Whats your best ever PC related purchase?

[SithSolo1]

SSD was nice but I bought way early and paid too much. $2.91/GB
My 2412m is by far the best overall upgrade but Im really digging the Logitech K400 keyboard I just got. Was pretty cheap and it just plain works. Best wireless device I've ever owned.

 

[AdamK47]

3Dfx VooDoo 4MB. A Diamond Monster 3D to be exact.

 

[Tsavo]

Canopus Pure 3D (Voodoo 1 with 6 megs) was argueably the best Voodoo 1 card on the market.

Would you believe I never owned my first computer until I was 24yrs old?

It was a Micron MIllenium 200mhz with mmx bought back in early part of 1997. It had a crappy S3 virge in it. I had no clue about 3d graphic cards at the time.

You cannot imagine the feeling I had when I installed Quake 1 and started playing for the first time

Canopus had marvelous hardware of any GPU back then.

 

[Klavshc]

Going from an AMD socket 939 single core CPU (forgot the exact one) to the i7 920, by far the most expensive part, not to mention CPU, I had ever bought, but it is still doing its thing, rock solid and my GPU is still holding it back.

My razer Naga mouse, I couldn't go back to playing an MMO without the buttons on the side anymore, I'd feel amputated.

Getting broadband wasn't as much a great investment as a complete and utter rewrite of history and everyday life for me, having experienced and "enjoyed" 56kbit speeds and the bill associated with downloading music over modem, it was and still is angelic. The only thing to compare to that shift in paradigm was getting 40/40mbit fiber optic internet for around 45 dollars a month.

 

[JamesV]

Broadband internet hands down.

While things like the first video cards, SSDs, and other big performance jump items are great, nothing can compare to the difference of using cable versus dialup.

I remember having 3-4 graphs on my screen playing the original Half-Life online; netgraph, etc. Tweaking things, exit game, try a new modem string (which you had to figure out without Google).... and then instant low ping with rarely an issue once I got broadband.

 

[Pia]

Winner: Dell 2405FPW (24", PVA, 1920x1200). About six years of service and still going strong. Recently upgraded it with an Ergotron arm and I'm kicking myself for not doing that sooner.

Runner-up: Hitachi CM751 (19" CRT). Used it for about eight years before upgrading to the Dell.

I think I paid about $1300 for both of these displays. Worth every cent.

Hopefully in two years some major manufacturer will have a 1440p 120Hz non-TN display out so I can keep my upgrade cycle steady. A lesser upgrade isn't very motivating.

 

[zebrax2]

Broadband. I still remember how painful it was downloading drivers in dialup