As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster...
Right. This is about what I can find sadly and there are a few missing.
I started with PCs in around 1996. My first PC was something I got for free and had a SX25 (25mhz) CPU. Later that year a friend of mine gave me his DX2 66 (66mhz) cpu and board and I put it into an old case I got for free from a computer shop. At that time everything was pretty generic so it's nigh on impossible finding pics now as I have nothing to go on. So basically I had about four cases between 1996 and 1998.
In 1998 I built a very expensive P3 450 machine with 64mb ram and a Voodoo 3 3000. Before that I had a tower PC (and when they used to call them towers they meant, towers. Huge tall hulking things). Sadly neither of these cases are identifiable so I can only begin later.
In 1997 I had a Apricot Xen.
It was actually much nicer than it looks in the pic. CPU was a Pentium 166.
Between 1997 and 1999 I can not find any of my cases, apart from this thing. This was called an Icute and I built a basic Celeron A rig into it (333 oc to 450)
It was right around the time Apple came out with the blue and clear G3 desktop that every one went mad for.
My next PC (again, 1998) was a Belinea Maxdata P3 450 machine with a Geforce card and Terratec sound card. At the time these sound cards were £150 and kicking Creative's ass.
2000 now and it was time for the big guns.. Before now I had always used desktop CPUs. In 2000 I did flirt with dual Pentium Pros but only because I got them for next to nothing. My first "Big boy" rig was this, an IBM Intellistation M Pro dual P3 450 1mb Xeons with a Voodoo 5500 PCI. It cost... A lot, right around the £2500 mark IIRC.
Back then black cases were non existent and you only got something sexy and off the wall if you paid for it.
I then sold that and moved out to the USA. I bought a MS G440 motherboard and two P2 450 1mb Xeons. Note, my case was beige and not black.
That rig ended up dying so I built my next one. This rig contained twin 833 512k Xeons and the guts of a Silicon Graphics SGI550. It used Rdram which was ass bleedingly expensive so I only had 64mb ram in it.
It's a Chieftec Dragon, BTW. One of if not the first cases to be sold in more than one colour. I then bought another rig for graphic design as RDRam was expensive and I was suffering in Photoshop etc. I picked one of these up on Ebay. Again, twin Xeons, this time back to the P2 450 1mb but with 256mb SDram. It was actually cheaper to buy this rig than to put 256mb Rdram in my other PC.
Such a gorgeous and solid chassis. It was based on the Silicon Graphics of the time. Again it was a case of (pardon the pun) needing to spend thousands of pounds or dollars on a PC to get something unusual.
My next case was a rev 1 Antec Sonata. Sadly I can't find any pics of the rev 1 so this will have to suffice. It was now around 2004.
I didn't really like it. Most would love it but I don't like what every one else does. I like bright colours and curves. My next case was a big mistake but hey, you live and learn. I longed after a Alienware but I just couldn't get anywhere near to being able to afford one. In the photos on the internet this looked really nice. In the flesh however? it was dire. Thin, cheap, flat paint.. You name it.
The insides though were pretty mean. Athlon XP 2400 oc, 1gb DDR, GTX 5900 Ultra etc.
Sadly I had to sell that to fund my first car, so I ended up with this. It had a Celeron D in it and 512mb DDR. Nothing much else really and I relied on the onboard. I had this thing for about three years. I got the case for free too, so it was only about $60 in paint
Just as I was about to leave the USA forever I bought this chassis. The insides were a red MSI motherboard, 2GB DDR2, Core 2 Duo 1.8ghz (Allendale) and a Radeon X1600 pro 512mb.
Here it is inside at a later date, now sporting a Phenom X4 9550 and a 8800 GTX. By now it belonged to my cousin who bought it from me when I had bought my next PC.
My next PC was "The Bogey". I got this from Ebay for £270 delivered. It had a Core 2 Duo E4500, 2GB Patriot DDR2 800 and a 8600GT 256mb.
I had The Bogey for a while and then bought a ALX rev 2.1 chassis and switched it into there.
"Hey Bert !"
I then bought a silver ALX chassis as it was better for dust.
By now I had upgraded to a Phenom 2 940 with 4GB corsair Dominator that some very kind soul here on OC3D donated to me
Then for giggles I bought two more chassis.
These are regular ones, not ALX. You'll note the chrome is missing for flat silver.
I quite fancied a change now, so I gave this a go. I didn't get rid of the three Alienwares I had so I bought this cheap for a laugh.
I didn't like it. Too square, too boxy. So it was back to my silver ALX for a while. Then I built a new PC after selling the black Alienware (non ALX) Again I strayed from Alienware and bought a Survivor.
Which had an I7 950 with 3gb ram and my GTX 470. All was not well though, the case was twisted. Bitfenix sent me another one and I'll show you that shortly
In the mean time I bought my first Dellienware Aurora for £300 or so. It had a 875w PSU in and a 1366 MSI micro board (the standard Dellienware board). I transferred my PC into this and threw out the bent Survivor.
Which I had for over a year before a friend of mine wanted my side panels for his ALX (his were badly scratched). So I swapped him his empty silver chassis for my black one
When he had taken off the mint panels and replaced them with the scratched one he sold me the case, an I7 920, 6GB ram PSU etc for £130 (mate's rates) I built it, threw in my GTX 295s and sold it on Bumtree for £600.
I then bought a Radeon 7970 that I didn't get on very well with so I swapped it with a pal for two GTX 480s. I bought a cheap X58 board (Foxconn Flaming Blade) for £30 and another Temjin (forget the model number now) that was on clearance at Scan for about £55. I put my I7 950 in there and this was to be the last time I would use it. I sold the rig as you see it here shortly after with one GTX 480 in and kept the other one, going back to my silver chassis above.
I then decided to upgrade my silver Aurora so I bought my Xeon E3 1220 along with Mushkin Radioactive memory and a Gigabyte MATX board. I used my remaining GTX 480 with this along with a Coolit Leako. Sadly the cooler was made by mongs and leaked, destroying my board and 480. So I had to buy a new board (£32 MSI job) and I decided to also buy a GTX 670 as it was on sale for £314 delivered (Scan). This all went back into my silver Aurora case.
Things stayed the same for another 8 months or so and then it was on to the case I am using now. I was browsing Ebay one day back in December of 2012 and saw a Area 51 ALX chassis with 1200w psu and DVDRW/BDR for £200 delivered. I bought it and sold my silver chassis for £260 - minto
I then put in a new board and bought a second GTX 670.
See my sig for specs
Finally I will show you Nfenix which was a sponsored build for Bitfenix, Nvidia and EVGA.
So that's about it kids. I will update if I remember any in between but I think I got them all
h34r: ).
