I love Cyrix 6x86's, I really like the look of them, both the gold and black tops, admire the fantastic integer performance at such low clock speeds. Plus I'm British so cheering the underdog is a national pastime! 🤣
AMD Duron "spitfire" CPU's for being the best value CPU EVER! (I do like "mendocino" Celeron's too, but they are definitely second best, the 300A was a total diamond , but after that it all went drastically down hill)
I also have a thing for Nvidia RIVA 128 and TNT cards, particularly the STB ones, I love the 128 for being so brilliant with only 4MB VRAM.
Number nine graphics cards, like the Beatles references silk-screened on the cards and the great image quality they have, lovely build quality too.
Matrox graphics cards , build quality again and image plus being a real individual.
Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo3, they are still affordable(ish), a year ago I'd have said Voodoo 5, but at todays prices it's just not worth it(however I do treasure my complete boxed AGP 5500).
Sound cards I have never been much fussed with, my hearing isn't that acute, so working is good enough for me. Pretty much any old crap is fine!

I'm sure I have forgotten a ton of stuff.

Best,
Chris

Duron's certainly were awesome in their time. That being said now that Socket A processors are old and cheap it's hard to put in a Duron when you can do something a lot faster for almost no money.

I am also a huge fan of the Riva and TNT 2 Ultra cards. I've got probably 10-15 M64s sitting around but only one Ultra and I prize it. The Riva is cool but as far as usability the PCI version is more useful because if your going to use an AGP card you might as well use something with a little more horsepower.

Couple of other things that I think are pretty cool:
Ark Logic PV2000 PCI VGA cards, really, really quick for DOS, I mean FAST!!!
Tseng Labs ET 6000 PCI VGA cards, also FAST for DOS but also fantastic windows accelerators too. The image quality on my Viewtop card is outstanding.
Western Digital paradise ISA VGA cards for older DOS machines, WAY cheaper than Tseng ET 4000 cards these days and nearly as quick.
AMD K6-III 400/450 CPU's just because they are really cool, not an economical buy anymore though sadly.
ASUS CUSL2 motherboards, they are great, really swift & stable. One of the best of it's era for sure.

Not sure about "must have", but I guess I can mention two things that are favorites of mine. The common theme to both is things that are sort-of "top of the line" in their category.

AWE64: In the days of DOS I kept hearing how AWE cards are awesome, but could never get one, until much later, when it was already "retro", from a bargain bin. I was quite pleased, even if later I discovered that it doesn't really add much over AWE32, and in fact has some deficiencies, but it still does good SB16 stuff, which makes it highly compatible, good AWE music for games that support it, and it is much more compact than the full-length AWE32 cards, which is also something I like.

Core 2 Quad CPUs, especially the higher-end ones. It's quite impressive, that almost a full decade after their release, they can still pack a punch and be very useful and usable in modern tasks, unlike many of their dual core counterparts. People were mocking the C2Q for not being a "true quad-core" architecture, but rather just a pair of C2Ds glued together, but guess what, those "glued C2Ds" still rock, while plain C2Ds have bitten the dust long ago. The C2Q on average are also pretty good overclockers, which allows them to match the fastest CPUs of the Core 2 architecture in single-threaded apps, and at the same time, completely wipe the floor with their single/dual core siblings in multi-tasking environments.

For me it's really simple: it all goes down to hardware that started everything, my first computers.
I could live with only an XT/MDA and a CPC6128. Thankfully I currently own them both, so I plead happiness 😀

My Voodoo 3 and Epox CU133A+. Both for sentimental reasons than outright performance.

My retro collection is tiny compared to most on here, so my "must have" is my main DOS PC. 🤣. It took me months to get all the components (it was functional from the start, but not with my current components). In a nutshell, here is my entire collection:
one complete DOS PC
one complete Win98 PC
two complete XP PCs
one slot 1 motherboard with a Celeron and P2
one socket 7 motherboard with K6-2 550
one VLB Cirrus Logic
one SB16
one Aztech ISA sound card
a handful of socket 478 and 775 motherboards and cpus
about a dozen 1995-2002 AGP graphics cards.

I suppose my favorite individual component isn't even technically retro: Audician 32 Plus/Dreamblaster S1 combo.

My favorite piece of hardware is my Roland MT-32. They sound freaking amazing. Even when graphics lagged behind at 16 colours the Roland MT-32 nailed it everytime, even by today's standards. Back in 1989 to have one would have been gold.

^^ same 😊

Wanting to experience MT-32 myself started this hobby for me back in 2010. Also a Sound Canvas.

Apart from that a real must have for me is a decent Super Socket 7 ATX motherboard.

This might be a long list 🤣!

Anyway, here goes!

*CPU*
386DX-33
Intel 486DX4-100 (wt and wb)
Pentium Overdrive 83MHz
AMD 5x86-133
Cyrix 5x86-133
Pentium-60
Pentium-200 non-MMX
PentiumMMX Overdrive-200MHz
Pentium-233MMX
Pentium Pro-200 (256KB, 512KB and 1M versions, @233MHz would be a bonus)
Cyrix MII 2.2v that can run 300MHz
Klamath 300MHz
Celeron 300MHz Slot 1 without cache (only have a single 266 cacheless one and a couple 300A's)
K6-III 2.2v that can run 400MHz
Celeron s370 400MHz
Pentium II 400MHz with unlocked multipliers
K6-2 550MHz
K6-2+ that can run 550MHz at 2.0v
K6-III+ that can run 550MHz at 2.0v
Celeron 533 s370 Mendocino
Katmai 600MHz
Celeron s370 766 (if only because of its crappy FSB ^^)
Celeron s370 800MHz
Coppermine 800MHz EB
VIA C3 800MHz pre-Nehemiah
Duron 800MHz
Coppermine 1GHz EB
VIA C3 1GHz Nehemiah
Thunderbird sA 1GHz
Celeron 1GHz/Coppermine 1GHz 100FSB (don't have any of these Coppermines though)
Tualatin 1200
Tualeron 1200
VIA C3 1.2GHz Nehemiah
Tualatin-S 1400
Tualeron 1400
Tualeron 1400 ES (hope I didn't fry this one)
Thunderbird 1400
Willamette s423 2.0GHz
Palomino 2000+
Thoroughbred 2000+ (Mobile chip, came from my mother's laptop which had died due to peeing cat of hers...lucky me ^^)
Barton 2400+ (mobile chip)
Barton 3200+ (the 400FSB variant)
Northwood 3.2GHz
Athlon 3200+ s754 2.2GHz
Athlon 3500+ s939 Venice 2.2GHz
Phenom II 3.2GHz x4 BE

*Motherboards*
Socket 3 board (several, but at least 1 VLB and 1 PCI each, with coincel and PS/2 etc)
Socket 4 board
DEC AXPpci33 (166MHz in 1993, one day AXP, I'll be able to kick you back to life muahahaha!!)
Socket 7 board ATX SiS (preferably one frem BCM)
Socket 7 board ATX 430TX (ASUS TX97-XE)
Super 7 board ATX SiS 530
Super 7 board ATX Ali (I really like the GA-5AX ^^)
Socket 8 ATX (support for 1 CPU is good enough)
Slot 1 440LX (often have lower FSB settings than 440BX)
Slot 1 440BX (one that will run Coppermine)
Slot 1 820 (because of the RAMBUS ^^)
Slot 1 with newest VIA chipset I can get)
s370 440LX (was my 2nd computer I ever build using the above mentioned Celly 400)
s370 440BX
s370 815 for Coppermine
s370 815 for Coppermine and with ISA slot (bridge chipped, came from a Fujitsu Siemens, also nostalgia)
s370 815 for Tualatin (I really like the GA-6OXT ^^)
s370 VIA chipset with support for Tualatin and an ISA slot
s423 board (any that will work)
s478 Intel 865 chipset
sA VIA KT133A (ASUS A7V133, this one is a challenge to get running nicely)
sA VIA KT333 (I really like the A7V333, too bad I fried my first one)
sA VIA KT600 (nostalgia, ran my Barton 3200+)
s754 with VIA chipset and southbridge that will work with SATA2 devices
s939 with VIA chipset and southbridge that will work with SATA2 devices
I'm sure I forgot a couple but meh, lets go on ^^

*Grahpics Cards*
Diamond Speedstar 64 2MB ISA
S3 Virge 4MB (PCI)
Rendition Verité 2100 (Diamond Stealth 2 S220)
Voodoo 2 with 12MB
Voodoo 3 2000 PCI and Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Voodoo 4 AGP
Vanta 16MB AGP (because of its alright performance for how little power it uses, doesn't even have a heatsink ^^)
TNT2 M64 16MB PCI
TNT2 proper 32MB (Viper S770 non-ultra because it is passive)
Geforce2 MX 440 AGP 64MB (ASUS V7100PRO/64M because I really like the looks of this card for some reason)
Geforce 3 ti200
Geforce FX 5900u
Radeon 9600 (both Pro and XT)
Geforce 6800 AGP (preferably with at least 256MB)
Geforce 7600GS AGP with 256MB and large passive cooler with 8cm case fan rigged to it, got 2 of them when new
HD4670 1GB GDDR5 AGP
HD5670 1GB
HD6670 1GB
HD6850 1GB

*Sound cards*
Aztech Galaxy...something. I never actually got to use it, but this huge card just looks so damn nice 😁)
Sound Blaster AWE32 (memory sockets 😁)
Sound Blaster AWE64 or the Gold variant
Sound Blaster Live! (provided it's not one of those OEM ones which brings driver hell)
Some PCI sound card with Yahama chip I think, it's in one of my rigs and I dunno which one 😵

*Other stuff*
2.88MB floppy drive
LS-120 Internal drive
ZIP 250 USB (because of it's fantastic looks! I still like to pull it out from time to time and use it for whatever reason 🤣)
FSP-built PSUs (especially the ones with good power for the 5v line)

Tetrium wrote:

This might be a long list 🤣!

That's some list you have here! I hope it's in the "favorite" and not the "must have" side, otherwise space can easily become an issue with all those 🤣

Roland SC-7 and MPU-401. (C)M(T)-32(L).

konc wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

This might be a long list 🤣!

That's some list you have here! I hope it's in the "favorite" and not the "must have" side, otherwise space can easily become an issue with all those 🤣

These are actually favorites of mine. Nah, not all of them are "must haves", some are on that list mostly because of nostalgia 😁 but they still have a use somehow.

It does take up lots of space, but I started collecting/hoarding this stuff since 2003 or so? So I know how to store them efficiently, though it took some trial and error. It is kinda messy atm though (been a little bit neglected the past few years), but I simply have too little time to spend on too many things.

Virtually all the items I listed are parts I found somehow and at some time. Theres plenty stuff I don't have though. I don't actually have any sound daughterboards (except some dream thingy?), no Rolands (were never really cheap and very hard to find, even back then) and no Slot A boards.

PeterLI wrote:

Roland SC-7 and MPU-401. (C)M(T)-32(L).

That's an interesting post. SC7 seems generally overlooked - I assume as some kind of poor relation of the SC55 clan.

@Tetrium

Wow that IS quite a list. My entire collection is not much bigger then your favorites list!!! :-p.

Oh, and add the Scythe Mine Rev. B cooler for me. Not a very popular one, but it is modestly priced, fairly light (requires no backplate), and it keeps my overclocked QX9650 cool and quiet for the past 7.5+ years (*knocks on wood*).

dr_st wrote:

Oh, and add the Scythe Mine Rev. B cooler for me. Not a very popular one, but it is modestly priced, fairly light (requires no backplate), and it keeps my overclocked QX9650 cool and quiet for the past 7.5+ years (*knocks on wood*).

Don't think i've ever seen that one before but it seems like a cool design.

My Favorite piece of hardware is my ASUS CUSL2 motherboard. Reason being i bought it as non working for 99p with a Coppermine 733 CPU and 128 mb of ram. Luckily it worked great and allowed me to build a great machine. I'm currently waiting on a Tualatin 1400mhz CPU to arrive from Korea to put in.

Second is my Turtle Beach Montego II sound card. I just bought this, Boxed Still sealed. Going to put it into a machine very soon. I used to play Half Life Death Match competitivly in Clans and A3D was such a key factor in this game. The ability to position enemy's using sound on the map was mind blowing. Combined with a pair of Sennheiser's was audio bliss.

Bancho wrote:

My Favorite piece of hardware is my ASUS CUSL2 motherboard. Reason being i bought it as non working for 99p with a Coppermine 733 CPU and 128 mb of ram. Luckily it worked great and allowed me to build a great machine. I'm currently waiting on a Tualatin 1400mhz CPU to arrive from Korea to put in.

Second is my Turtle Beach Montego II sound card. I just bought this, Boxed Still sealed. Going to put it into a machine very soon. I used to play Half Life Death Match competitivly in Clans and A3D was such a key factor in this game. The ability to position enemy's using sound on the map was mind blowing. Combined with a pair of Sennheiser's was audio bliss.

I remember those days as well. I played Counter Strike from when it first came out all the way until it's current incarnation. I also played Day of Defeat in an actual clan competitively although I was generally a second stringer.