It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my own list a while ago, though 😉)
That beeing said I think the only CPUs bought new by me or my family were:

1995 - 486DX2-66 (at least that's what it was sold as, beeing a TI DX2-80 downclocked and driven without any cooler/fan in reality, in our first family PC)
1997 - Pentium 166 MMX
2004 - Athlon 64 3000+ (So754)
2010 - Athlon II X2 235e

All others in between and after were bought used (being not that many).

Edit: typo

These are mine. Before 2011, my computers were all used (and broken when I got them - the least broken was just missing the RAM).
2011: i3-2330M
2018: i5-8500
2020:i7-9750H
If you include family computers when I was a kid:
1999: Cyrix MII-333
2002: Celeron 1.06GHz (mobile)
2003: Pentium 4 2.53GHz

ChrisK wrote on 2024-07-10, 07:01:

It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my ow […]
Show full quote

It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my own list a while ago, though 😉)
That beeing said I think the only CPUs bought new by me or my family were:

1995 - 486DX2-66 (at least that's what it was sold as, beeing a TI DX2-80 downclocked and driven without any cooler/fan in reality, in our first family PC)
1997 - Pentium 166 MMX
2004 - Athlon 64 3000+ (So754)
2010 - Athlon II X2 235e

All others in between and after were bought used (beeing not that many).

It might seem so but new CPUs bought just or not long after their release are expensive.
You tend not to forget spending thousands of £ on a computer.

I have had, and indeed still have dozens of computers all around me but the ones I remember the most are the ones i got new because I spent so much money on them.
That coupled with the fact that I still own almost all of them helps too of course.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-07-14, 13:54:

It might seem so but new CPUs bought just or not long after their release are expensive. You tend not to forget spending thousan […]
Show full quote

ChrisK wrote on 2024-07-10, 07:01:

It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my ow […]
Show full quote

It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my own list a while ago, though 😉)
That beeing said I think the only CPUs bought new by me or my family were:

1995 - 486DX2-66 (at least that's what it was sold as, beeing a TI DX2-80 downclocked and driven without any cooler/fan in reality, in our first family PC)
1997 - Pentium 166 MMX
2004 - Athlon 64 3000+ (So754)
2010 - Athlon II X2 235e

All others in between and after were bought used (beeing not that many).

It might seem so but new CPUs bought just or not long after their release are expensive.
You tend not to forget spending thousands of £ on a computer.

I have had, and indeed still have dozens of computers all around me but the ones I remember the most are the ones i got new because I spent so much money on them.
That coupled with the fact that I still own almost all of them helps too of course.

It's not just the price, but the excitement factor leading up to the purchase... and then the fact that, in most cases, you're using this system for 3-5 years, and as it ages, your emotions tend to become more negative, and those negative emotions get channelled into excitement for the next system. And so the cycle continues until... Sandy/Ivy Bridge. (Honestly, I don't know if it's the result of me aging or of the slowing pace of innovation or both, but I think the only system/CPU after my E6600 that I was really excited about was my M1 Max MacBook Pro)

(Interestingly, if you asked me to list all the CPUs in systems I've bought used, typically for server-type roles... I would have much more difficulty. I had one Compaq desktop used as a router, for example, I think it was 600MHz but whether it was a PIII or Celeron, I couldn't tell you today...)

I really not remember but i can try... For sure i have many more but...

MC68000 (Amiga)
486 DX2 66 (the most significative of the golden era in my opinion)
Pentium 133
Pentium 200mmx
Pentium II 266 (pay a fortune for this)
Mendocino 300A (absolutely the best price/performance for years)
Duron 800 (the forst CPU at 1GHZ when no ghz CPU exhist)
Athlon 1400 (Very fast for his time)
Pentium D (melt the case...)
From here only Notebook.... (mainly C2D, i7, M2)

AlessandroB wrote on 2024-07-14, 20:57:

I really not remember but i can try... For sure i have many more but... […]
Show full quote

I really not remember but i can try... For sure i have many more but...

MC68000 (Amiga)
486 DX2 66 (the most significative of the golden era in my opinion)
Pentium 133
Pentium 200mmx
Pentium II 266 (pay a fortune for this)
Mendocino 300A (absolutely the best price/performance for years)
Duron 800 (the forst CPU at 1GHZ when no ghz CPU exhist)
Athlon 1400 (Very fast for his time)
Pentium D (melt the case...)
From here only Notebook.... (mainly C2D, i7, M2)

The 486 66 did sort of double max performance overnight for most shoppers, becuase the 486-50 was rare. Performance jumps like that didn’t happen very often. It would be like a 10ghz Ryzen showing up next week that didn’t require a new motherboard or memory.

Most of your upgrades hit the sweet spot, but the pentium II looks like a tough lesson. Did you just want AGP that badly or something? I hope you got a good deal on that Pentium D chip and had central air conditioning!

CPUs

My first computers were all junk my mom would bring home from work, at AT&T. Eventually, my parents divorced and their finances were a shambles. As a condition of the settlement, my dad had to buy me my first proper 386 PC!

1981 - TI TMS1100 - Mattle Children's Discovery System
1982 - MOS 6502 - Atari 5200
1985 -  Intel 8080 - HP 2621A Terminal - my mom brought this home from work. I was 9 and called BBSes with it.
1988 - Intel 8086 - 8mhz - AT&T 6300 - my mom brought this home from work. 10mb HD!
1992 - 386/33 - Divorce Settlement Computer
1994 - 486/66 DLC2 - With first paycheck
1995 - Pentium 100 - Got my friend fired from Sam’s Club and bootstrapped his whole career at Microsoft.
1996 - AMD K6/200 - First PC I built that needed active CPU cooling
1998 - 500 MHz Alpha 21164A - Alpha Personal Workstation 500mhz - while working at DEC, after Uni.
1999 - Celeron 900mhz - A PC I built for my Dad and brother
1999 - K7 - Don’t remember much about this
2005 - AMD Athlon 64 3800 - A spare CPU my friend George gave me on Thanksgiving. HIs wife was not pleased that he was conducting geek business during dinner.
2008 - Intel® Core™2 Duo E6600 - My last x86 machine. The power supply couldn’t handle my GPU.
…
Lots of Macs
…
2020 - Apple M1 - On a lark, I sneak in to the Apple Store and buy the first M1 MacBook while out on a walk.
2021 - Ryzen 7 5800X - The pandemic happens and many loved ones go. I invite my nephew over and we build a new PC. I let him put a lot of lights in it. It’s very therapeutic for both of us.

GPUs

1988 - AT&T proprietary 640x400x1bpp CGA-ish video
1992 - Diamond Stealth 64 - FINALLY! VGA!
1995 - Cheap Cirrus Logic accelerated thing.
1997 - 3DFx Voodoo 2
1999 - 3DFx Voodoo Banshee
2001 - GeForce 3 ti200
2002 - Radeon 9807pro - It ran Everquest so much faster than Nvidia!
2005 - Radeon X850XT - Running this right now in my retro rig!
2008 - Geforce 6600GT - This blew the PSU on my Core 2 Duo 🙁
…
Lots of crappy Macs and Laptop graphics.
…
2021 - Radeon RX 6600 XT - Meh - I got over this when I was in MicroCenter and saw….
2023 - GeForce RTX 4080 - My BEAST!!! Bought it open-box, saved $600!

VivienM wrote on 2024-07-14, 18:11:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-07-14, 13:54:

It might seem so but new CPUs bought just or not long after their release are expensive. You tend not to forget spending thousan […]
Show full quote

ChrisK wrote on 2024-07-10, 07:01:

It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my ow […]
Show full quote

It's amazing to see people here beeing able to list up what hardware they bought in the last decades... (having sorted out my own list a while ago, though 😉)
That beeing said I think the only CPUs bought new by me or my family were:

1995 - 486DX2-66 (at least that's what it was sold as, beeing a TI DX2-80 downclocked and driven without any cooler/fan in reality, in our first family PC)
1997 - Pentium 166 MMX
2004 - Athlon 64 3000+ (So754)
2010 - Athlon II X2 235e

All others in between and after were bought used (beeing not that many).

It might seem so but new CPUs bought just or not long after their release are expensive.
You tend not to forget spending thousands of £ on a computer.

I have had, and indeed still have dozens of computers all around me but the ones I remember the most are the ones i got new because I spent so much money on them.
That coupled with the fact that I still own almost all of them helps too of course.

It's not just the price, but the excitement factor leading up to the purchase... and then the fact that, in most cases, you're using this system for 3-5 years, and as it ages, your emotions tend to become more negative, and those negative emotions get channelled into excitement for the next system. And so the cycle continues until... Sandy/Ivy Bridge. (Honestly, I don't know if it's the result of me aging or of the slowing pace of innovation or both, but I think the only system/CPU after my E6600 that I was really excited about was my M1 Max MacBook Pro)

(Interestingly, if you asked me to list all the CPUs in systems I've bought used, typically for server-type roles... I would have much more difficulty. I had one Compaq desktop used as a router, for example, I think it was 600MHz but whether it was a PIII or Celeron, I couldn't tell you today...)

I think it's a combination of age, meaning not the age itself as an absolute factor but more of the effect of the experiences you gathered over time that makes new stuff much less exciting than in younger days ("oh wow, it's a new computer, I mean a neeew one, look how fast it is, wow, ok let's go on"; in that sence: yes the age 😉), and the "being everywhere" factor of tech today.
Just as was said before, buying new tech up the the 2000s or so had a story to tell, i. e. going to a shop, seeing the things for sale in real life, feelings to come up when that thing you would like to have is just in front of you but could not afford, then having finally bought something you actually could afford and so on. It was a huge mix of feelings involved that made these experiences much more remarkable.
Today, buying new tech is just an unremarkable anonymous click on your mouse away. You click, wait for the postman and that's it. You don't even see the money you pay for it.

At home I'm still using a machine of the Phenom era because it is still doing what I want it to do. Sure there are much faster options for affordable money out there, and I have thought about what buying next several times. But then I'm asking myself what's the point, what benefit does it bring to me? For browsing, playing some older games I just don't have that much time for anyways, and a little bit office, there's not much left. So it stays until it breaks or can't fulfill these requirements anymore.
On the other hand, for work I have a little NUC for quite a while now. It's small, it's calm and it has enough power for most office tasks.
In summary, what I want to say is that todays tech lasts (or at least can last, if we want) much much longer than 20 years ago. That and its always and anywhere availability reducing the excitement factor drastically.

douglar wrote on 2024-07-09, 15:11:

1999 - Started a second system which went from a frustrating K6-2 450 to an excellent Athlon 700 in a few months. My aunt still uses the Athlon board since 2002 for her part time accounting business. I want it back, but I don't want to mess with her system either.

Actually, the noble thing to do, would be to assist your aunt in upgrading her system to some more current hardware, keeping in mind that running on 20+ years old hardware really increases the risk of a total system breakdown with huge data losses. And I'm not even only trying to ratify you getting your hands on the nostalgic hardware ...

Hmmm, i'm too old to remember every one, but i will try:
AMD 386 SX-33
AMD Athlon XP-1500 Socket A
AMD Thoroughbred 2600+ Socket A
AMD Barton XP-M 2500+ socket A
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 939
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2
AMD Athlon 7750BE X2 AM2+
AMD Phenom II X3 720 AM3
AMD Athlon X4 640 AM3
AMD Phenom II 965 AM3
AMD FX 8120 AM3+
AMD FX 6300 AM3+
AMD Fx 8350 AM3+
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X AM4
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X AM4
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X AM4
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D AM4
If i have forgotten any, it is due the age of my brain 😀
This "hole" between SX33 and Athlon xP 1500 is the time i was interested into this thing womans wears between their legs, not the PCs..... When i found the one, the saga continued..... 😉
Before SX33 there was Commodore Amiga Nintendo Sega time

douglar wrote on 2024-07-15, 00:56:

AlessandroB wrote on 2024-07-14, 20:57:

I really not remember but i can try... For sure i have many more but... […]
Show full quote

I really not remember but i can try... For sure i have many more but...

MC68000 (Amiga)
486 DX2 66 (the most significative of the golden era in my opinion)
Pentium 133
Pentium 200mmx
Pentium II 266 (pay a fortune for this)
Mendocino 300A (absolutely the best price/performance for years)
Duron 800 (the forst CPU at 1GHZ when no ghz CPU exhist)
Athlon 1400 (Very fast for his time)
Pentium D (melt the case...)
From here only Notebook.... (mainly C2D, i7, M2)

The 486 66 did sort of double max performance overnight for most shoppers, becuase the 486-50 was rare. Performance jumps like that didn’t happen very often. It would be like a 10ghz Ryzen showing up next week that didn’t require a new motherboard or memory.

Most of your upgrades hit the sweet spot, but the pentium II looks like a tough lesson. Did you just want AGP that badly or something? I hope you got a good deal on that Pentium D chip and had central air conditioning!

Pentium II 266 was a computer that I wanted to buy as much as possible because in that period I had a lot of money to spend, the mainboard was Asus and I had the entire SCSI chain: hard disk, CD-ROM and burner.

The DX2 was truly a unique processor, and for me personally it arrived when I was a child and a computer enthusiast, the best CPU in the best period of my life... I was 13 years old.

I will never forget what that computer gave me... when I went to pick it up, an identical computer was running Strike Commander...

Stormer47 wrote on 2024-07-15, 04:18:

1997 - 3DFx Voodoo 2

Voodoo2 was released in 1998. So, you either had a Voodoo Graphics or you had a Voodoo II in 1998 or later...

Stormer47 wrote on 2024-07-15, 04:18:

2002 - Radeon 9807pro - It ran Everquest so much faster than Nvidia!

What? 9807 Pro? Maybe 9700 Pro?

RaverX wrote on 2024-07-15, 11:31:

Voodoo2 was released in 1998. So, you either had a Voodoo Graphics or you had a Voodoo II in 1998 or later... […]
Show full quote

Stormer47 wrote on 2024-07-15, 04:18:

1997 - 3DFx Voodoo 2

Voodoo2 was released in 1998. So, you either had a Voodoo Graphics or you had a Voodoo II in 1998 or later...

Stormer47 wrote on 2024-07-15, 04:18:

2002 - Radeon 9807pro - It ran Everquest so much faster than Nvidia!

What? 9807 Pro? Maybe 9700 Pro?

9700pro. I was correcting 9800 to 9700.

As for the voodoo, I dunno! It was almost 30years ago!

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-07-15, 07:27:

Actually, the noble thing to do, would be to assist your aunt in upgrading her system to some more current hardware, keeping in mind that running on 20+ years old hardware really increases the risk of a total system breakdown with huge data losses. And I'm not even only trying to ratify you getting your hands on the nostalgic hardware ...

You are a smart and wonderful hoarder of electronic parts.

butjer1010 wrote on 2024-07-15, 08:33:

This "hole" between SX33 and Athlon xP 1500 is the time i was interested into this thing womans wears between their legs, not the PCs..... When i found the one, the saga continued..... 😉
Before SX33 there was Commodore Amiga Nintendo Sega time

For me it there was a big gap between getting my C64 in 1981 and my first PC in 1990. I landed a job as the evening shift computer lab attendant in 1988 and they sat me down at a PC with nothing but time to kill. I started changing directories and editing files and then it stuck me, "Uhhh, how do I know how to do this?" Lol! It was like the muscle memory lasted through the party period. Took me a while to remember that I used to be an admin on a bunch of RT boxes that were part of the Andrew project 4 years earlier, and DOS was close enough for it to make sense.

You know what, I've never owned a new CPU, ever.

My first pc was a 10 year old Tandy 1000 SX in 1997. Then I got a 386 SX in 2001, upgraded that to a 486 DX33, then got a DX4100 IBM PC-330. I built Pentium III INTO A modded 386 Full AT chassis in 2003, ran that till 2008.

Then in 2008 after being made fun of by my colleagues for my old PIII, I built a "gaming" rig...all new parts, but the LG775 CPU, which was a Intel Pentium D at 3.0GHz, from 2 years before.

After that I built a used Core 2 Duo P8800 in an InWin D500 case using some parts of the gamer rig....

Somewhere in there I bought a new Acer Aspire D250 netbook...I loved that thing and ran it hard till the screen cracked. Used to play DOSbox on it at the resturant on the weekend. Maybe that counts?

Since then has been a succession of used/trashed/donated laptops I fixed up and old Macs running macos or Linux. Most I still have.

I get like, 7-10 years or more out of a computer, and often have more than one "main" these days. My Retro PC as a main computer thing in the early 2000s has made me a bit adept at wringing every last bit from old hardware.

douglar wrote on 2024-07-15, 12:42:

For me it there was a big gap between getting my C64 in 1981 and my first PC in 1990.

Very similar timeframe for me. If you go back to post #1, I got an Apple IIe in 1983 and used it all through 8th grade, high school, AND college. I finally got my first PC in 1990--a college graduation gift from my parents. It was a Packard Bell 386sx/20. Shocking how much useful life I got out of that IIe.

douglar wrote on 2024-07-15, 12:42:

butjer1010 wrote on 2024-07-15, 08:33:

This "hole" between SX33 and Athlon xP 1500 is the time i was interested into this thing womans wears between their legs, not the PCs..... When i found the one, the saga continued..... 😉
Before SX33 there was Commodore Amiga Nintendo Sega time

For me it there was a big gap between getting my C64 in 1981 and my first PC in 1990. I landed a job as the evening shift computer lab attendant in 1988 and they sat me down at a PC with nothing but time to kill. I started changing directories and editing files and then it stuck me, "Uhhh, how do I know how to do this?" Lol! It was like the muscle memory lasted through the party period. Took me a while to remember that I used to be an admin on a bunch of RT boxes that were part of the Andrew project 4 years earlier, and DOS was close enough for it to make sense.

Hehe, i got my first C64 in 1985, and he was there for almost 6 Years.... Than NES in 1990, and Sega MD in 1991, just to be in shape, not to loose "muscle memory". This was the time i started high School, so 386 lasted only few Years (1992-1996), than the chase begun 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-07-15, 07:27:

douglar wrote on 2024-07-09, 15:11:

1999 - Started a second system which went from a frustrating K6-2 450 to an excellent Athlon 700 in a few months. My aunt still uses the Athlon board since 2002 for her part time accounting business. I want it back, but I don't want to mess with her system either.

Actually, the noble thing to do, would be to assist your aunt in upgrading her system to some more current hardware, keeping in mind that running on 20+ years old hardware really increases the risk of a total system breakdown with huge data losses. And I'm not even only trying to ratify you getting your hands on the nostalgic hardware ...

Replacing the hard drive with an SSD would likely be a good plan, but what could I get her that would be more reliable at this point that still runs win98?

douglar wrote on 2024-07-17, 02:13:

Replacing the hard drive with an SSD would likely be a good plan, but what could I get her that would be more reliable at this point that still runs win98?

IMHO the earliest batch of Core 2 Duo with 65 nm lithography ("Allendale" or "Conroe") on a motherboard with Intel 865 family chipset would do the job, as 915 or newer chipsets stopped official Win9x supports.

Alternatively, any Athlon / Sempron 64 in 754 or 939 (Socket AM2 motherboards rarely support Win9x) with VIA K8 series chipsets (nForce was not friendly with Win9x).