single item.. definitely the 8800gtx early 2007.. lost a couple months waiting because I was believing the inquirer bs that ati had a counter cost over 500 bucks but it was something coming from a radeon aiw 800xl.. the intel conroe was pretty amazing 2006-2007 too
Ha ha! I remember that too! Charlie also predicted the usual 'barely any increase in performance and has production issues' tripe for the 8xxx series. Unfortunately I can't find the article anymore - maybe it was subtly removed?
From a Pentium 200/64mb/2gb/IGP to a Pentium 4 1.6/512mb/80gb/GeForce2-MX400. Wow. All-around massive performance boost. For the biggest single game performance improvement, probably going from my laptop's Quadro FX570M (based on the Geforce 8600M) to my HD 5850. Went from 20-30 fps with most settings medium and no AA or AF to 200-300 fps with everything maxed and 8xAA 16xAF. Everything just looked so much nicer. For the biggest speed improvement, the day I switched from AOL 56k to Comcast 1mbit cable. Such a night and day improvement. On the same token, my worst downgrade was the day I moved from my parent's house with 35mbit fiber to this crappy apartment with like 2mbit cable that randomly cuts out for a minute or two to drop me from every game I tried to play. Driving me crazy, as well as spending my money. I'm a gamer, but I can't game, so all I do is read hardware reviews and buy new PC parts to game better. Done some massive PC upgrades, but rarely game because of how terrible my connection is. Once my lease is up, finding a new apartment and if it doesn't have at least 25mbit fiber, no deal.
Back in the day I was a Halo gamer, long time ago... I had an ignominious mx420 aka the fake Gforce 4. It was a pure crap, less powerfull than a piece of carton. Few days before christmas I broken my piggy bank and purchased a little devil, an Gforce 4 Titanium 4800SE AGP 8X 128mb, an unstoppable war machine !!
The bigest upgrade for me was a GTX280. Not for the items; cost, performance, features, power. But for the fact the first thing I did was take it apart. £280 woth of hardware and as soon as it arrived I took a screwdriver to it and pulled it appart for a Water block. It was a whole sense of un-reality, over a weeks wages for the card and block, and I took it apart for fun. I couldn't replace it if I broke it, and I had sold my old card. IF it went wrong I was stuffed. I think it was the commitment I made by buying that card then doing a water block. Makes the rest of the stuff I've done seem tame to me.
recently would be going from a PIII 850 to an A64 3000+ (then to an X2 3800+ that I overclocked by 700MHz - still using it). biggest upgrade would be from my ZX Spectrum to a C64 - the sound and graphics were far superior)
Haha, that brought back memories - I remember splurging £330 back in 2004 on an X800 Pro and then flashing it within 3 days with an XTPE BIOS, a buttock clenching process as well! It was probably my single best purchase, as it is still going strong in a spare machine and runs L4D2 at reasonable frame rates - still with the XTPE BIOS and original fan etc. Not bad after 6 years! However, the most amazing upgrades I remember were changing platforms back in the late 80s, and early 90s. Going from 8086 to 286 to 386 didn't make a huge difference gaming wise (as 3D stuff was still really basic), but the changes in performance going between a 386 dx20 to a 486 DX2/50 and then later to a Pentium P120 were epic! Later with an AMD K6 (heavily overclocked, naturally) and installing the 3D Now! patch for Quake 2 I was giggling like a girl at the frame rates in the crusher demo, which seemed insane! Here's hoping a new graphics card will get me giggling again (still running an 8800GTX on a Q6600) Hmmm, decisions....
I'd have to say moving from a 4MB 3DFX setup to a 32MB TNT2 - At the time i got one you couldn't buy them in the UK so I was feeling extra special Thanks to a teacher at school selling it on I had my first taste of decent 3d gaming and haven't looked back since. Although when i think back, maybe if i never got this first good 3D card i may have never been lead down the road of 6 monthly gfx updates and more cooling changes then i can remember - lol good times
I would say going from a laptop with 1.73GHz single core Celeron, 1GB of RAM, integrated graphics and barely usable integrated sound to a Q6600, 6GB of RAM, a 1GB HD5670 and an X-Fi card was a pretty big jump for me...
Desktop Milestones: Intel Q6600 with tapemod to 3GHz on Dell XPS board, 32" 1920x1080p 100Hz TFT (TV) HDMI 8800GTX with softmod to FX4600 Laptop Milestones: SSD (128Gb Samsung MLC) Built in 3G Modem
19" > 24" (Proper 1920x1200) then the 4870x2 to run anything decent on it! Most recently a C300 64GB, best upgrade I have brought in a long time!
