First post, by tincup
- Rank
- Oldbie
At any given moment I have a PC which I consider my "Main" rig. It's where all the latest games and stuff go, where I surf the web, do business and so forth. It's the most powerful computer in the stable, though for a long time, before the retro bug hit, it was also the *only* computer [never owned a laptop or console].
Curious about the specific components to "take their turn at bat", I tabulated the central organs, in order of appearance by basic category: CPU, GPU, Audio and Motherboard.
I was surprised that with all the PC fussing over these last 18 years this list is as spare as it is. Eight CPU/AUDIO/MOBO appearances in 18 years = 2-1/4 years average life span. However one rig alone [AMD 64 4000+] accounted for at least 7 years on it's own, so averages are deceiving.
EDIT: Basically what I'm hoping we can do here is list by component - a change of pace to see the evolution of a category rather than the makeup of the actual rigs. I guess this is meant to be a component history, rather than a rig history. Also, NO NEED to list every last component; only those that saw real use in your everyday PC. So don't worry about all the backups, experiments, retro rigs etc...
Mothership PC Components: 1996-2014
===================================
CPU
486 DX-?
P200 MMX
C300A @ 450
P3-800
P4-2.4
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
AMD Phenonom 555BE @ 4.0
AMD FX-8350 @ 4.8
GPU
NumberNine-?/1mb [upgradable to 2mb, in 486]
3D-2000 Pro/4mb
3D-2000 Pro/4mb + Voodoo1/4mb
3D-2000 Pro/4mb + Voodoo2/12mb
STB Velocity 4400/16mb [didn't like]
Voodoo 5500/64mb
ATI 9700 Pro/128mb
2x 7800GT/256mb SLI [512mb total]
Radeon HD 5770/1gb
2x Radeon HD 5770/1gb CF [2gb total]
Radeon HD 7870/2gb
AUDIO
[un-recorded card in 486]
on-board Yamaha/OPL [AN430TX]
Monster Sound MX-300
Turtle Beach Montego I/Vortex 1
SBLive!
on-board Realtek ALC850
on-board VIA HD
on-board SupremeFX HD
MOBO
[un-recorded IBM Aptiva 486]
Intel AN430TX
Abit VT-6 [died < year]
Abit VA-6
Abit SR-7
ASUS A8N-SLI/standard
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO
ASUS Crosshair V Formula
Given the dedication to audio fidelity here on VOGONS I suspect my sound repertoire is pretty thin by comparison to many of you.
Free to post your own lists...