Owned a Sinclair Spectrum 48k when I was about 6, then moved up to a 128k at 8yo. So many hours of Galaxians, Operation Wolf, Paperboy and James Bond enjoyed during these early years. First PC I chose myself was a Time computer with Windows 98, an Athlon XP 1700+, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, 19" CRT and Geforce 4 MX 440 64MB, picked out from a Daily Telegraph ad in 2002, of all places. Cost me over £1500.00 back then, which took many a shift of supermarket work to pay off, but with zero regrets.
It has to be said, those Athlons were a little disappointing, with many a shutdown, but this could be attributed to the inefficient coolers they came with at the time. It was a big relief to finally replace it with a Pentium 4 2.8GHz and crazy looking Zalman CNPS3100 Copper cooler just 12 months later. A PNY Verto Nvidia Ti 4200 64MB soon followed, such an awesome all round card back then.
Finally, the legendary 9800 Pro 128MB was a great addition, in preparation for Doom 3 & Half Life 2 in 2004. This was a card that lasted me many years, perhaps too many years, providing excellent value for money for its day. Overall then, an incredible period to be around PC gaming, with so much innovation and technological progression happening all at once. It was harder to keep up in those days but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Great times!
