How long did you hold on to your first build?

[egriff79]

Funny question for everyone.  So how long did you hold on to your first build?

 

I love my first build it's like my baby but I realized today that the only part that is original to my first build is the case and I still think of it as my first. It's kind of like the joke I got Andrew Lincoln's axe but its blade and handle have been replaced.

[podkall]

I still am, using a handful of parts from my first build, that are about 6 years old.

 

Gigabyte GTX 1050, 1TB HDD, Fan from old case, and ~3 parts that are still somewhere in my room

[BetteBalterZen]

My first proper build had the i7-920, and my second build had a i7-3770K, so 3-4 years yeah. 

I do still have a single part left that I'm using to this day from my 3770K build and that is a Hitachi 1TB HDD. This sucker won't die. Still going strong after all these years, and about 40.000 hours. 

[RONOTHAN##]

I still have some parts from my first build, though the bulk of it I sold off after about a year of use. 

 

My first rig was a complete system I bought off Craigslist for cheap, it came with an i7 920, ASUS X58 P6T Deluxe V2, 6GB of RAM, 2 120GB SSDs in RAID 0, a 300GB Velociraptor drive, GTX 680 Superclock, 1200W Antec PSU, Corsair 800D, and a full custom loop. First thing I did after I got it was upgrade the RAM and added a 2nd HDD, and that build served me well for the time while I saved up to actually build a system, had it overclocked pretty far and everything. When I ended up building my new system, I sold off the case, CPU, mobo, RAM, and GPU, reusing the rest for my new system. Unrelated, the guy who I bought the system from ended up responding to the Craigslist listing for the CPU/Mobo, not realizing it was his old gear (he didn't buy it, ended up selling it to a friend for a good price, but I always thought that was a weird turn of events).

 

I still have the drives and water cooling parts from that first system, most of the water cooling gear is still in use in my daily system with the SSDs being relegated to test bench use (they're SLC so they will never wear out, if they weren't such low capacity I would still have them as my boot drive) and the HDDs being on the brink of death unfortunately (both the Velociraptor and extra HDD are starting to have issues unfortunately).

 

By some logic I'm still using my first computer since there are still parts from it at this point, though practically speaking the major parts I had are long gone by this point. I have been looking into getting a new P6T Deluxe V2 to replace the one I sold before, that board was arguably the easiest BIOS I've ever worked with and I would like to have it back in my collection at some point. 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, egriff79 said:

Funny question for everyone.  So how long did you hold on to your first build?

 

I love my first build it's like my baby but I realized today that the only part that is original to my first build is the case and I still think of it as my first. It's kind of like the joke I got Andrew Lincoln's axe but its blade and handle have been replaced.

My first "build" It's still in my room. Though I probably wouldn't call that "first build" but "first new build", 25 year old PC. Sitting there, sturdy as a chair. 

 

 

[Bismut]

I have replaced the final part from my first non-OEM build a week ago (other than an HDD I have as "cold storage"), it was the PSU. I still have it as well as the motherboard (a cheap socket 775 one that is worth little now), but I do not plan on re-using those parts any time (soon). I might try my hand at some 775 OC, but that does not make too much sense for me as the CPUs are not that cheap compared to 1st gen Ryzen and I do have a solid AM4 board as well.
But I think I had the OG spec for about a year? I remember carrying the CPU, RAM, storage and GPU from the DELL over to a custom build after only a few months. I sold the Dell with its original CPU and RAM a year or so later to either partially finance my jump to 1151 or from the Pentium to an i5, which could mean that I lost my whole 1st computer then.
But none of my configs lasted very long, I kept and keep upgrading things (I have upgraded my RAM, GPU and PSU this year alone and I am considering another SSD and CPU).

 

 

5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

they're SLC so they will never wear out

That sounds like a cache disk to me, then! (If you have a server or so that is)

7 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

the HDDs being on the brink of death unfortunately (both the Velociraptor and extra HDD are starting to have issues unfortunately)

They sound like RAID6 candidates to me (again, if you have a server)

[Stormseeker9]

I’m still using my first own built pc from 2018 (signature). Only added a second kit of ram during that time.

 

don’t see any need to upgrade in the near future (for now).

[Budget DIY]

Define first build please. First PC you ever owned, or first PC you've put together, or first PC you've sunk big moneys into.

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, Bismut said:

That sounds like a cache disk to me, then! (If you have a server or so that is)

That was one of the possible plans for them, though realistically for what I do on my server I don't need a cache disk (I've got enough RAM spare that I just cache in RAM), I need a drive for VM storage and a 120GB SSD is not really big enough for that. I'm pretty sure one of them is currently the proxmox boot drive (I'd need to double check that, I forget which SSD I threw in there), and the other one currently has a legacy Windows 7 install for use with my X58 and AM3 gear. 

 

9 minutes ago, Bismut said:

They sound like RAID6 candidates to me (again, if you have a server)

I'm already running out of drive bays on my 2U NAS, I need to be moving to higher capacity drives, not lower. Besides, they're both making clicks of death, so while I can still move data on and off, they're far from trustworthy. 

[bezza...]

im still using my first pc as it is only 1 and a half years old. made a few upgrades like getting more ram before the set that i had disapeared as they discontinued it (crucal balistics) and got a 2 tb hdd. also salvaged a 260 gig ssd fr more space. and added some more fans. did have a 2080 but it gave up on life so back to the igpu

[LogicalDrm]

First upgraded was taken to recycling 15 years after upgrade was made. I had built from scratch in that time. Last component from that build got replaced maybe 7 years after. I don't upgrade by whole Builds, but rather do platform upgrades (cpu-mobo-ram) every 5-10 years and smaller changes bi-yearly.

[Montana One-Six]

I keep my builds for about 4-5 years before building a new one. Most of the time I also don't upgrade my builds and just leave them as is. When building a new one I usually don't reuse things from older builds because I sell my old builds as complete as possible. The only time I reused something was when going from my last to the current build and only because of the GPU shortage. Used one of my 980Tis from the previous build for about 1,5 years before getting an acceptable deal on a new GPU.

[Alcarin]

My first build had an i7 2600k and a GTX 570.

 

I held onto it from mid-2011 until mid-2017 (upgraded the GTX 570 to an R9 390 in 2015), after which I switched to a Ryzen 1700 and GTX 1080 build.

[HAL90000]

1991: First PC was not a PC. Amiga 500, 1991>1996 (Sold. Got an N64)

1997: P2 300Mhz, 64MB RAM, 3dFX VooDoo Banshee

2001: 1Ghz AMD Athlon, 256MB RAM, GeForce 2 GTS
2004: P4 3.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro
2007: C2D E6550, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8800GTS
2010: i7 950, 6GB RAM, Radeon HD 6800
2011: i7 2600K, 8GB RAM, GTX 580, then GTX 980
2016: i7 4790K, 16GB RAM, GTX 980, then GTX 1080
2019: i7 9700K (then 9900K) 32GB RAM, RTX 2080 Super (still have)
2022: i5 8500, 32GB RAM, GTX 1650 (secondary basement PC)
2023: i5 13600K, 32GB RAM RTX 4070Ti
2023: R5 5500, 16GB RAM, RX 6600 (secondary basement PC upgrade)

And various other kick around boxes here and there, mini PC's, etc. Not much else worth mentioning with real gaming chops.

[benjibooji]

I still have the board/cpu and ram from my first pc, I'll have to dig it out. 

 

The main thing I remember is that the cpu is a Cyrix MII. 

[egriff79]

my first pc was an 80808 no hd just 5 1/4 floppy kings quest and space quest were was my childhood.

[Crunchy Dragon]

I had mine for a couple years. I do not currently own any of the original parts, but the cooler lives on in my brother's PC and the hard drive continues to drone on in my cousin's PC.

 

Usually I'll run a PC for 3-5 years depending on my workload and the hardware configuration, typically I'll make 1 or 2 upgrades in this time, then do a system overhaul. I tend to reuse as much as I can(case, storage, power supply), keep some parts on hand for testing, and either repurpose or pass down whatever I don't need. I don't typically keep parts from anything older than my last system if they're not in use(although I do still have a collection of old parts for sentimental reasons).

 

Currently the guts of my X99 rig are sitting in a box from my upgrade to X299 in Q4 2023, I'll likely repurpose those into a server of some kind this year if I can figure out the absolute nightmare that is my home network.

[CommanderAlex]

Still have the CPU, motherboard, RAM and SSD with the OS installed for the platform from my first build with Z97. 2nd build...I still have the CPU, motherboard, and some extra RAM sticks for since it was X299. 

[Zodiark1593]

8 years and counting. Just threw a used RTX 3060 in it last week. 

[dogwitch]

first gaming pc build was 2006. 4400 cpu oc, 2gb of ram the a8n sli prem board.

gts 250(og card failed and got a said card back)

i used said pc till 2018.when board failed.

i fought the whole time for warranty on that dam mobo from asus.(i spent so much money on it).

had plan on a build 6 years after building it. but that fell thru due to life reasons.

 

current flair build is my pc atm.

build replace multi machine i had for stuff. not relating to gaming.

 

[toveri]

i didn't really, and it wasn't really a build i did myself. my dad built me an xt machine when i was 2 out of parts he got from people cheap/free or out of his computer when he upgraded. that thing is looooooong gone, but i remember it had a neat GUI running over DOS. one of my earliest memories is playing sesame street games on that thing with my dad in the basement. wish i had a photo handy, but maybe one exists somewhere.

[diegoaccord]

i bought my first gaming pc as a prebuild in 2019, all i have left is the nvme in my current PC, and the case, sitting empty.

 

 

[DeerDK]

23 hours ago, egriff79 said:

Funny question for everyone.  So how long did you hold on to your first build?

 

I love my first build it's like my baby but I realized today that the only part that is original to my first build is the case and I still think of it as my first. It's kind of like the joke I got Andrew Lincoln's axe but its blade and handle have been replaced.

Right now it's just the power supply and the boot sata ssd. But I've got my old case in the closet and I wait for a new GPU so I can move back to it. 

Built my original PC in 2015 and I guess it lasted to roughly 2021, although the GPU got upgraded in 2015 as well, but a little later than the rest (had an old that got carried over from a pre-built). 

[Needfuldoer]

My first build from new parts was a budget Socket 478 system, in 2002 or 2003.   I think it had a 2.8 or 3.0 ghz Pentium 4, Radeon 9200, 1 gig of RAM, and (by the time I retired it) two 120 gig hard drives. I remember making a side intake duct for it out of yogurt containers, and I had to leave the reset button disconnected or else it would reset when I stepped on the floor in front of it.

 

I still have all the parts (except for the power supply the generic case came with) so I could rebuild it, but I'd have to recap the MSI PM8M-V motherboard.

[Dabombinable]

The only parts of mine that I don't still have are the PSU (later shorted out on a FDD's connector), the case it came with and the motherboard. It ended up being an example of "bit by bit" upgrades until everything was different.