The best computer upgrade I've ever done was:
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Missing option (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely "Graphics Card", an important system component for many gamers (a fair few of whom browse this fine site) would be an upgrade worthy of consideration...?
Re:Missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
Definitely - major oversight on a "News for Nerds" site. I still remember the day I popped in a Nvidia Riva TNT into my desktop and saw all my games get so much better and faster... playing Half-Life was a dream with 30 fps @ 1024x768 lol.
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Re:Missing option (Score:4, Interesting)
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Surely "Graphics Card", an important system component for many gamers (a fair few of whom browse this fine site) would be an upgrade worthy of consideration...?
Or for people that use all the GPU goodness for other things like password cracking, bitcoin, or any other task that can be coded in OpenCL or CUDA.
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Yeah, my GPU is pretty much the most expensive component of my otherwise low-end system, but it feels like it's flying!
2.2Ghz Athlon X2 :P , I used to RAID them, but gave up on that since upgrading my RAM )
250GB SATA disks (hdparm -t gives maybe 60MB/s
6GB DDR800 SDRAM
Geforce 560Ti (!!)
My 24x7 server is now an Dual core Atom 330 something, but it's on an nVidia ION board, so it's actually quite usable with compiz + moderate web browsing. OTOH, I've pretty much given up trying to use my eeePC 901 with its
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Certainly more so than network hardware...
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In the old times it was more than just for gamers.
I recall upgrading my Trident ET8900 graphics card to a "Windows Accelerator" type of graphics card. Finally scrolling text went smoothly.
This Trident was a very popular card at the time, good performance for reasonable price and choices of 256 KB, 512 KB and 1MB of video RAM built in. I forgot the card I upgraded to... do recall later going for an S3 ViRGE card: fast and with a generous 4 MB of VRAM.
Nowadays... well just using the built-in VGA. Good enou
Re:Missing option (Score:4, Funny)
Then put that chick in the closet and wait for a replacement wife.
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For me, it was my first floppy drive. SSSD, 128 k, its ribbon cable messed up everybody's TV signals, but it was sure a lot better than messing with tape cassette recorders. I splurged and bought a box of ten Elephants for around $50US in 1980 dollars. Figured that would be enough storage for just about forever.
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The truly old-school of us had our minds blown by the awesome upgrade of our first sound card.
Hey, I remember my amazement when I first upgraded from 128 kB to 640 kB of RAM.
It was so impressive, I figured 640k ought to be enough for anybody.
No way, SSD for me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I droped an Intel x-25M that I won into an aging Athlon x2 (first of the dualcores), my wife's PC. That thing SMOKES now, gets to windows in about 35 seconds. It's faster than my I-920 w/ 9GB of tripple channel ram, Raid, and a radeon 5870. If I just need to do something online right quick, it's faster than my cellphone on Wife to power up, get to a page I need and shutdown.
Truly AMAZING upgrade, and it was by far and above the biggest improvement I've seen in overall performance, despite having almost the same upgrade paths as you when I was a tyke.
-dw
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Yeah. When I built my replacement gaming rig (I voted "complete replacement"), I got an 80-gig X25M for the boot disk and installation drive for the primary game I was concerned with.
The machine goes from power off to ready to log in within 10 seconds. After login, I can start the game, or do any other useful activity, within 5 more seconds.
SSD is the single largest performance improvement I have ever seen.
A Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course... :-)
...laura
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Indeed. Finally got rid of Linux and got a computer that Just Works. Never looked back.
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Speak for yourself, my Mac runs Slackware!
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I tried to upgrade a Mac, you insensitive clod!
Monitor definitely (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the only purchase that can in any way be considered and investment, since if you get a really nice one now, you can probably use it for years across multiple computers.
Around 1988 I bought a Nec Multisync 5D 21" CRT display for myself at work. It cost me $2400, but it was worth every penny as at the time everyone else was using 12" displays at 640x480 (or worse), and that monitor still works fine today (though its maximum resolution of around 1100x700 means it no longer sees active use).
I credit this display for eliminating ten years or so of eyestrain and discomfort, as well as productivity gains, and I wonder if it's one of the reasons my eyesight is still good many years later.
So spend the extra bucks on a 27" or 30" professional display and you won't regret it.
It's always worth spending more on interfaces between you and the rest of the world. That goes for monitors, mice, keyboards, as well as things like mattresses).
G.
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Yeah, I picked up a few widescreen LCDs, but I kept breaking them.
Now I'm back to using 21" CRTs that I've been picking up from Craigslist, and I now have slightly faster framerates in games, and I can just pick them up and start using them again after flinging them across the room ^_^
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21" CRTs ...flinging them across the room
Not to mention you must be the buffest gamer in your clan...
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Around 1988 I bought a Nec Multisync 5D 21" CRT display for myself at work. It cost me $2400, but it was worth every penny as at the time everyone else was using 12" displays at 640x480 (or worse), and that monitor still works fine today (though its maximum resolution of around 1100x700 means it no longer sees active use).
You're lucky... around 1997 I dropped ~$1600 on a 21" Sony Trinitron. It lasted about three years, then the picture went fuzzy (e.g. 18pt text was no longer readable)... I called up Sony and they responded with "yeah, that model does that after about three years. There's no way to repair it, and you're out of warranty, so too bad". Feh!
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I've been using my TV as the monitor for years. Not for my "work" computer, but for my own home system, which gets lots of gaming use. Started with a rear projection TV (800x600) back in the late 90s (Terminal Velocity kicked ass on it), and currently using a 42" TV. I still have a 10 year old AOpen wireless keyboard that I'm typing on right now, although I still use a wired mouse for better fragging. The TV card lets me watch TV in a window, while I surf, or swap back to full TV. Considering you can g
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I credit this display for eliminating ten years or so of eyestrain and discomfort, as well as productivity gains
It eliminated 10 years of productivity gains? That sucks.
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Razer also makes buckling spring keyboards. Quiet versions too.
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Apple is good at a lot of things but they make the worst keyboards and mice on the market. The only good keyboard they ever made was that of the old MBP. The new one looks cool but it's rubbish compared to that one.
Surprised noone has replaced this componant yet (Score:5, Funny)
I do IT work... the best replacement to Date: User Replacement.
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I do IT work... the best replacement to Date: User Replacement.
I would mod you up but I already posted.
Multiple Monitors (Score:3)
The switch from a single headed system to a 2 monitor setup was the single best improvment I've ever done.
At work I now have a 4 monitor setup. E-Mail is always open on 1, various Notepad notes and IM converstations on another, and the other 2 for whatever I'm doing.
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That's just showing you have money and can't manage yourself.
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Regrettably, they simply don't make a single display (for a reasonable price) that is larger than a 30" and a 22".
This feature is a requirement in order to work with a single large display. It seems more and more applications (on all operating systems) are pushing toward the 'hog the whole screen' system - which makes sense on a laptop. Or for my mom.
But
Best improvement ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sure that wasn't the nut in front of the keyboard?
MacBook Pro (Score:2)
A couple of years ago I replaced my clunky, 5 year old, self-built Pentium 4 mini-tower with a MacBook Pro.
Portable, way more powerful, and a better OS. Plus, the ability to boot into Windows if I needed it. It was life changing, not being tied to my desk.
Untethered (Score:2)
Battery? (Score:2)
Actually getting a laptop that emphasized battery life was probably the best thing I've ever done. Not actually being tethered to an outlet to do work is great. I didn't realize how big a hindrance it was to have laptop that couldn't last a day on a single charge while doing basic tasks.
New system (Score:2)
SSD all the way (Score:5, Insightful)
Boot time:
49 seconds HDD
37 Seconds SSD
Logon & start Firefox
36 Seconds HDD
7 Seconds SSD
Load an
20 Seconds HDD
6 Seconds SSD
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Moving from a spinning disk to SSD provided a noticeable and significant performance boost, everything ran faster and smoother. Cold boot of Windows 7 to an open and usable Firefox window is ~30s on my laptop, which is hard to match with spinning disks unless you've got a RAID setup going, but the real improvement is in random access times. Opening many new documents or programs is almost instant, those that aren't instant are a fraction of the time they were before. In comparison, moving from 4 GB to 8
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It also opens files much quicker. And launches applications much quicker - particularly big ones with lots of plugins/submodules/whatever (I'm looking at you Photoshop, any Microsoft product or any sort of game). And handles task switching far quicker. Those things may only be .5 to 5 seconds each, but I do them constantl
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+1, Insightful. Reboot and login once every few weeks and FF & Tbird stay open the whole time.
Things would be different if I had a portable system... but I don't.
Removed Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
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same mileage here, after removing xp and installing linux (i think it was SuSE-10 back then).. shouldn't this be included in poll-option: changed operating system?!
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Except Linux is not GNU. It's a kernel
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Whole system (Score:2)
By biggest upgrade was going from a P4 Prescott gaming rig to an i7 940 based one with two 10krpm drives in RAID0 and two video cards in SLI. But that's because the P4 blew caps and died, and I couldn't find any compatible mobos that would work with the existing parts, and most used ones had also blown caps and died at that time, leaving me too poor to overhaul my gaming PC for many years.
But for a single component, it would have to be hard drive/SSD. Storage has always been a computer's biggest bottleneck.
PC to Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
Three years I stopped playing WoW, and at that point I was also finished with Windoze B.S. I was tired of the crashing and instability. Plus the constant video upgrades required to play games. I was done with games, too.
I kicked it to the curb and bought a Mac Mini. 1,000,000% improvement to the overall happiness of my life.
Linux at work, Mac OSX at home. No Windows anywhere. Sheer bliss.
Re:PC to Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
FFS guys - we're in the middle of a malware swamp beyond the dreams of bad SF. Air force guys piloting drones even got infected. Windows 7 is slowly rising out of that swamp but even it sinks down under the weight of malware at times, with or without antivirus. Why pretend it's not happening?
Oh that's right, you only see one PC so think all the others must be like yours, and any problems you put down to idiots. The idiots are not the users, they are the developers that wrote applications that can only be run as Administrator or have the 1960s problem of buffer overflows or any of hundreds of other easily avoided vunerabilities.
KK11A (Score:2)
2K cache memory for the PDP-11/34a -- it made a *huge* difference!
Hard choice (Score:2)
This is a very hard choice, since it all depends on where your bottleneck is. I've done three different upgrades that have had a drastic effect on my, as the buzzwordy types would say, "experience":
- I upgraded my 20" (1280x1024) IBM CRT monitor to an Apple LCD (1680x1050) back in 2005. The difference was amazing.
- I upgraded my Linux gaming box (yes, you read that right) from 1GB RAM to 4GB RAM a few years back. Everything suddenly ran significantly smoother
- Not an upgrade, but I coughed up the extra doug
SSD for sure (Score:5, Interesting)
Without a doubt, the most notable increase in performance for me was installing an SSD. I replaced a ultra 320 15k scsi drive with an early model intel SSD and it was night and day. I have since upgraded again to a 128gb model crucial m4 and I am LOVING it!!
0ms access time, 400MB/s read 250MB/s write (with SATA3). The system is simply snappier and more responsive. I have never had a CPU uprgade, or anything else, make as much of a difference.
Upgrading laptops we had at work with crucial m4's recently has breathed life into 4 or 5 year old machines which people constantly complained were slow. With the 64GB version at about $110, its really the best "bang for your buck" that you can do.
Monitor and mouse (Score:2)
OS / SSD (Score:2)
I can't believe OS wasn't an option. Switching OSes was by far the best thing I have ever done in terms of increasing the overall satisfaction I had with my computer.
If this is strictly a hardware question though I'd have to go with SSD.
A better fan (Score:2)
Was kind of a pain on a CRT iMac, though...
Skipping a bunch of generations (Score:2)
I went from a Mac IIci (albeit with an 68040 accellerator board) to a G3, i.e. 8 years and about 4 generations in one go. That's a noticeable increase in performance.
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ALL of the Above (Score:2)
At different times I've done each of those upgrades, and each time it was "the best" upgrade I could do.
Long term... (Score:2)
I'm going to have to go with input device, my Logitech Trackman wheel. I bought its predecessor originally for $100 back in the early 90's and have made sure I have one on every computer I use since.
But every time I upgrade some component it seems like a great thing. Going from monochrome to color monitors was fantastic. Then from a 15" to a 21" to dual 21" monitors was great. I like the extra screen real-estate and desk space with my current dual 24" flat panels, but I still think the dual Eizo CRT's looke
Two system replacements in particular (Score:2)
In 2000, I stopped using Windows as my main desktop and switched to Red Hat Linux (and later Fedora for a brief while). Then in late 2003 I switched from Linux to OS X on the desktop. In terms of getting my work done, both of these steps were improvements on what I was doing previously.
Note that Linux is still my server OS of choice, and likely always will be.
The Ram's Skull, of course (Score:3)
+++Out Of Cheese Error ???????+++
Redo from Start
Pulling out the old 8086 (Score:2)
...and replacing it with a new, faster NEC-V20 microprocessor. I don't know if I actually got more speed and power, but I was tickled to death with myself for doing the transplant.
Tossing all computers in trash (Score:2)
As an upgrade strategy, it seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. Of course, my addiction won out. I now have portables and pads with no cure in sight.
Uninteruptable Power Supply (Score:2)
Rural power grid tends to mean brownouts on a regular basis. Now I just laugh at them.
2nd Hardest Upgrade: (Score:2)
Inserting 36 dual-inline-package ram chips into my motherboard. Then doing it all over again after I installed all them upside down by mistake. It was a 386/20 I wish I could remember the company.
Hardest Upgrade: Putting RAM in a Mac Mini. Now THAT was hard. I cannot -believe- how hard that was. It was documented to be a two person job.
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You'll be happy to know the current generation mac minis are a breeze to upgrade the RAM on. There is a bottom cover that twists open to reveal the RAM slots.
I can totally relate to upgrading RAM on the previous generation minis. We utilize a lot of minis at work so I got pretty good at it using a box cutter, putty knife, and a few small screw drivers in about 20 mins. It's still something I hate doing though.
Same answer as always (Score:2)
the one I just did.
Complete System Upgrade (Score:2)
Back in 1998 I bought my first OEM system:
P2 400
128MB of RAM
8GB HDD
DVD ROM
Which was a huge boost from my parents 486DX4 (AMD Overdrive) with its amazing 24MB of RAM and 500MB of disk space.
The next biggest jump was in 2009, when I went from a:
Shuttle SN25P (nForce4)
2GB DDR SDRAM
Athlon64 3200+
250GB HDD
MSI GeForce 6800GT 512MB GDDR2
to
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
12GB DDR3 SDRAM
Intel Core i7 920
150GB 10K RPM Boot Drive + 2TB RAID0
Sapphire 4870 1GB GDDR3
Since then I upgraded some small bits:
Crucial M4 256GB SSD (still hav
Old Model M keyboard (Score:2)
1996 era IBM Model M keyboard. Replaced the membrane crap that I had prior. Best typing experience you'll ever have, and if someone breaks into your house, you can use it as a blunt instrument to defend yourself. (then type out the report for the police dept).
College - First Job (Score:2)
IBM-1130 -> IBM-3033
Getting a computer (Score:2)
mine (Score:2)
Tie for most noticeable upgrades:
1. 2400 baud modem to 14.4k baud modem. The BBS text just flew!
2. 56k modem to a cable modem. Can't remember the bandwidth on the cable account, but it was a couple order of magnitudes faster than the modem.
3. Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Not having to run Trumpet Winsock any more = ZOMG THANK YOU.
Operating system (Score:2)
my laptop was dead and unused until i swapped the hard disk and put a nix distro on it. now i use it all the time, as i'm forced to learn bash.
Missing option: (Score:2)
A really good slide rule.
obviously... (Score:3)
However, as far as upgrades go, RAM usually gives best bang for buck. If in doubt, drop 1-2 grades on CPU and double your RAM with the money (which is generally aroudn the same cost, on typical consumer levels of hardware). You won't regret it.
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I think those were the first computer components that actually made me hard.
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My brother in law worked for a warehouse that dealt with returned software and (every now and then) hardware.
He hooked me up with a Voodoo and a box full of games back when I was in high school. Score.
Though that was certainly a great upgrade, I'll still have to say that going from a crappy small CRT to a nice large LCD is the best upgrade ever.
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http://club.dealextreme.com/forums/Forums.dx/Forum.-206~threadid.444554
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Odd. Depends on the hardware for me.
In general I've found Linux (with Gnome, or if sufficient memory, KDE) to perform similarly to Windows on most standard desktop tasks. The exception is with systems that have integrated video / shared memory. On these the UI of Linux was much slower than Windows on any computationally heavy tasks. Mind you, I haven't used such a system in a while 3-4 years, so problem could well be gone)
Linux never compelled me much away from windows. FreeBSD however... On the software si
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Probably the biggest thing that makes linux seem so much better than windows to the newcomer is when the newcomer has so much crap installed on his/her windows install (or just has a slow version like vista), and suddenly, a clean linux distro unlocks the full potential of their hardware. Stopped me from throwing out the Pentium 4 a few years ago, hell, its still going stronger than some people's Core 2s today. Makes me cry.
Re:It isn't a computer part but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any fresh code monkey who hasn't yet ruined their spine sitting in the crappiest office chair an accountant could find should go out immediately and get the best ergonomical chair money can buy. If the company won't pay for it then buy it yourself. An $800 chair is nothing compared to how intensely awful back pain will be.
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$800 is a bit much, my current chair cost me less than a hundred, shipping included, and I've never had a more comfortable chair. It's improved my posture and strengthened the muscles surrounding my core.
I probably could have gone even cheaper and just gotten the ball without the rest of the chair.
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Same with a bed. My bed cost more than my car and it's worth every penny compared to the pain.
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Maybe you just have a weak back? I've been sitting in crappy chairs for 30 years. My back is fine. OR maybe you smoke? that will eat away at you disks as well.
You sound more like someone who thinks their purchases are good because they cost a lot of money.
Or maybe I am just more active.
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Perhaps, but more likely he is more active. Half an hour of the right sort of exercise each day will cure most chronic back pain (not to mention the many other benefits). If exercise doesn't help see a doctor: there is something more wrong with you than flabbiness.
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I aldso don't believe in (expensive) desk chairs. They don't help against backaches. I think it's even more likely you will get backaches sooner if you use them, because they force you to stay in the same position for long periods of time. You have to stay active and come out of that chair every now and then if you don't want pains.
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Right, which is one of the nice things about just sitting on a ball. You're body has to keep moving a bit which allows the fluids that have to get into the discs to get there and reduces the likelihood of your back locking in one position.
No matter how expensive the chair is, it's not going to do anything for your discs. At most it will supplement your weak core.
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Getting off that chair once every hour (at least) is what helps best against back aches. Get off, walk a few steps, get back down, that's enough to loosen up everything and prevent further problems.
Oh and proper posture of course also helps a lot. That's what helped me get rid of quite some pains.
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I switched to a smaller case with quieter fans and fewer LED's. Now, my computer doesn't keep me awake.
Or upgrade your house, so your bedroom can be a bedroom.
Changed OS (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's what I said! The number one best upgrade you can do to make your system snappier.
Also, the video card is one of the most important things to consider when buy a notebook computer.
I upgrade computers at work every year and I see the performance gains, CPUs & RAM barely make a difference anymore at a reasonable price-point.
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Those were the days...
After using a KayPro for quite a while (and being mightily disappointed at the performance of the 4.77MHz 8088), seeing a 6MHz AT buzz through Turbo Pascal code was awe inspiring.
BTW, what did you do with 4MB RAM way back when? Use it as a RAM disk?
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Ah. I was thinking more in the 1988 time range.
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Nothing like building a new system, so every five years I completely rebuild mine from the ground up along with new accessories and monitor. I miss the day's when I was a system builder plus it's alot of fun.
About 5 year intervals something completely dies in mine and I have to upgrade/replace. Motherboard became so flaky I finally shopped around for another one. Hard to find AGP motherboards, but I got a new-in-box replacement and it's settled down for now. Still running a single core Athlon 64, 2GB, 2x80GB HDD, 2x160GB HDD.
Eyeballing a major upgrade, though. Something I can do some video editing with, which my present rig is a tad slow at.
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Apple use to have a CRT that would rotate on the fly. It was extremely cool, for the time.