SSD has been the single biggest leap of technology I have experienced in 15 years of personal computer building. Nothing else compares, to a factor of almost 10.

Running a SSD raid is like an e-orgasm.

 

[ananya.dragon]

my macbook from a windows which crashed every week then again, im only 15... so not much of a lifespan

 

[natto fire]

Monitors, many times.

Same here, with a donated 6800GT being a close second. Haven't experienced SSD personally so no comment there.

 

[ronnn]

p4 2.4 (ran at 3.0 for 3 years until it fried) and the 9700pro that came with it. The 19" viewsonic helped with that. Anyways after the living with the fan noise, I discovered quiet computing - which has been a good hobby.

 

[Raswan]

I just moved from a 19-inch Acer LCD monitor with a max res of 1280x1024 to a 27-inch ASUS that runs 1920x1080. First time in my life gaming at that res, and it's redonk.

And mfenn and Saga, you have convinced me to include an ssd with my upgrade. So many people talking about not really seeing a difference, and others who say it's a big deal. But best upgrade ever? I'm convinced.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Yeah, the SSD has been a runner up for me. If Windows 7 wasn't so good at prefetching my usual things into RAM, it might have provided enough 'wow' factor to challenge the Voodoo and SBPro. Raswan, you won't regret the purchase (unless of course things go horribly wrong .

 

[somethingsketchy]

Dual monitors...no CPU or GPU upgrade has increased my work productivity more, than going to dual monitors. It's like I now have more breathing room for work

 

[corkyg]

Going back over the years, I conclude that the most meaningful upgrade was moving from a floppy disk boot system to a hard drive system. After that, it is all a matter of degree, including SSD.

 

[Davidh373]

Best upgrade I got was from a Core2 Duo @ 2.16 in an HP to my i7 920 workstation. Second favorite would have to be the upgrade I made earlier on from a 7300GT to a nice and shiny 9800GTX+. Third would be an upgrade from a 1TB Time Capsule to my Custom FreeNAS Box. fourth would be dual monitors, and fifth would be an upgrade from mismatching 21.5" 1440 x 900 monitors at different heights to two 1080p 23" monitors which are identical. I sit in front of a computer all day, so sometimes that ergonomics stuff can be the best investment one can make!

 

[muskie32]

The best upgrade i ever had is the one i just made, including a ssd.

Look at my sig, i went from a macbook to it

 

[Blain]

Best hardware upgrade of your "career"?

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500

 

[ultimatebob]

For a single part? It's a tie between adding a 8 MB Voodoo 2 3D card to my old Sony Pentium II machine in 1998, or replacing my fuzzy 19" 1440x900 widescreen LCD with a 24" 1920x1200 LCD in 2008.

 

[dawza]

Monitors, easily. The first time I made the switch from 1280x1024-->1600x1200 was utterly mind-blowing. Single-->dual was equally huge. The recent move to 2560x1600 was pretty epic as well.

My first decent GPU would have to be a runner-up.

The move from HDD-->SSD was nice, but I don't know if it supersedes single-->dual core, or even P4-->C2D.

If "hardware" includes furniture, I nominate my adjustable KB tray for first runner-up after monitors.

 

[calvie]

best ever upgrade for me was crappy logitech/klipsch speakers to real speaker,receiver,subwoofer. music and movie is a new experience

 

[eggrolls]

Going from a sempron 2800+ to a q6600 is my best upgrade.

HDD to SSD is pretty big too, but nothing compared to single core -> quad core.

 

[Davidh373]

Going from a sempron 2800+ to a q6600 is my best upgrade.

That processor is worse than the one that runs in my home server... wow... that was an upgrade for REAL!

 

[Streydog77]

Going from a Cyrix 100 Mhz to overclocking a Celeron 266. Then a Celeron 300a, P1 550 e. then the AMD route for a while.

I remember paying $200 for a 8GB HD. And over $100 for 4MB of RAM.

Those SSD prices don't seem that high in comparison.

 

[Makaveli]

Dual Monitors and SSD!

Nothing beats this combo when working on databases!

 

[RussianSensation]

19 inch ViewSonic G90fb CRT to 37 inch Westinghouse LCD.
2nd would probably be GeForce 6600 --> 8800GTS 320mb.

 

[RebateMonger]

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500

My Voodoo 5 was nice. Bought it used on eBay and played with it for a few months. But around that time Intel stopped supporting 5V AGP cards and to stay with Intel chipsets I had to dump the Voodoo 5 card. I was sad.

Funny thing about the V5 card was that the first time I plugged it in I smelled smoke. I didn't see anything but something was seriously wrong. I spent several minutes cycling the power switch and looking for the smoke.

I couldn't find the source and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. That's when I saw the melting aluminum pan on the stove.

 

[Axon]

486 -> Athlon 64 2800+ (also got a voodoo 3d of some kind to play Quake 3 at this time)

Then SSD