How much did your first computer cost ( PC )
- Thread starter Reality|Bites
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Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Aug 2012
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- 6,593
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- Tamworth, UK
First computer was £50 from my uncle, was a standard machine back then, used to play Casino Inc with a friend and The Sims.
After that my second PC £110 from my Dad's mate, was also a custom built gaming machine, Used to play Men of Valor & Call of Duty 1.
Proper built by myself is my current PC and that only cost £350 + Upgrades to case/PSU/SSD later on afterwards but would have been fine without.
After that my second PC £110 from my Dad's mate, was also a custom built gaming machine, Used to play Men of Valor & Call of Duty 1.
Proper built by myself is my current PC and that only cost £350 + Upgrades to case/PSU/SSD later on afterwards but would have been fine without.
Actually got an Apple Power PC 7300, but sold it 6 months later after I realized the software was limited. I had Quake and Duke Nukem for it. Cost my parents over a £1000, not sure exactly. Sold it to a designer for PhotoShop and used the cash to buy a PC. Got my first play on the internet with a 33.6 kbps modem in around 1999.
Used the cash to buy this PC:
Packard Bell Pentium 2 350MHz with Voodoo 2 PCI graphics card
Included Blade Runner game and various others
Cost £850 + £380 for CTX 17inch Trinitron monitor = £1230
Eventually upgraded the gpu to a 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 AGP from Game. Played Half Life, Quake 2, Quake 3, Unreal, ... Those were the days. 56.6 kbps modem! NTL world unlimited dial up.
Pentium 3 Dell Laptop ~ £1200
Dell 8300 Pentium 4 ~ £1000
Core 2 Duo ~ £1000
Acer Laptop ~ £400
AMD X4 ~ £1000
Core i5 ~ £800
Turns into an addiction
Used the cash to buy this PC:
Packard Bell Pentium 2 350MHz with Voodoo 2 PCI graphics card
Included Blade Runner game and various others
Cost £850 + £380 for CTX 17inch Trinitron monitor = £1230
Eventually upgraded the gpu to a 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 AGP from Game. Played Half Life, Quake 2, Quake 3, Unreal, ... Those were the days. 56.6 kbps modem! NTL world unlimited dial up.
Pentium 3 Dell Laptop ~ £1200
Dell 8300 Pentium 4 ~ £1000
Core 2 Duo ~ £1000
Acer Laptop ~ £400
AMD X4 ~ £1000
Core i5 ~ £800
Turns into an addiction
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First one (with an 80286) was free.
Second one (with a Pentium P54CS) was free.
Third one (with a Pentium 4) was £20 used.
Fourth/fifth ones were bought around the same time and had Core 2 Duo & Athlon 6000+ and were about £200 each used...
Sixth one was a laptop (with a Turion II Ultra M620) which was £599
Seventh one is the one which was in my sig (with an i5 2500K) which was around the £800 mark.
I like to leave a nice gap so I really appreciate the performance gains
Second one (with a Pentium P54CS) was free.
Third one (with a Pentium 4) was £20 used.
Fourth/fifth ones were bought around the same time and had Core 2 Duo & Athlon 6000+ and were about £200 each used...
Sixth one was a laptop (with a Turion II Ultra M620) which was £599
Seventh one is the one which was in my sig (with an i5 2500K) which was around the £800 mark.
I like to leave a nice gap so I really appreciate the performance gains
If you count the family computer (I was about 9 or 10 at the time I think) it was about £2,000, a Packard Bell and the specs were:
Windows 95 (the best Windows ever imo)
75Mhz processor
8 MB RAM
1.5 GB HDD
It came with a LOT of software so that probably made it cost more.
It lasted us a very long time, probably 7 or 8 years till we got a new one but more like 10 years until we got rid of it. It would probably still work now if we kept it.
Edit:
Actually, if you count it the first actual computer was probably a Commodore 64. I would have been really young then. I have no idea of the cost and it was second-hand from a family member I think.
Windows 95 (the best Windows ever imo)
75Mhz processor
8 MB RAM
1.5 GB HDD
It came with a LOT of software so that probably made it cost more.
It lasted us a very long time, probably 7 or 8 years till we got a new one but more like 10 years until we got rid of it. It would probably still work now if we kept it.
Edit:
Actually, if you count it the first actual computer was probably a Commodore 64. I would have been really young then. I have no idea of the cost and it was second-hand from a family member I think.
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Associate
- Joined
- 19 Apr 2013
- Posts
- 143
- Location
- Cheshire
Cost: £2500
Year: 1986
Model: Amstrad PC 1640DD
Spec:
8086 cpu @ 8MHz
640K RAM
20MB Hard CARD (not drive)
2x5.25" floppy drives
EGA graphics (16 colour)
Ran Gem Desktop (anyone remember that?) and some non Microsoft DOS clone.
I was 8 at the time and the computer was for my older brother but i ended up using it most of the time.
Used to love playing Falcon XT (i think thats what it was called) and i believe that was the first f16 sim from spectrum holobyte. Used to play it in CGA (4 colour) graphics though. Ahh good memories.
Year: 1986
Model: Amstrad PC 1640DD
Spec:
8086 cpu @ 8MHz
640K RAM
20MB Hard CARD (not drive)
2x5.25" floppy drives
EGA graphics (16 colour)
Ran Gem Desktop (anyone remember that?) and some non Microsoft DOS clone.
I was 8 at the time and the computer was for my older brother but i ended up using it most of the time.
Used to love playing Falcon XT (i think thats what it was called) and i believe that was the first f16 sim from spectrum holobyte. Used to play it in CGA (4 colour) graphics though. Ahh good memories.
Don
- Joined
- 5 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 8,996
- Location
- Kent
First one I bought myself was a custom built Pentium 4, before that they were all hand-me-down 486s, a Pentium MMX and a Duron. The year was 2003 and I built it the summer after doing my GCSEs.
I remember being really pleased because the Processor was the best I could get at the time, with a decent motherboard etc and 512MB RAM (back when that was a lot!
) I still use the case for my spare PC
Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 - 3.06Ghz 533Mhz FSB CPU with Hyperthreading (had to turn it off in bios to start with due to compatibility issues, helped later on though)
512MB RAM 333Mhz DDR PC2700 - Samsung
ATI Rage Pro 128MB Graphics Card (had numerous driver issues, which put me off ATI for years, ended up burning itself out)
V700 Case with Generic 350W PSU, which ran fine for 10 years until I threw it out
120GB Maxtor HDD, has just gone faulty 10 years later with SMART failure
Zalman CPU Cooler
16x CD-ReWriter + DVD ROM/CD-rewriter Combo 4x, from my Duron
Floppy Drive.
Cost about £800 I think in total...
Was a nice computer, ran Windows XP and was very quick at the time. My sister was using it minus it's case (with some rubbish £10 job) until last year when I yupgraded it with parts from the MM to a Core 2 Duo, due to it being far too slow with Windows 7. It had 2GB RAM by then but had grown slow with age. It did well though!
Someone on these forums bought it off me for a tenner (the mobo, original ram and CPU)...
I remember being really pleased because the Processor was the best I could get at the time, with a decent motherboard etc and 512MB RAM (back when that was a lot!
) I still use the case for my spare PC Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 - 3.06Ghz 533Mhz FSB CPU with Hyperthreading (had to turn it off in bios to start with due to compatibility issues, helped later on though)
512MB RAM 333Mhz DDR PC2700 - Samsung
ATI Rage Pro 128MB Graphics Card (had numerous driver issues, which put me off ATI for years, ended up burning itself out)
V700 Case with Generic 350W PSU, which ran fine for 10 years until I threw it out
120GB Maxtor HDD, has just gone faulty 10 years later with SMART failure
Zalman CPU Cooler
16x CD-ReWriter + DVD ROM/CD-rewriter Combo 4x, from my Duron
Floppy Drive.
Cost about £800 I think in total...
Was a nice computer, ran Windows XP and was very quick at the time. My sister was using it minus it's case (with some rubbish £10 job) until last year when I yupgraded it with parts from the MM to a Core 2 Duo, due to it being far too slow with Windows 7. It had 2GB RAM by then but had grown slow with age. It did well though!
Someone on these forums bought it off me for a tenner (the mobo, original ram and CPU)...
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£350 (mid 90s)
2nd hand Packard Bell 386sx 25 from a mate at the pub
2mb RAM and a whopping 90MB HDD (actually that may have been with doublespace!)
No soundcard, no cd-rom. Vaguely remember buying another 2MB RAM, a soundblaster 16 and a cd-rom so I could play some DOS games with sound!
2nd hand Packard Bell 386sx 25 from a mate at the pub
2mb RAM and a whopping 90MB HDD (actually that may have been with doublespace!)
No soundcard, no cd-rom. Vaguely remember buying another 2MB RAM, a soundblaster 16 and a cd-rom so I could play some DOS games with sound!
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At the time, with some used parts, it cost me about £400 total.
Very quickly had another £200 spent on it, and 6 years later it's still going strong with about half of the original components recognizable. The core (PSU/MoBo/CPU/RAM) is still the same, but the GPU, HDDs and peripherals (inc monitor), OS have all changed.
The hard drives are about to get evicted into a NAS and replaced by an SSD and the case is my next target. After that I'll be looking at upgrading the CPU/Motherboard/RAM/PSU and I'll have finally completed a full upgrade cycle, one item at a time.
Very quickly had another £200 spent on it, and 6 years later it's still going strong with about half of the original components recognizable. The core (PSU/MoBo/CPU/RAM) is still the same, but the GPU, HDDs and peripherals (inc monitor), OS have all changed.
The hard drives are about to get evicted into a NAS and replaced by an SSD and the case is my next target. After that I'll be looking at upgrading the CPU/Motherboard/RAM/PSU and I'll have finally completed a full upgrade cycle, one item at a time.
