Best future-proof purchase you've made?

[BraveSoul]

creative sound blaster audigy platinum sound card. got it looooong time ago.. 2002 maybe.. just built another rig,, guess what, dont need to buy a sound card,, this one is still kicking.

[Fleck]

My case. It was made by Enlight around 10 years ago. It originally had a Celeron 366@550 in it and it is still with me through several AMD builds and now my current E7400 build. It's a plain vanilla case with no fancy features but it's still around and still works!

[mon74]

Ati Radeon 7000 32 Mb PCI, still in use to troubleshoot other pc's, bought it in 2001 or 2002...

Played the original unreal really good

[Error 404]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

For me, it would have to be my old Sony VAIO laptop. A 1GHz PIII with 256MB of RAM, bought 8 years ago(2001 sometime). It still works for basic tasks like microsoft office and internet browsing. I have a PIII based Celeron desktop from the same time still kicking around also with 512MB of RAM in it. I've been real tempted to hook it back up and install vista on it.

If you get a new battery for it and use a vLited Vista HP, then it runs quite well. You'll want to get at least a 20 GB HDD, because my 10 GB one was almost out of space (down to a few hundred megs) after installing Office 2007 and SP1.
That and a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, and possibly a WiFi PCI card, make a laptop that can do pretty much anything that a netbook can, except with out the tiny size!

Another purchase is my keyboard for my main rig: its a Dell QuietKey

Its like owning a typwriter for a keyboard! And since its PS/2, it has less delay than USB2.

[Chomes]

My appreciated Sennheiser HD 560 Ovation II.

Purchased at 1991 they costed 23565 pesetas(Spain), now should be 141'60€.

Just changed the cable once. Great cans 10000Hz-35000Hz.
Using them nowadays.
Later at home I will post pics.

[DarkMatter]

Oh. oh, yeah I forgot about, not precisely mine, but I still use them sometimes: a pair of Koss headphones that my father bought around the 70's. They are more aging than me, but they still sound great. Not as good as some new sennheisers, but around the same than my Icemat Siberia when playing music.

[Wartz]

My T21 laptop, the thing is built like a tank and still serves me well.

[ChromeDome]

i guess its my AMD 5600+ Windsor. got it around a year and a half ago and see no reason to let it go. definitely will keep working with it through this year, which will mean two and half years of service out of it. i'll prolly keep it until i decide to go quad core. in which case it will be mobo time too, as i plan on going AM3. although AM2+ Phenom II's are also an option. in which case i'll most likely keep my mobo, as i don't really overclock much. we'll see

i''ll see what is out and about when the time comes. but until i go quad i'm pretty happy. all my programs and games still run great

[Pete1burn]

I would have to list my Bose Triport headphones. My wife got them for me for xmas in 2004. I love them for night time gaming.

[DaveK]

The oldest piece of software I still use...that would be my 17" Dell monitor and my 160GB Western Digital hard-drive.

Oldest piece of hardware that works, but I don't use it, is my PS2. It's about 7 years old now lol.

[Pete1burn]

Haha yeah, my PS2 as well. I modded it and went on a downloading frenzy a few years ago. Good times.

[Error 404]

Originally Posted by DaveK

The oldest piece of software I still use...that would be my 17" Dell monitor and my 160GB Western Digital hard-drive.

Computer parts aren't software, they're hardware as well. Software is programs and stuff like that.

I still have floppy drives that work, but I don't use them...
Old power supplies are great as well, a perfect source of 80mm fans!

[Drizzt5]

I've pretty much upgraded everything in my rig 3x at least since last year so I guess my best investment in hardware would be.....

My Xion 800Watt psu, I actually haven't upgraded that since I bought it in 2006 and I tested it and it's a great psu, I got lucky

I hope that my q6600 will eventually prove to be future proofed a tiny bit, I used "future proof" as a reason for buying it, but the real reason was mostly just to have a quad core for the first time ever

[ShadowFold]

Doesn't ABS OEM Xion PSU's? They are really good.

[Drizzt5]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

Doesn't ABS OEM Xion PSU's? They are really good.

On an old forums (that banned me) they used to say Xion psu's were made by a company with a bad reputation and they were a "non- trusted" PSU. But I tested mine with my DMM and it's good, so maybe they were wrong :/.

IDC, as long as it gives me my powah and doesn't fry any parts it's good for me




I would like to say that anyone who bought an 8800GTX when it first came out made a very good purchase. Think of how close to the top the 8800gtx still is and how old of a card it is compared to other cards and how fast the market moves.

So *claps* for you 8800gtx owners.

[Nelson2011]

My q6600 i have had it since 07 and gone through different psu's,vid cards,mobo, and everything else but my q6600 is still running at a strong 3.6GHz

[random]

Originally Posted by Nelson2011

My q6600 i have had it since 07 and gone through different psu's,vid cards,mobo, and everything else but my q6600 is still running at a strong 3.6GHz

Hmmm wow thats pretty damn good and here I was thinking 3.6ghz is going to last me only a year... how much vcore do you need for 3.6ghz? Because i have a 1.3250 vid and need 1.5vcore for 3.6, so I don't have a clue how long it would last.

[Nelson2011]

Cpu's are built to last for a long time even overclocked i have some old 370 celeron still running overclocked since the day they were built like 8 years ago or something like that don't remember

[DrPepper]

Originally Posted by randomflip

Hmmm wow thats pretty damn good and here I was thinking 3.6ghz is going to last me only a year... how much vcore do you need for 3.6ghz? Because i have a 1.3250 vid and need 1.5vcore for 3.6, so I don't have a clue how long it would last.

Long enough so that by the time it dies you would have replaced it because it would be inefficient.

[Drizzt5]

Originally Posted by randomflip

Hmmm wow thats pretty damn good and here I was thinking 3.6ghz is going to last me only a year... how much vcore do you need for 3.6ghz? Because i have a 1.3250 vid and need 1.5vcore for 3.6, so I don't have a clue how long it would last.

1.5v for 3.6ghz?
:/ is it a b3?

[WhiteNoise]

I still have a Sapphire Radeon 9800Pro 128mb card being used with an A64 4000+ Sandy.

I think thats the oldest piece of hardware I'm currently using. I bought the 9800Pro the day it released.

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by Error 404

Computer parts aren't software, they're hardware as well. Software is programs and stuff like that.

Oops, I meant hardware lol. Dunno what I was thinking when I wrote that.

[kiriakost]

I was thinking that my Aureal MX300 sound card will live for ever , but the caps on it ,
had other opinion than my .

Any way it keep me ten years away from the Creative sound cards, thats the good part.

Creative needed 10 years to bring the X-Fi , that is a true keeper as sound card.

So i got double benefit in the end.