Release Notes: My All-Time Top Five Greatest PC Upgrades
Release Notes: My All-Time Top Five Greatest PC Upgrades
Posted 08/11/2009 at 11:45am
| by Will Smith
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After 15 years of building and upgrading PCs, I’ve made some awesome upgrades to my own PCs. These hardware updates either opened the doors to exciting new functionality, or served as force multipliers, greatly increasing my rig’s performance in one fell swoop. Best of all, a killer upgrade can even revitalize a tired old rig.
Now, there’s a subtle difference between upgrades and a complete system overhaul, but for my purposes, an upgrade is anything you can do without reinstalling Windows. Here’s my definitive list of My All-Time Top Five Greatest PC Upgrades:
5. Athlon 64 X2 4800 to Core 2 Quad QX6600
When I upgraded my CPU from a dual-core Athlon to a quad-core Core 2, ripping my entire DVD collection suddenly became a real, tenable possibility. Where the X2 4800 took four hours to rip to DIVX or WMV 9, my trusty Q6600 could do more-demanding H.264 encodes at DVD resolution in just about real-time.
4. Voodoo 2 SLI to GeForce DDR
The launch of the original GeForce DDR marked the last time a 3dfx card graced my system. That first GeForce featured a hardware transform-and-lighting engine that was the precursor to today’s infinitely programmable GPUs. That power finally convinced me to retire my trusty pair of Voodoo 2 boards running in SLI.
3. Wang 386 SX 25MHz to Pentium 60
Let’s face it, my old Wang was a slow, slow computer, even when it was brand new. The upgrade to a Pentium 60 opened the door to the world of photo editing and multiplayer gaming, with Doom, Duke3D, and eventually Quake.
2. GeForce 4 Ti 4600 to Radeon 9700
The launch of the Radeon 9700 marked the beginning of the modern programmable graphics era. With support for the nascent DirectX 9 standard in the form of Shader Model 2.0, the 9700 Pro not only opened the door to DirectX 9, it also was a performance beast in the DirectX 8 games I was actually playing.
1. Pentium 2 SL2W8 to Dual Celeron 300a
The SL2W8 was the Celeron 300a’s rich cousin—a 300MHz Pentium 2 designed for a 66MHz bus. It just so happened to run like gangbusters on a 100MHz bus, giving overclockers a cool 150MHz speed boost. I dropped the SL2W8 in a heartbeat when Abit launched the BP6—a dual-Socket 370, 440BX-equipped mobo designed to run two Celeron 300a procs running at 450MHz. It was an incredible machine, and opened the door to the world of Windows NT, CD ripping, and photo editing for me.
What was your best PC upgrade? I’d love to hear, either via email (will@maximumpc.com) or shoot me a message on Twitter—my username is @willsmith.
More like this
Trooper_One
August 12, 2009 at 12:00pm
1) Getting a mouse for my 486dx
2) SoundBlaster 8bit
3) Monochrome monitor to a 15" eVGA monitor
4) P4 to Opteron 162
5) 486dx to Pentium (and play Starcraft on it)
Pball1224
August 12, 2009 at 11:27am
I can only think of two off the top of my head:
1) Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz -> Core i7 920 OC'd to 3.3Ghz
2) 256 MB Ram -> 1 GB in the P4 system a couple years ago
rich5665
August 12, 2009 at 5:59am
5: Commadore C64 to IBM PS/2 8086
4: IBM PS/2 8086 to Custom Build Citrix 486/50 Desktop
3: Custom Build Citrix 486/50 to Custom Built P166 Desktop
2: Custom Built P166 Desktop to Custom Built AMD Athlon Slot A 800 MHz Desktop
1: Custom Built AMD Athlon Slot A 800 MHz Desktop to Custom Built 3.2 GHZ P4 with Dual Video cards with 320GB of storage (3 hard Drives)
Currently building a new desktop, won't be a "barn burner", but it will get the job done.
cannibal PDX
August 12, 2009 at 1:42am
I'd say favorites are like so (chronlogical order)...
1. AMD 133 486 to K-6 2 300mhz. My first upgrade ever.
2. From my first 3D card, a serviceable Diamond Verte 2000, to a Creative Voodoo 2 16mb. OpenGL and Glide finally! V-Quake was cool, but being able to play FF7, Forsaken, Quake 2-3 and Unreal and UT with all the bells and wistles...
3. Matrox G200 to Raedon 9800 pro. I'd been using the ok Matrox card in my Athlon system, and this upgrade was huge at the time.
4. The first DVD drive I installed in my system. Before standalone drives were truely affordable a dvd optical drive was the most cost effective, best way to view dvds in their early days. Really drove my love affair with the format.
5. From dial-up to cable. This was pretty much my first upgrade to my first apartment back in 2001.
6. And, most recently, upgrading to my brand-spankin'-new i7 920 system. I don't upgrade that often, so any time I go to a new proc platform it's a huge difference. But this has been totally night and day.
praetor_alpha
August 11, 2009 at 5:31pm
5. 486 66 to Pentium 166 (yay, now i can listen to mp3s at full quality!)
4. Pentium MMX 233 to Duron 1.2 (yay, video! then the upgrade from 128 mb ram to 512 mb ram oiled the gears)
3. Dial up to cable (~35kbit to 5000kbit. Gulped it down like a desert wanderer gulps down water)
2. Radeon Mobility x1600 to Geforce GTX280 (Laptops just don't cut it for gaming)
1. Rage 128 to Radeon All in wonder 9600xt (dx 6 to dx 9 opens many worlds)
Pylon
August 11, 2009 at 5:28pm
1. 256MB DDR--> 1280MB DDR
2. Windows XP --> Windows 7 RC
3. G3 266MHz--> Pentium 4 1.7Ghz
SuperiorBeing
August 11, 2009 at 5:16pm
1. ati rage 128 -> geforce 6200
2. geforce 6200 -> geforce 9500 gt
3. 128mb ram -> 1 gb.
Nikiaf
August 11, 2009 at 2:34pm
1. Pentium 75---> IDT Winchip 180 (don't you just love those old intel knock-off cpu's?)
2. Geforce 5200--->Geforce 7600GT
3.512MB DDR---> 1024MB DDR
[I got a new computer at some point in between these two]
4. ATI Radeon 3200 (integrated)----> Radeon 4850
5. Athlon X2 4200+ ---> Phenom II X3 710
other than that last one, i never really made a major upgrade.
nekollx
August 11, 2009 at 2:11pm
oddly i've never upgraded it always be a replacement
Tandy 100
(gift) Apple II
some no name Win95 system
p4 1.6ghz custom
2.1 GHZ Duel Core Laptop
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
moko
August 11, 2009 at 2:05pm
maybe he just installed old drive as slave and copyed it over to new drive with new drivers for new mobo?
Lord Omega
August 11, 2009 at 1:08pm
1. HD4770 -> GTX260
2. e5200 -> e7300 @ 3.6GHz
3. 1 Seagate 250GB -> RAID 0 2 250GB Seagate
4. e7300 -> Q6600 (I needed a quad really bad)
5. HD4850 -> HD4770 OC @ 915/1000
Digital-Storm
August 11, 2009 at 1:05pm
From Pentium 2 300Mhz to Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4GHz
From ATI 3d Rage Pro to Nvidia FX 5500
From Nvidia FX 5500 to Nvidia 8800GTX/Ultra
From Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4GHz to Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.0GHz
From CD to DVD Player
From Dialup to 6Mbps DSL
From 15 Inch CRT monitor to 21" CRT Monitor to 22" Samsung 226CW
From Old and Busted 2.0 sound system to 2.1 sound system to 5.1 Z-5500's
AttilaTheHunk
August 11, 2009 at 12:40pm
1. From AMD K6-2 500 to AMD Athlon XP 2000+
2. From AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ to Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
3. From Nvidia GeForce 6600GT to ATI Radeon x850 Pro
4. From AMD Sempron 3000+ to AMD Athlon 64 3700+
5. From standard mouse to Logitech G5
Denis63
August 11, 2009 at 12:23pm
Oh, mine was an AMD duron @ 800mhz with 128mb SD100 to a screaming fast socket 478 Celeron @ 3.0 ghz with 1GB DDR400. Ah, the memories. I still have that Duron, i think its in my trunk!
-Denis
dag1992
August 11, 2009 at 11:44am
I'll make my own list.
5. AMD K6 800Mhz to Pentium 4 Extreme 3.4Ghz
4. Radeon 1650XT to Radeon 4870x2
3. Radeon 9800 to Radeon 1650XT 512
2. Pentium 4 Extreme to Core i7 950
1. OEM Asus to EVGA x58 Classified
big_montana
August 11, 2009 at 11:41am
Now, you define an upgrade as anything you can do without reinstalling Windows. So going from an AMD processor to an Intel processor also involved replacing the mobo and the ram which would also include reinstalling Windows. Did this just not violate your tenet of what constitutes an upgrade?
mesiah
August 11, 2009 at 8:11pm
Replacing your cpu/mobo/ram only forces a windows reinstall if you are using an oem disk. Although its not a bad idea to start with a clean install, its not required.
Digital-Kid0101
August 11, 2009 at 11:39am
I retired a few computer's this year, I had a Pentium 2 Slot 1 I keep the CPU for visual purposes, and a Pentium 3 PGA 370, I now have two Pentium 4s one's a Pentium 4 HT (3.50GHz, 533Mhz FSB, mPGA478) With an ATI Radeon 9800 XT. This winter my dad an I are going to build a Core i7 rig, skipping right over the whole Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad.
zeringue
August 11, 2009 at 11:36am
going from CGA to EGA Graphics
Adding a 80287 Math co processor
upgrading from a 20 CRT to an 17 inch LCD
dumping comcast for uverse inet service
upgrading to an IBM M13 clicky key keyboard. Micro switches rock.
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