How old were you when you assembled your first PC, and what was it?

[Mister Woof]

Not OEM PC, but one you chose each component and assembled yourself.

 

For me, it was 1999, and I was 17 years old. We had computers in my house since I was a kid, with my earliest memory being our old Tandy 1000 with a 286 8mhz, but my parents never allowed me to buy parts on their dime.

 

At the time, I was gaming on an old IBM with an AMD K6/2 266 w/onboard ATI Rage Pro graphics....I played Diablo I and a new game came out, Asheron's Call, but I needed a new PC to play it.

 

So I saved up a bunch of money working part time washing dishes at the Chinese restaurant, and bought the following, as close to my memory as possible:

 

Intel Pentium III 450mhz

128MB Crucial PC100 RAM

Diamond Micronics 440BX 

Antec Case w/PSU (Can't remember exact model)

Western Digital 9GB HDD

Nvidia RIVA 128 4MB (free from friend who bought a TNT)

STB Black Magic Voodoo2 12mb x 2 SLI (I got these for $100/each on sale at Electronic Boutique because the Voodoo3 had released)

17" NEC CRT monitor 1024x768

US Robotics 14.4k modem

Sound Blaster AWE32 (free from friend who upgraded to some turtle Beach card)

 

Since then I've assembled numerous PCs.

 

What was yours and how old were you?

[Mister Woof]

4 minutes ago, Genwyn said:

your friend had good taste

A lot of my parts were hand me downs. I may or may not have encouraged him to buy upgrades for my own benefit LOL.

 

But that said the awe 32 was pretty good too, despite being an enormous ISA card

[TetraSky]

I was like.... I dunno, 12 or 13? Around that. Some Athlon XP 2800+ based PC.

[kelvinhall05]

I was twelve. I had taken apart and tinkered with PCs since I was 11, but I built my first from components I chose and bought when I was 12.

[nick name]

Man, that was like 18 years ago.  I can't remember what was in it.  Well except the 1GHz Pentium III.  

[FezBoy]

I was 12/13, i3-4170, hand-me-down gtx 580 that I upgraded to a gtx1060 3gb within a few months in order to use nVidia shadow play.  This last holiday I went from 4th gen intel to a ryzen 5 2600.  The case got damaged on the way home from LTX so I'll be replacing that soon too. 

[TomvanWijnen]

For my 13th birthday I got had to look for parts and built my PC from those shortly after my birthday! I remember that the first part we got was an aprroximately 220 euro MSI GTX 680 Twinfrozr. What a beautiful and massive card that was. Bought that second hand, was shipped to my house. Typing this via it.

 

The rest of my system consisted of an i7 3770k, a Noctua NH-D14, an Asrock Z77 Extreme 4, 2x4GB of RAM, a very expensive Sandisk Extreme II 120 GB SSD, a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda HDD, all powered by a be quiet! Pure Power L8 630W, enclosed in a Corsair Obsidian 450D. The CPU + cooler + mobo were also bought second hand, together. The CPU even came already in its socket.  (had installed other CPUs earlier though)

 

I built everything myself with just the help of YouTube (excluding a few very small things with the help of my mother, like putting in that massive motherboard).

 

Some time later I added a 2 TB WD Red, which was intended to be used as a NAS in a different computer. It's still in my system. Whoops.

I also added another 8 GB of RAM (8+4+4 = 16 total).

 

Just recently I was fortunate enough to be given an i7 6700k, an ASUS Maximus VIII Gene, and 16 GB of DDR4, and after purchasing a Corsair Force MP510 960 GB, I cleaned my entire system for the first time (?) since building the original system over 5 years ago, and installed the new goodies.

 

The old 3770k is still waiting for a new use, but there are so many computers in this house already...  I don't think I would ever let it go, though.  

 

 

[Mister Woof]

Remember CompUSA?

 

I member.

[19_blackie_73]

Shortly after my 18th birthday the rig in my sig, had planned it for more than half a year, since then only added the ssds, another hdd and swapped 1 1080p monitor for 2 1440p. In its conception stage, the intention was for 3D rendering and gaming, nowadays mostly work, productivity stuff and a tiny bit of gaming

[Mister Woof]

16 minutes ago, nick name said:

Man, that was like 18 years ago.  I can't remember what was in it.  Well except the 1GHz Pentium III.  

 

I remember vividly because I was so dang proud of myself for that SLI setup.

 

With two you could run 800x600!

[badpreston577]

I think I was 22 years old then after I bought my first and last pre-made computer a Radio Shack Tandy Sensation (486dx) I had one built for me a 486DX4, then I built my first

 

Intel Pentium II 350 Mhz

Asus P2L97 LX Motherboard

Soundblaster isa 16 sound card

US Robotics 14.4 Modem

Voodoo AGP graphics card

128MB dram

Western Digital 500mb hard drive

Acer Full tower with power supply  in beige (eeeeeeek)

 

BTW its a badge of honor, I still have a the case sporting a Pentium 4 running windows XP, haven't booted it up in 6 months though

[Zando_]

Uh..... think I was 16-17 or so (am 20 now). Scrounged around and bought some parts, assembled a decent little gaming rig:

 

Pentium G400/500 something (later upgraded to an i5 2400 when I started playing games newer than modded Battlefront II 2005) I scrounged from a never completed PC fixing project for a family member 
Intel mobo from the same source
8GB Ballistix DDR3 my dad had for that project

A 1TB WD Blue and 128GB HyperX SSD (I think that was a later addition, maybe?)
EVGA 1050 Ti SC
Corsair CX450M
Corsair SPEC-02 case
 

 

[nick name]

I do remember constantly upgrading my CD burner.  New faster speed?  UPGRADE!

[Worstcaster]

Last year and 40 years old.  I've upgraded the CPU to a R5 3600, the cooler to a Dark Rock Pro 4, and the power supply to a Corsair CX 650M.

 

Original Specs

CPU AMD 2200g

Cooler: Ryzen Stock

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro Wifi

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2x8) 3200

Graphics Card: GTX 1070 EVGA FTW

Power Supply: MasterWatt 550

Storage : Kingston 120 GB SSD

Western Digital 1 TB HD

Monitor: Acer 27"

[jiyeon]

I built my first ever PC when I was 18 last year in June.

 

Specs at the time were:

• Intel Core i5-8600K
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
• Asus Prime Z370-P
• 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX-2400
• Asus Dual GeForce GTX 1060 OC 3GB
• 250GB Samsung 850 EVO
• Corsair CX450M

At the time, I was still saving up money and decided to treat myself after finishing high school. I'm now 19 and I'm in a job earning stable income.

[Fortekko]

Built my first ever 2 years ago (19) with the same specs down below. Only difference I've made was changing an MSI 1060 6GB to my EVGA 1070. Hoping to upgrade to a 3700x soon though.

[PlayStation 2]

May 28th, 2016 at 15 years old. My older brother had graduated from high school and opted to completely rebuild his rig into something much better. I convinced him to give me most of his old parts which largely consisted of an FX-4100, an HD 7850, the corresponding motherboard and the case he had. All I had to get was RAM.

As for the first PC I got to build for myself with parts I wanted? Really, it was an expansive project that lasted about a year from end to end, starting with an Athlon X4 950 and a motherboard and ending with my RX 580, with a Ryzen 7 1700X in the middle and various storage drives being replaced all throughout. It started, effectively, a week after my 17th birthday.

[AhmedIlyas]

I was 12 I think. It was a P75. But prior to that a 486 DX2 66MHz for first exposure to hardware and chips etc... and installing a CDROM drive!

[thunderfire123]

I was 13 with a 4960k and a GTX 750ti. Still use the same CPU to this day but everything else has changed around it.

[IntMD]

Full build, about 23-24.

 

• Q6600 D0 (this still works - was in a friends build until earlier this year when I gave him my X79 board and parts).
• 8800GTX (still worked last time I used it in 2011-2012, still have it hanging around somewhere and would expect that it still works).
• 4GB RAM (still works and still in the same MB as the Q6600).
• Random cheapo no brand case (this lasted a year or two before it annoyed me and got a CM HAF922)
• 400gb Hitachi Deathstar... (also still worked when I took it out of my build about 3 years ago but was noticebly the loudest thing in my system in the end).
• Motherboard was some super cheap craptastic ASrock board, which surprisingly still works although was always awful at overclocking (read, essentially non-existant).

I messed about with upgrading things in previous prebuilts from about 13-14 (RAM, soundcards etc).

[NineEyeRon]

34 and it’s the one I have now.

[LogicalDrm]

2008, I was 20. E8400 & 8800GT. Before that we had boutique OEM from 2004 which I did have upgraded GPU, PSU, RAM and mobo+CPU already.

[panther964]

I was 14 I think built it little after the i7 67ook came out and used it, still using my computer. tear apart electronics since I was about 10 I think.

[Mnky313]

I was either 13 or 14, before that I only had a pretty trash laptop and it contained (oh boy let's see if I can remember):

CPU: FX-4350 OCed to 4.8Ghz - Still Have (Not in use)

GPU: MSI Gaming X GTX 960 (4GB) - Used in one of my little Brother's PCs

Mobo: Gigabyte Ultra Durable Something? it was SLI ready and had a whopping 2 USB 3 ports - Sold on eBay

 

RAM: 16GB DDR3 GSkill Sniper? I think (it was yellow) - Traded to a friend for 2x4GB and Cash

Case: A literal pile of trash (It was some dirt cheap thermal master thing. - In the trash where it belongs

PSU: Thermaltake 550W 80+ thing - I actually don't know where it ended up, probably with a friend.

Storage: Originally only a 2TB WD Black, later added a 256GB Transcend SSD - Have both, the 2TB WD Black is in my current PC, the SSD isn't in use currently.
Monitor: Asus VG248QE - still in use

Keyboards: (oh boy, here we go) Originally a razer blackwidow (non chroma) which the o key started repeating so I returned it to Best Buy and bought a Blackwidow Chroma which promptly (about 3 months later) had the SAME ISSUE but with the A key which I returned, gave up on razer and bought a Corsair K70 LUX RGB which I still have (though I am looking for one with blues instead of reds)

Mice: ha, some wireless Logitech crap that is probably in a drawer somewhere.

[The King of the Undead]

14 athlon x4 955 6GB RAM 240GB ssd 1TB hdd and the periferals aren't worth mentioning.