Best and Worst ever purchases/upgrades?

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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So then. Many of us have been in the PC enthusiast game for a few years - but what do you think have been your best and worst ever purchases for your computer?

You can of course define 'best' and 'worst' how you like, but I'm thinking along the lines of things which you feel represented great/appalling value for money, at the time you bought it. Here's my choices:

Best
A tough one this. If counting peripherals, then probably the 19" CRT I got back in April/May 2000 for £235. That was cheap for a screen of the size at the time, and it lasted me a good 5.5 years, which is pretty much the longest I've ever used one part of my computer for.

If dealing purely in terms of internal components, then I'd say maybe the 2*512meg CAS2.5 Twinmos PC3200 memory kit I got back in 2003. Clocked nicely to PC3700 CAS2 and stayed in my rig until I moved to a C2D (and hence DDR2) setup in June.


Worst
Probably a secondhand S754 mobo/cpu/cooler bundle I got in early 2005. It didn't clock at all and was only a modest upgrade from my [email protected]. Fortunately I was able to sell it on 6 months later or so for a minimal loss and I moved to a proper S939 setup.


What are yours?
 
Best: my HP w2207 monitor. I was a bit skeptical of spending £230 on something that wouldn't make my PC any faster, but it makes using the computer so much more pleasurable.

Worst: probably replacing a 9800XT with a 6600GT. Made little difference. That or a 512MB TwinMOS PC3200 kit - I bought it to overclock a little but it barely went a Mhz above stock.
 
Hmm, good question.

Worst would probably be a Razor Copperhead mouse, whose buttons, after about 1 month of use, seized up at random intervals and made the thing wholly useless for even simple tasks.

Best...tricky. Probably my initial upgrade from 1gig to 2gigs of RAM. Made such a noticable in BF2, my game of choice at the time.
 
Best:

19" Widescreen tft! I love it!

Worst:

All the bits I bought to turn my old iDEQ into a HTPC, Graphics Card, TV Card, Remote, Cables, HDD, etc. After all that it didnt even work!
 
my worst purchese, would be my thermaltake eclipse DV case. it was too small and the quality was awful. why i paid £120 for it is unknown. well it was before i knew much about computers and i didnt have an ocuk account :eek:

my best would have to be my lian li v2000b+ a very good upgrade from that dreaded TT case that i had. and hopefully should last me a few years unless everything gets very big or is restandardised (is that a word?) :D
 
Best (and most expensive): My 6800GT - which I will be parting with next year, for a long needed upgrade. :(

Worst: Logitech MX510 mouse. I expected so much more from a £30 odd mouse. :mad:
 
Best: 2407wfp - my graphics card struggles a bit with high settings, but has made everything so much clearer, nicer and...well, yeah.

Worst: 2407wfp - cost me £400+ and I'm stuck playing the latest games on low, sometimes even struggling with that. :P
 
Best: 2407 wfp - great for every form of work and play on the pc, productivity has increased for collage and work and I now appreciate the power of my pc.

Worst: astek waterchill kit - i ended up getting faulty connectors that exploded over my 5950u, killing it. Pump was louder than a pneumatic drill, temps were crud too.


cold cathode, should have done some research before buying the screen :p
 
Worst would be a SCSI Black widow scanner i bought for 175 pounds in 2001 which broke after 6 weeks and i ended up giving it away last week at a a car boot sale...
Best,was the To****a Laptop i am using now its got a decent Nvidia 7900GS card for games and i have had fun with it for over a year now..Cost just less than a grand in the states too :-)
 
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Best was probably the 7800gtx I got for £100 at the ocuk clearance sale, worst was the athlon 2600 from ebay which broke after one month. Never buying any electrical items from there again.
 
sychnant take out that competitor. Fair enough you're new but just so you know, you aren't allowed to mention competitors here.

ANYWAY! My best purchase has to be my microsoft habu mouse, it's so comfortable for me and I don't think I'll be upgrading in a long while. I just wish wireless mice were better for gaming :(

Worst would have to be my antec 900 case (only saying this as I haven't got anything i regret buying, just this has the most problems). Although it has awesome airflow and keeps temperatures nice and stable, it also has annoyingly little cable management and has so much dust in it after a month or two you'd think it was your maulting season.
 
Best buy?

HP1100 21" monitor...I remember the normal retail price, same as model no.: £1100!
Got it BNIB from a computer show for £450 waaaaay back in 1995ish...still going strong, as good as the day I bought it!!

Worst buy...my first ever ink jet printer, a canon bubblejet summat or other...cost me £550 (!) circa 1990 and was pants!

Blimey, how prices have fallen! I recall the first PC I ever bought...do I get 8mb of ram with it or 16mb...considering ram was £30 per mb back then, I got it with 8 and saved meself £240 smackers!
 
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I don't think I have any purchases that I actually regret but my monitor (LG1710B) is one of the best that I've ever made albeit it was bought new with a PC rather than an upgrade, next PC will have a larger monitor but I rather suspect I'll miss this one. Other than that most upgrades have been purely functional (larger hard drives etc) except perhaps for my Logitech G7 which is one of the nicest mice I've ever had the pleasure of using. :)
 
best purchase was my ram, 2 x 1 gig ddr corsair xms for £90 a year ago and a half a go,

worst was a 9600XT for £130 from a local store, it was my first big GPU, a week after i bought it i found out about the 9800pro, it was only £30 more too :( still i flogged the XT on an auction site and got the 9800 in the end :)
 
Best Buy:
Rightous 3D Voodoo 3DFX Accelerator

To this day am yet to see anything exciting compared to seeing a hardware accelerated game for the first time when youve been used to software for sooo long.

Worst Buy:
All the cheap monitors ive ever purchased.

Purchased myself 2 deecent monitors recently and can not believe I was skimping on them for soo long :(
 
Best: Consider quite a few things 'best', but its a tie with my Creative 6.1 speakers & going Dual-Core. Can only imagine how Quad is!

Worst: Buying a 9200SE (first ever purchase from OcUK) then a FX 5200 :mad: Eventually & thanks to MM owned my first proper GFX, 9600XT :rolleyes:
 
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