The best rig you have ever had.

As you can see in my signature, I don't exactly have the most powerful machine in the world, but lately, I have been pleasantly surprised by how it handles new games. I am currently 45% in Tomb Raider, playing on ultra settings in full hd and I think I haven't dipped below 45fps. Not saying it's the most demanding game but still. I am having a blast with this pc!

It got me thinking about my past rigs...I think that the one I had the most fun with was my:

CPU: Sempron 2200+
GPU : Radeon X1300 256mb
RAM : 728mb
HDD : 120GB
Steady and reliable Windows XP to top it all of.

I put it all together with my friends (and it showed) after the dusty cooler on my 1ghz Duron decided to be the doom for the whole rig after it caught fire.

This badass was the ultimate terminator! I still got it at home just for the old times sake...though it now serves as dust collector.


Do you have one pc that stands out? One build that no matter the generation, it was just...rock solid and served you well?

My favorite rig was also a Socket A rig.

I was in my early teens back then, so it was a total bucket of crap, pieced together from donor parts and whatever I could convince my mother to buy me at the time.

It had a $65 shuttle motherboard, with Nforce2 chipset,
512mb of that GEIL / GSKill red dragon pc3200 stuff, that would run 480+mhz all day long
a $20 rosewill case,
a $30 Fortron/Sparkle psu (those things were legendary, for pennies compared to their competition)
a 120gb WD caviar hard drive that would make a LOUD clicking noise and turn itself off at least once per day,
and a sapphire atlantis 9600 pro, with the big passive heatsink.

I sent many Athlons to their grave with that rig. Started out with some thoroughbred 1700+s, 1800+s, (not the high clocking stepping). Blew them up and ended up using a mobile athlon 1400+ from my friend's father's laptop, which would breeze at 1.8ghz with GIANT voltage...

Finally ended up with a barton 2500+ which did 2.5ghz when I got my first real job. Got an Nvidia 7600gt at that time too.

That thing was a real frankenstein. Constantly getting dismembered and reanimated.

Had a ton of fun and learned most of what I know today from that rig.

Well,

Fun and tweaking/oc'ing wise, the best rigs I got were AMD Phenom II ones and Bulldozer.

A 955BE, a fx8120 (both on water), a 1075t (most challenging with multi locked) and a 1100t.

For perfs and games/work, a couple of 2600k's (both water and OC'ed to 5GHz) rigs with 6970 and 580.
And the current one in sig. This one is a beast, but less fun OC'ing than the AMD platforms.

\dev\goat said:

That thing was a real frankenstein. Constantly getting dismembered and reanimated. Had a ton of fun and learned most of what I know today from that rig.

Click to expand...

We share the same story! Moms unwillingly donating money, learning through (terrible) mistakes and somehow still getting the pc to work ! Love it!

^mom or wife, lol!

Mitukczuk said:

We share the same story! Moms unwillingly donating money, learning through (terrible) mistakes and somehow still getting the pc to work ! Love it!

Click to expand...

Reminds me of a funny story. My mom was a medical transcriptionist, so she would get semi-nice workstations from her work every couple years.

I had a 900mhz celeron for a while. And i was obsessed with Quake 3. (low fps = low score)

I found out her work computer had a 850mhz pentium 3! Socket 370 just like my celeron.

So I went to radioshack, bought a big tube of that crappy thermal paste for $5 or whatever.

Every night when she would go to bed, i would sneak into her office. Dismount her heatsink, take the P3, take it into my room, install it and mount my heatsink.

Overclock it to 1+ghz and play until 6am, completely dominating everybody. Then run back into the office, reinstall it, reclaim my crappy celeron, and sneak back to bed.

Good times.

manu2b said:

^mom or wife, lol!

Click to expand...

Man, I see your pain...

Can't wait to have my money being distributed by my wife....lot to look forward to !

I remember my mom taking the PSU power cord when my grades went down...thinking I wouldnt be able to play................so I just bought my own. These stories are the best!

A 1996 PackardBell
cpu Pentium
gfx voodoo 3df
Windows 95
Ram 128mb

Athlon (original) 1000Mhz
256MB 100Mhz RAM
20GB Quantum Fireball HDD
50X CD ROM
Junk mobo, Junk PSU, Junk case
GeForce 2 GTS (32MB??)

I'd have to say the one in my sig.. It hasn't killed ram, or anything else.. It still is a very quick machine. I used to upgrade every few months, but I've had this one for a few years. I loved the older gear.. It was pretty fun. I don't really miss it tho..

I think my favorite build was from 98-99

Amd k6-2 overclocked to 533mhz
nvidia TNT2 ULTRA 32 mb
512mb of ram!!! (don't ask how it cost)
60gb hdd
With a 21" viiewsonic


For it's time that thing was a beast and I had it all to myself. My father took me with my uncle to a computer convention in Sacramento and let me pick out all the parts as a surprise birthday present. needless to say I was so excited I could hardly contain myself during the long ride home. I was one of the first kids of all my friends to hace my own gaming pc. I would play tribes, kingpin, tombraider, duke nukem. and some other titles into the we hours of the morning. I loved that rig and I will always remember my first benchmarks on madonion(now futuremark) good times.

About 10 years or so ago, someone threw out an 800MHz P3 Dell with 128MB of RAM and some ATI video card I forgot about. The machine itself wasn't much of a big deal but they nicely left a Dell HDTV card in it. It was literally my first HDTV, not bad considering that I got it and a HD resolution 21" Trinitron for free. When I stumbled across a deal, I put a pair of 80GB drives in it (RAID 0) and used it as a HD DVR. Kept on using that setup until 2008 or so when I finally bought a proper HDTV.

My most reliable PC that I've built was my sandy bridge PC a few years ago. Easily ran at 4.5ghz without breaking a sweat, ssd for fast loads, and sli 580s for great gaming performance.

I will always have a fondness for my 1.4ghz tbird build when I was 14, would take it to LaN parties and need to have a fan blowing to prevent from overheating. Actually cost my clan a TFC match one time... Damn I hate myself for building that computer

the one in my signature lol...

but the funnest i had was probably the Thunderbird processor that i had overclocked to a whopping 933mhz lol.

My sig one.

Eats through Adobe Premier Pro edits really quickly, its like 2x of my old system, i7 960.

Only quarrel is my own fault of course, not getting aftermarket (i.e. non reference) GTX 670s with better coolers so they wont overheat like they do now at high loads and make my computer restart -_-

Sigh. Artic Accelero TII here I come! eventually.

The E4300 I'm using right now is the same one I got in my computer when the E4300 was released back in January of '07. This little bugger has been through hell and back, managing to survive multiple thunder storms, 2 PSU failures, numerous cases of the-stock-Intel-heatsink-is-utter-crap syndrome, and even the death of a motherboard through an outrageously high, accidental overvolt to roughly 1.8v. In fact, I think it and my boot drive are the only two remaining pieces of my first computer that still work.

Hats off to you, E4300. You're the best.

2002 or so?

Athlon 1800+ T-Bred
Abit KR7-RAID
Radeon 9700
2x 80GB WD SE, RAID-0
Don't remember the memory
Thermalright AX-7
Chieftech case

I remember being completely wowed by the performance. It was the first computer I had that was fast with every day task and could play every game at 1280x1024 with ease. Seemed at that time everyone was springing for the Northwood P4s and hideously expensive rambus, then everything sorta came together for AMD with the KT266A chipset and die shrink on the AthlonXP.

Still an ATI/AMD graphics fanboy and loyal TR customer too.

BlackJack10 said:

The E4300 I'm using right now is the same one I got in my computer when the E4300 was released back in January of '07. This little bugger has been through hell and back

Click to expand...

Those baby Core2's sure were, probably still are nice. I doubt we'll ever see another $60 CPU that overclocks so well.

I have no clue what my other hardware was on the PC it's been too long for me to remember, but I am pretty sure it was the build after I built an AMD thunderbird machine and back then I built every 18months to 2 years. The video card however was the Nvdia GeForce Ti4200, man that thing was a beast! I remember when it died the cards they sent me to replace it were utter junk in comparison. I think I was playing Star Wars Galaxies at the time.

Krill_ said:

Those baby Core2's sure were, probably still are nice. I doubt we'll ever see another $60 CPU that overclocks so well.

Click to expand...

I pushed this thing to around 3.3Ghz under Dice with my budget gear. One of these days I'll pick up a decent board/RAM combo and see how far I can get.

Original Configuration:
MBD: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+
CPU Cooler: TaiSol CGK760172
RAM: Corsair CMX512-2700C2 (2x512MB) RAM
GPU: PNY Verto GeForce ti4600
FDD: 3-1/2: Floppy
HDD: Maxtor 80GB (IDE)
CDW: Lite On LTR48246S
DVD: Memorex Dual-X DVD/RW (4X)
Cards: USR 3CP5610A modem
PWR: Antec SL400
Case: CompUSA #293598 PC Case (SuperFlower SF201BK)
O/S: Windows XP Professional

Current Configuration:
MBD: ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu
RAM: Corsair CMC2GX1M2A400C3 (2x1GB)
GPU: PNY Verto GeForce FX5900
FDD: 3-1/2: Floppy
HDD: Maxtor 80GB (IDE)
HDD: WDC 40GB (IDE)
DVD: Memorex 16X-DDL-IN DVD/RW (16X)
Cards: Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter
PWR: Antec SL400
Case: SystemMax Mid-Tower Case
O/S: Windows 7 Home Premium