Whats your best ever PC related purchase?

[philipma1957]

moving from dial up to cable. $9.99 a month vs $50.00 a month

5x the price but 40 to 50 kb is now 10mb to 13 mb so 200x the speed.

 

[will889]

9700 Pro. Games came alive. Stuck with it for a long time too, then went to a 7950GT which i also liked a lot.

 

[stargazr]

Dell U2412M 1900 x 1200 monitor. Love the extra real estate!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That's difficult...

I think it was my Voodoo Banshee back in '99. That card had -excellent- 2D quality and was pretty fast for its day. Not Voodoo2 levels obviously, but adequate. Lasted me a -long- time...

 

[Childs]

VooDoo 1. Such a game changer.

 

[_Rick_]

My two Eizo S1910s.
Think they're getting into their 8th year now, and except for the back light dimming some with age, they're still extremely good. Especially the automatic contrast setting, depending on which applications runs, per monitor. That is worth so much on a setup that's used for gaming, image editing, reading and movie watching, that I'd gladly pay the 200 euro markup again.
And those S-PVA panels are just so...right.

 

[Monster_Munch]

The K1 killer NIC gaming network card... Just kidding that thing was an expensive piece of crap.

The real answer is probably my i7 920 CPU. I bought it in 2009 and I'm still using it, currently at 3.8Ghz. Haven't really felt a need to upgrade it yet.

 

[FleatUWP]

Nvidia 8800GT. This card was a cheap speed demon that is still working well for casual games in a family members computer.

Close Runners-Up:
Logitech Z5500
Raynor Ergohuman

 

[1nf1d3l]

My first MX518. Without it, I wouldn't have discovered (what I'd say is) the best mouse. They are getting harder and harder to find, but when this one dies, I'll try my best to find another one. If I can't...it'll be a sad day.

 

[Cerb]

My first MX518. Without it, I wouldn't have discovered (what I'd say is) the best mouse. They are getting harder and harder to find, but when this one dies, I'll try my best to find another one. If I can't...it'll be a sad day.

That's because they repalced it with the G400, which is better in every way but the lack of rubbery paint (though I can understand why they went without it); unless you're one of the rare people out there that prefer prediction.

Also, you can replace the switches, which are what usually wear out, if you really want to.

 

[reverb6068]

I'm going to have to go with my Audioengine A5+ speaker system w/ 24-bit DAC. I used to have the Klipsch Promedia 2.1's for years and for $150 they were just simply amazing speakers for price/performance ratio. But after hearing my Audioengines I've been forced to redownload my music in FLAC (which I didn't believe in prior to getting the Audioengines). Night and day difference from the already great sounding Klipsch's.

 

[Remobz]

VooDoo 1. Such a game changer.

Canopus Pure 3d (6megs).

It introduced me to the 3D gaming world and I never looked back.

 

[WildW]

Going from Windows 98 to NT based Windows 2000. Went from rebooting after an hour of work to rebooting after a week. The birth of the modern PC era for me.

 

[thm1223]

HP ZR30w. The extra real estate is incredibly useful.

 

[Remobz]

HP ZR30w. The extra real estate is incredibly useful.

Nice but I rather wait till prices go down.

 

[Childs]

Canopus Pure 3d (6megs).

It introduced me to the 3D gaming world and I never looked back.

Big difference from when you had something like that crappy S3 Virge or ATI Rage, and thought you were looking at the best quality. Then you see something like Turok or Quake on a VooDoo...difference between a B&W TV and Blu ray and 1080p plasma. I think the VooDoo only had 4MB VRAM then.

Maybe the only thing that came close to being as significant an upgrade was buying the math co processor and enabling L2 cache on my 486SLC2. It was like playing at 20fps, then going to 60fps. Validated not spending the extra cash on the 486DX2. Now my car fob has more processing power. lol

 

[thm1223]

Nice but I rather wait till prices go down.

Not gonna happen for a while. Also, I got mine new for $900 shipped off of eBay, with the original purchase receipt for warranty purposes.

 

[Remobz]

Big difference from when you had something like that crappy S3 Virge or ATI Rage, and thought you were looking at the best quality. Then you see something like Turok or Quake on a VooDoo...difference between a B&W TV and Blu ray and 1080p plasma. I think the VooDoo only had 4MB VRAM then.

Maybe the only thing that came close to being as significant an upgrade was buying the math co processor and enabling L2 cache on my 486SLC2. It was like playing at 20fps, then going to 60fps. Validated not spending the extra cash on the 486DX2. Now my car fob has more processing power. lol

Canopus Pure 3D (Voodoo 1 with 6 megs) was argueably the best Voodoo 1 card on the market.

Would you believe I never owned my first computer until I was 24yrs old?

It was a Micron MIllenium 200mhz with mmx bought back in early part of 1997. It had a crappy S3 virge in it. I had no clue about 3d graphic cards at the time.

You cannot imagine the feeling I had when I installed Quake 1 and started playing for the first time

 

[kaihonsou]

SSD with Windows and Steam on it changed my life.

 

[RossMAN]

Dell UltraSharp 1900FP my first LCD purchased over 10 years ago for $699 (after coupons and cash back, of course).

It still works today, as a backup LCD.

 

[Slammy1]

My P3B-F system was with a friend and it finally went out this year. I could have brought it back to life, I think, but just wasn't worth the trouble when you can get a base unit for <$200.

 

[ElFenix]

That's because they repalced it with the G400, which is better in every way but the lack of rubbery paint (though I can understand why they went without it); unless you're one of the rare people out there that prefer prediction.

Also, you can replace the switches, which are what usually wear out, if you really want to.

maybe i got a bad one but my G400 is unusable. tracking is very erratic compared to my MX518. so i fixed my MX518.

i don't know whether my G400 problems are due to it being a 'gaming' mouse and so it's my actual movements jumping left/right or what. i went and bought a new steelseries mousepad just in case it was my old dirty pad confusing the mouse but that didn't fix it.

 

[WT]

Going from 56k dialup to GTE 'broadband' in '99. It was a DSL 768/128 connex back then, but wow .. goodbye dialup !!!

I had a lot of video card upgrades, but nothing really changes IQ, it just added FPS on top of whatever the old card could muster. First SSD was nice, as my boot time was cut in half. I do have a deep appreciation for my 24" Soyo M-PVA panel LCD as well.

 

[Cerb]

maybe i got a bad one but my G400 is unusable. tracking is very erratic compared to my MX518. so i fixed my MX518.

i don't know whether my G400 problems are due to it being a 'gaming' mouse and so it's my actual movements jumping left/right or what. i went and bought a new steelseries mousepad just in case it was my old dirty pad confusing the mouse but that didn't fix it.

Weird. Mine works fine. At 1800 DPI, the only differences were lack of snapping (good thing), and the non-grippy plastic.

 

[Childs]

Going from 56k dialup to GTE 'broadband' in '99. It was a DSL 768/128 connex back then, but wow .. goodbye dialup !!!

I had a lot of video card upgrades, but nothing really changes IQ, it just added FPS on top of whatever the old card could muster. First SSD was nice, as my boot time was cut in half. I do have a deep appreciation for my 24" Soyo M-PVA panel LCD as well.

Yeah, DSL was another great upgrade compared to modems. I used to have extra computers in my apt and my friends would come over and we'd play CS. Unfortunately, that was the beginning of the end of lan parties. Sure it was a hassle bringing your PC to the event, but its not quite the same just using VOIP.