How long did you hold on to your first build?

[Neroon]

I didn't. The first PC I build was done with parts that I technically didn't own. We got pretty much all our PC stuff from our grandfather, and sometimes we bought a few parts, usually things like storage or cd-rom drives, because you always want storage, and the cd-rom drives kept breaking back then.

And we just build our PC's with the parts that kept being left over that went to my dad and trickled down to my siblings and I. By the time I was done with it, they would just get sold off. My first 'PC' was an 8088, this was in like '91. Before that I had a C64.

 

The first PC I really spend some money on, in this case the mainboard, processor and memory (it was a Cyrix 150mhz), I ended up selling to get a PSX.

For me it was always about gaming, and the PSX was so much value, and had such better games, that it became a no brainer.

[FeIIex]

Built August 2014

 

GPU from the first build was upgraded (280X to 1070) December 2016, old card couldn't run Fallout 4 with settings I found acceptable.

 

Aside from adding an SSD in 2017, my first build lasted until December 2020. It now is used as my parent's desktop, though with no 1070.

[Totallycasual]

Pretty much every PC i have owned has lasted me 5-ish years, a couple went longer because i changed out the GPU, but generally speaking i just sell them on Gumtree and put the cash back into new gear. 

[Seccedonien]

I still have every single piece of hardware but no idea what still works. It consisted off:

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
• 8GB Corsair something RAM (later upgraded to GEiL RAM with at the time legendary Micron overclocking modules on it)
• Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
• Sapphire Radeon X1950 XT (later upgraded for 2x 8800 GT 512 in SLI)
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
• WD 500GB
• Cooler Master Centurion 534

It wasn't the best choice of hardware but it was my very first self build PC and I learned so much from it, even went in to custom watercooling with that hardware. This was back in 2007/2008 that I build this.

[Akolyte]

10 years and I'm still holding onto it. 

[Vishera]

5 years, killed by faulty power supply.

 

Built in 2011:
Processor: Intel Core i3 2100 3.10GHz

RAM: Kingston ValueRAM D3N9 6GB (1x4GB + 1x2GB) 1333MHz DDR3

Graphic Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6750 1GB DDR5 OC
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS90F
Motherboard: MSI H61M-P23 B3
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Sata II HD502HJ
Optical Disk Drive: LG DVD±RW GH22NS x22 Black SATA
Supply Power: NEOTech ATX 500W
Case: 3Cott 2017

 

That CPU and GPU combo was very good for gaming on the budget back in the day.

I could run the latest most demanding games like Battlefield 3 without issues on High settings.

 

The RAM configuration is a little weird but it worked.

My CPU and motherboard supported Intel Flex Mode so 2GB from each DIMM ran in dual channel and the other 2GB left of the 4GB DIMM ran at single channel,

So as long as the RAM usage didn't exceed 4GB -  All of the memory in use would run at dual channel mode.

 

The Zalman flower cooler - So tiny, so nostalgic!

The temps were fine and it wasn't that noisy - After all it was a dual-core i3.

 

That LG optical drive was cheap trash, that thing was crazy slow and a waste of money since exactly in that era i stopped using discs.

 

As for the power supply and the case...

It was a sketchy Case + PSU combo i bought from Russia for crazy cheap -_-

And the thing is that everything was fine until i replaced that sketchy PSU with a XFX Core TS 450W Bronze,

The new PSU was faulty and fried the motherboard, CPU and HDD!

And when i reached out to XFX for RMA they wanted me to pay $120 for shipping - which costs more than the PSU itself...

 

 

Overall my experience with this build was very good,

Unlike the experience i had with my second build, which was a nightmare of an experience.

Not only the FX 8320E@4.2GHz was bottlenecking my R9 380, the R9 380 was plagued with buggy and unusable drivers.

[martixy]

1st one 6-7 yrs, second 7 yrs, 3rd is going on 4th.

 

Oldest one's collecting dust at my parent's, but I think it still works so maybe you could argue I'm still holding onto it?

 

Second one's the first that I built myself and is currently sitting next to me as a NAS/media server.

[WindmillWarrior420]

Oh man, my first pc that really was my first own pc was a AMD A8 back in start of 2012 with 4GB of memory and a 1TB HDD.

Later on i added a GTS 8800 512MB on a molex -> PCI-E adapter, it was a medion pre-build, Akoya something something.

Eventually used some tie-raps to add 2 old 80mm fans on some random cooling vents which actually helped a lot keeping the temps to a more acceptable level.

 

Playing Skyrim and being impressed that it ran fine on 4GB with mods, good times

 

For a cheap-ass pre-build with a Laughable AMD bulldozer inside, it handled it all pretty well, and for quite a few years as well, used it until 2014-2015 or so when i got a first gen I7-860.

Later on i swapped the GPU, swapped the RAM and sold it to a friend who later on gave it a SSD.

[VeNoM4004]

My first build was back in 2015 towards the end of DDR3's life span. I had an i5-4690k with a gtx 970. I used that for about 4 years before I was ready to upgrade and by that time it was better to do an entire fresh build rather than salvaging anything. After my new build I ended up selling my original build and to this day I wish I didnt. It wouldnt have much use for me now as I have 3 gaming PCs in my house I've built that are far better than that one, but I still wish I had it just for memories sake. Maybe as a living room computer hooked up to my TV or something. 

[sodapone]

3 years, 1 month, and 28 days--2016-11-11 to 2020-01-08.

 

After that, I did a major upgrade, replacing basically everything but the case and storage drives. Then other things gradually got replaced--the last original part of my initial PC build was my case, a Fractal Define R4, which I replaced with a Define 7. Before that, the original SSD died, leaving only the other drives which I bought in 2018, after the initial build. My PC really is a Ship of Theseus--every single part has been replaced, so is it really the same PC anymore?

 

The old parts are still kicking in my NAS btw--the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and case.

[HAL90000]

First build was a P4 3.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, ATi All in Wonder 9600(?) in an Antec Sonata 1 case. You could jump up and down on those things. Built like a tank. I was a fool back then and didn't go on forums. Thought intel was good. It wasn't (at the time. Definitely is now and has been since 2006).

I had this machine from early 2004 to late 2007 when I sold it to my friend for the symbolic quantity of $100