What has been your best computer hardware / software purchase?

SSD drives are probably the biggest revalation for me since the advent of quad core.

Next step I might look at higher resolution and higher Hhz than 1080/60
 
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Software wise, I came across an Apollo Lunar Module simulator on the cover disk of PC Pilot magazine back in 2004. It had me hooked. The dev has done a couple of upgrades since then.
http://eaglelander3d.com/
http://eaglelander3d.com/downloads/Setup_EL3Dv215.exe

Now he's started on a VR version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ZE83MEZeI&t=1s

So I got an Oculus setup

which then opened up the Apollo 11 VR experience
https://store.steampowered.com/app/953840/Apollo_11_VR_HD/

and this

https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/lootinteractive/apollo-11-sea-of-tranquility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0xdNXu67M

I've been flying the LM for a long time, and VR just gives a sense of scale of the spacecraft and the lunar landscape.
 
i5 2500k I bought a very long time ago that’s been running perfectly at 4.6ghz all these years.

Windows 7 which was the first OS I ever bought and it’s run near flawlessly for many years now.
 
Nvidia 8800gtx . Beast of a card and lasted me 7 long years and was worth every penny and completely destroyed the previous generation of gpu’s .
 
StarShock said:
Microsoft intelimouse explorer 3.0 blue alienware edition. Have been using it for about 15 years now. And it has yet to let me down in the slightest.
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Damn i must be a little heavy handed, i got through a lot of Explorer 3s, if they hadnt stopped making a few years back them i probably would still be using them myself though, im still using the Icemat they teamed up with though so i guess that has to be my best buy along with some sennheiser headphones i bought not long before. This Icemat and headset has been travelling all over the country with me and my laptops every time i work away for 15 years and i couldnt count the amount of times i've ran over the headphones with my chair and it keeps on working fine.
 
BluD said:
Damn i must be a little heavy handed, i got through a lot of Explorer 3s, if they hadnt stopped making a few years back them i probably would still be using them myself though, im still using the Icemat they teamed up with though so i guess that has to be my best buy along with some sennheiser headphones i bought not long before. This Icemat and headset has been travelling all over the country with me and my laptops every time i work away for 15 years and i couldnt count the amount of times i've ran over the headphones with my chair and it keeps on working fine.
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Looks like there's a new one coming :) https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/microsoft-pro-intellimouse.18839342/

And there's the recently released classic. Which apparently looks the part but isn't amazing. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/microsoft-classic-intellimouse-usb-mouse-hdq-00002-kb-167-ms.html
 
Difficult ...

- Inspiron 15 (1545) C2D based laptop which was my main daily driver for many years and didn't miss a beat in the whole time. Despite only being a C2D with 4GB of ram it was usable under Win10 and was only retired due to physical display issues.

- Mac Mini 2010 ... picked this up for £300 off the auction site and used it as my main desktop for about 5 years. Literally only got replaced at the beginning of this month and will be reused as part of another project in the new year. Just worked and was used nigh on every day for general browsing and even some transcoding.

- Netgear 2 disk NAS (not sure of the model). At a time when they were going for £80+ with no disks on auctions I picked this up for £16 "spares or repairs". The only thing wrong with it was that it had no disks in it (lower end NASes install their OS on the disks added to them and hence require disks installed to boot and run). I had a couple of spare disks so took a punt on it. A few years later my Dad is still using it even now.
 
i5 3570K + GA-Z77X-D3H + GTX 970 based system which I kept running for 5+ years and only replaced it with an X99 5820K system in the last year or so (though I kept it running as a secondary system). I also built a similar system for my brother at the same time except he opted for an AMD HD5850 at the time because it was cheaper and his system is still in regular use.

I suspect my X99 system now upgraded with a 1080 Ti will also last another 2-3 years.

SSDs was a good call because of the night and performance difference especially on older gen laptops which were a bane to service with crappy low power 2.5" HDDs. I basically refuse HDD based stuff now as it's just not worth my time to fix.

Also my Sony VAIO ultra tablet which had a flip out physical keyboard was a constant companion for 4 years until the screen started to de-laminate (common problem). It also helped me to tune my RX7 + V8 conversion as I would place it in a cradle and log my driving sessions. It was a big investment for me initially but saved me hundreds of pounds just in dyno time as I was able to learn to do it myself.
 
The best upgrade I ever made was getting an SSD. The difference in speed in both booting from a cold start and in general use made a phenomenal difference to my Hackintosh at the time.

Since then I bought a slightly used 27" 4K iMac. What a screen! Coupled with MacOS, it made computing a pleasure again after the abominations that Microsoft released after Windows 7.
 
This is so easy to answer. The best value for performance mod I’ve done to any computer was when I added an SSS to my old Mac Pro. It wasn’t slow anyway but slapping an SSD in for the OS absolutely transformed it.
 
Has to be my i5 2550k which has only just been replaced after 7 years of good service, and the office chair I've been using for 2 years which cost me £15 off my old landlord. A backsaver!
 
Aside from the obvious SSDs, for me it's a decision between two items.

First is the Mionix Castor optical mouse - by far the best mouse I have ever owned. It's a pleasure to use and I'd definitely have another.

Second is the FiiO E10K USB DAC and headphones amplifier. Changed the sound from my Audio Technica headphones massively compared to the motherboard DAC at the time. It appears to be superseded by the K3 DSD now.
 
Lots of good purchases (lots of bad ones too :)) but the most recent one is the Pixelbook - Effin love that thing. Looks fantastic, best keyboard ever and only 1Kg. I didn't really need a laptop but when it was announced I fell in love. Haven't had a Chromebook before so it has been interesting to learn to get crostini for linux apps working (far too easy, no challenge at all :)).

A while back I bought a Samsung SSD - 1st gen, laptop IDE interface. 20 GB. Very low write and read compared to current ones - think it was 20/40 MB/s but it was a fantastic upgrade and haven't had a system with the OS on a mechanical harddrive since.

My G-Sync monitor - a bit over 2 years ago. When I got it, I only had a single 680 and was waiting for a 1080. But I fired up Doom anyways, set quality to low (res was 3440x1440) and had a framerate of 28-50. Smoothest FPS experience I have ever had. Knew immediately that G-Sync was what I had been wanting all along without knowing it :)
 
Bought a second had in perfect condition Corsair One. (7700k + 1080) I just love how it looks - very tron-esq. Not sure it would have been my favorite had it been full price...
 
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