Through the years...

**HeavyG** · 02-10-11, 02:58 AM

I thought I would start a topic for us to share our gaming system builds throughout the years. These are mine going back to about 2006. I am amazed at how they have progressed over the years. From hot running, power hungry Pentium 4 CPUs, top of the line ATI x850XT graphics cards, to more modest upgrades, to CrossfireX with budget graphics cards, to my current enthusiast level system.

This is truly an expensive hobby, but with all the thousands of dollars I have spent over the years, I am truly happy doing so. I am glad to share this passion with many of you and would like to see your builds over the years.

Intel Pentium 4 Prescott 3.4 GHz, ATI x850XT, generic 450w PSU - Poor cable management

Cooler Master Cavalier case

Upgrade to new platform: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, ATI HD2900XT, 600w PSU. Still a mess of cables... cheap cases = bad cable management.

ASUS Silent Knight CPU Cooler, OCZ Reaper Memory, and ABIT IP35-Pro

Upgrade to E8400 with Dual ATI 4850s in CrossfireX w/ 700w Cooler Master Silent Pro PSU and ASUS P5K Premium Black Pearl motherboard. New case - Cooler Master Cosmos S Black Edition

Current Rig - Intel Core i5-760, Dual GTX 570 in SLI, upgraded PSU, better cable management. more hard drives, more fans.

**Bunni** · 02-10-11, 06:48 AM

mmm loving your cable managment on the last, delicious!

**triggerhappy2005** · 02-10-11, 07:28 AM

How did you make that custom window?

**Kanati** · 02-10-11, 10:15 AM

Nice. I don't take pics of my rigs... but I could probably remember back to my first "real" gaming rig with a voodoo video card.

**HeavyG** · 02-10-11, 05:01 PM

Originally Posted by triggerhappy2005

How did you make that custom window?

I didn't make it. I bought it. Prior to getting the Corsair H70, I had the Cooler Master Hyper 212+, but I couldn't get the stock side panel on due to the gigantic fan on the side. Here is the link:

Amazon.com: Cooler Master Cosmos S Window Side Panel Black - (RA-1100-KWN1-GP): Electronics

**HeavyG** · 02-10-11, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Kanati8869

Nice. I don't take pics of my rigs... but I could probably remember back to my first "real" gaming rig with a voodoo video card.

Yea, me too! I started getting into serious gaming with my 486 100 MHz system. My first 3D graphics card was a Pure 3D Voodoo card. I sported that 486 for as long as I could... until Quake came out. So I upgrade to an AMD K6-266. It was FAST! Then Moto Racer came out... as well as Need For Speed III, and I wanted the best graphics, so I got a Voodoo 2 card. Then as better games came out, I upgraded to my first SLI system with a 2nd Voodoo 2 card.

After that I went through several AMD systems, including a K6-2 450 MHz, an AMD Duron 900 with an ATI Radeon 32MB graphics card (aka: the "Max Payne Machine"), an AMD Thunderbird 1200, AMD Athalon 1700+ with ATI 9600XT, AMD Barton 2500+ with GeForce ti4200, and eventually to the Pentium 4 that I put in the first pic.

It is funny how many times I upgraded just to play the latest and greatest game. Some things never change. I guess this hobby is better than drugs and alcohol.

**DancingCorpse** · 02-10-11, 06:16 PM

This could also be viewed as "cable management learned over the years".

My first rig I was 12 and had a nVidia GeForce 5200 card and a Pentium 3 processor at I think it was 1.8 Ghz. The next card was a GeForce 6200 (which was, ironically, slower than the 5200....) and then I got a 6800GT on a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, and all of those were in a generic Antec beige case. From there I got my 9800GT on the Wolfdale Dual Core processor from Intel in a Antec 900 case (and eventually into my current Cooler Master HAF 932).

Just retired that rig and I am rocking a AMD Phenom II 6x, 8 gigs of ram (OCZ Reaper), 750 watt PSU, ATI Radeon HD 5770 (getting my second one tomorrow, thinking of maybe rocking 3 of them), and a top of the line Asus motherboard, all in that Cooler Master HAF 932. Gonna take some pics with my phone and post them in a sec here.

**DancingCorpse** · 02-10-11, 06:18 PM

Also, love that case Heavy, hows the airflow and temps in it?

**Kanati** · 02-10-11, 06:30 PM

I changed systems so often I can't remember them all, and I can't even remember the combination they were in... but

CPUs: 486DX2-66 / P100 / Cyrix 233+ (egad!) / P2-333 / P3-600 (maybe can't remember) / P3 Xeon (1.5ghz I think) / P4 2ghz / AMD64 FX-55 (maybe it was a 60 can't remember) / Athlon X2 4800 / Core2Quad 9450 / i7-950

Video Cards: Voodoo / RivaTNT2 / GeForce256 / Matrox G200 / Matrox Millenium / Geforce2 Ti / Geforce 4 Ti somethingorother / ATI 9600XT (for a week before getting the) / ATI 9800XT / Geforce 6800 Ultra / GeForce 7800GTX x2 / Geforce 8800GTX x2 / ATI HD4850x2 + ATI HD4890 / Nvidia 460GTX x2

Likely those are close to the correct order... but not 100% sure on some of them... and there was likely one or two cards or cpu's that I didn't put in there that I had... But that's what I remember.