Post and discuss your first self-bought self-built computer. This post is going to paint me fairly young so feel free to make fun of me. Older-than-me people let me know how this build stacked up for 2007, I'm curious.
Motherboard $56.99 ASUS A8V-VM
CPU $119.00 AMD Athlon 64 3500+
RAM $115.00 OCZ 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400
GPU $164.99 3D Fuzion GeForce 7600GT
PSU $39.99 Thermaltake W0070RUC TR2 Series 430W
All purchased at zipzoomfly for a total of $495.97. I got a HDD and case for free.
Fun fact: I could order the parts for this build off eBay today for $86.48 and end up with an extra 2GB RAM and a spare Athlon 64 3000+.
My first build I did myself (2002-ish) was an Athlon 1.3 Ghz (the original Athlon) on an Asus M/B that had old SDRAM and the brand new DDR ram slots on it. (you could only populate one or the other at the time) I was also rocking an ATi Radeon All-In-Wonder 16Mb video card. All of that in an Antec SOHO file server case. I ran that system for like 8 years before it finally died. It played the hell outta Diablo II =) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
In college in 1995 I built a 486DX25. 4mb RAM, 128mb HD, 4x CD-ROM, sound blaster 16. This may be the most expensive computer, adjusted for inflation, that I ever built. I might still have it out in the garage, I would have to go dig around and see.
Earliest PC I ever had hardware-wise was a Cyrix GXM 233 with similar-ish specs. It was a partial hand-me down, I replaced the processor with the GXM, which I pulled from a laptop I found in the dumpster.
i wont go and find all the parts but i can list the original build config and then where it stands now because it has changed over the years.
Original FX-82=350 4x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws X MSI 970-G46 (something like that) Orion case (i forget this it sucked though) Rosewill 750W (i forget why i replaced this) 120GB kingston V300 (still running but idk how much longer) 2TB Seagate Barracuda (killed this in 18 months) Corsair H100i (didnt fit properly in case, also killed it quickly) Sapphire Radeon 7850 2GB (ran the cooler into the ground literally until the fan bearings seized. GPU hit 105C and kept going like that)
Current FX-8350 (although this is my third one) 4x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws X (still the original sticks) MSI 970 Gaming (old mobo sucked after going through three got better one) Corsair 300R (solid panel with fan holes) Corsair RM850 (think i bought the 850, might of been a 750 either way i have never heard the damn fan on it spin) 512GB Corsair Neutron XT (boot drive) 256GB ADATA SP900 (some games on here) 120GB Kingston V300 (still that old one with mostly programing projects on it) 500GB Toshiba drive (bought used from local computer shop for movie rips) Corsair H80i GT (it barely fits in this case but it does fit) EVGA GTX 970 (did a stepUp from my GTX 760 that replace the 7850 when cooler fans died)
in few months time this build will become my linux rig and i will have something else. probably on ryzen but maybe off intel. idk yet
Asus whatever the cheap $50 mATX board is... may update with actual model number
Team Elite 1600 2x4GB
WD 500GB Blue
Sapphire 270x 2GB
EVGA 500B PSU
Raidmax Super Atlas case White, shitty, but cheap as hell with window (I like to look at my handy work)
And some cheap $20 rosewill pcie wi-fi card
Upgraded the cooler to 212evo
Added a dvd drive (because I still have some dvd's because I'm old school like that :P)
Also added some blue LEDs. Not the strips made for computers like a newb or lazy pleb. I actually had to do some soldering, source a molex connector, and hot glue Jerry rigged all up in there. Wouldn't have gone with LEDs but the window is tinted really dark.
My first build finally died about 2 years ago. Board went out I'm pretty sure. She wont make it past RAM check on post. Used ram in another computer and it runs fine.
I think (If i remember correctly) that mine was a Intel 486 DX2 of some sort with something crazy like 64Mb of RAM in some horror mainboard I found at the time. GPU (more like VGA) was some 512Kb ram S3 ISA card. Harddisk was a 200Mb Maxtor of some sort (later replaced with a 20Gb) all running Windows 95. This mind you was in 2004? I built this horror monstrosity out of parts in what was termed 'the archive' at a local tech support company. Probably carted piles of old parts home on a wooden hand-wagon after school before i managed to scrape together enough parts to build a working system. Even the OS was salvaged DOS 5 from some old floppy disks at first, before I then found a working copy of Win95 in a discarded CD-ROM drive. Fun times, One game in particular i remember playing on that system was Nightmare 3D
Yeah I'm 24 and while my first build was a 3500+, my first PC was a P200 with discrete 2d and 3d accelerators. Diamond Monster I think. I played some Mechwarrior 2 on that.