What's the best PC upgrade you've ever made relative to the money you spent?

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elliot1246@reddit

Going from 1080p to 4k oled. I didn’t know anything could looks this good

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SoundSwitch@reddit

Multi channel RAM.. and checking out how much bus throughput a graphics adapter has. Latency is a thing too

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thvnderfvck@reddit

The difference from HDD to SSD can't be exaggerated, I really don't see how there can be another answer unless it's from someone that has never known having HDD.

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Mine was a DAC/AMP for sure. I already had good headphones, but the onboard soundcard can only do so much and I was leaving a metric ton of performance on the table. Once I got it all set up and balanced correctly, it was a truly emotional experience. Almost as if I had never heard music before.

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Abuelofierrero@reddit

The change from HDD to SSD.

Almost irreal difference.

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photogdog@reddit

Getting my first real graphics card: a Voodoo Banshee. Half-Life actually ran!
Installing my first SSD over a decade later. No more clicking and hitching when loading things!
Upgrading from dial-up to DSL.

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elonelon@reddit

used DDR4 4GB for my AIO, cheap AF less than $10 last year before AI booming. With extra 4GB ( 4+4 ) it use less ssd for as swap.

used M.2 NVME 128GB for my AIO and as external USB, again cheap AF before AI booming. Install Ventoy on external USB for easy multi boot if i want to load Linux live cd or windows installer, no need to format this USB like rufus, easy to use, support UEFI and Legacy bios.

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Niwrats@reddit

most new PCs in the 90s as the progress was incredibly fast.

for single parts, i'd say the switch from a ball mouse to an optical mouse was big if you played multiplayer fps games.

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TheArmchairSkeptic@reddit

Or RTS, for that matter. I climbed over 100 spots in like 2 weeks on the StarCraft ladder after I got an optical mouse, and I was already top 1000 to begin with. The difference was insane, felt like I was cheating or something.

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Sue_Generoux@reddit

I didn't know what an SSD was until a coworker in IT explained. The same week, I bought one from Newegg. I think they were a dollar a gigabyte then. So about $120 for a 128GB drive?

(Which, yeah yeah, I know the way things are going right now, it's hard to talk about how expensive they were then.)

For straight up bang for the buck there is no comparison going from platter drive to SSD.

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Biduleman@reddit

I've been a SSD advocate since 2011.

When I was a tech at Staples, it's insane the number of people who would come in to buy a new computer because there's was too slow, and when I looked at their specs I'd just say in a hushed tone "If you just change your hard drive for a $200 SSD your computer will be as fast as this $800 one, we can do all the work in store for $350 total, you're saving $450" (I know.

What's more insane was the number of people who told me "no I want the newer computer", trading a i7 from last gen to a i5 of this gen, STILL WITH NO SSD. (these were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen days where you wanted the cores more than the uptick in generation)

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grump66@reddit

STILL WITH NO SSD

I used to build a LOT of computers from used parts. They were always good, solid gaming pc's, but gen's old. I once had a guy come to look at a pc I'd built, it was a pretty strong build with an i7/ssd/mid grade gpu. We tried it out and I showed him what it could do then asked what he was upgrading from. He told me a newer gen i5, and same level gpu. I said straight up: "Don't buy this computer from me, you'll be disappointed, it won't be any better than what you have." Guy insisted he wanted it, he knew the i7 would be so much better.

A week later, he emails me, bitching and moaning about how its no better than what he had, and will I take it back. HA!, was my answer. Out of over 400 computers built and sold, he was/is the only person who wasn't happy and wanted to return the computer I'd built.

People don't listen.

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EGGlNTHlSTRYlNGTlME@reddit

LPT: if a salesperson is trying to talk you out of a sale, even mildly or gently, you are in the process of fucking up

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Grexxoil@reddit

For straight up bang for the buck there is no comparison going from platter drive to SSD.

I am conflicted between this and 3d accelerators in the 90s

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hautcuisinepoutine@reddit

Going from software rendering to a 3dfx voofoo was an insane jump at the time. No contest imho.

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Uberrings@reddit

Every time I fired up Tropico 1 I was reminded that those cards used to exist and it's always a nice reminder lol

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psynrg@reddit

Exactly this. As soon as SSDs became widely available I proceeded to replace all mechs with SSDs in our organisation. I looked like a total wizard when everyone's desk/laptops suddenly felt like brand new super fast PCs. The knock on effect was exposing poor LAN performance and roaming profile lag.

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Sue_Generoux@reddit

roaming profile lag.

I developed an involuntary eye twitch just reading those words.

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steelbeamsdankmemes@reddit

I had one in the XP days, it loaded in literally 1 second.

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yourname92@reddit

SSD of any kind is the biggest difference.

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poofyhairguy@reddit

I put a 128GB SSD in 2010 I got for a stupid low price on EBay (for then and maybe now) in an overclocked Nvidia ION HP311 netbook and it felt faster than any other laptop I used from that time period despite and Atom processor. It was all HD vs SSD plus a good video decoder, kinda like a MacBook Neo today.

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psykal@reddit

Sometimes I think people chase major hardware upgrades when a smaller change can have a bigger impact on the overall experience.

So that's why you posted the thread? Also some people don't. Profound statement. Not everyone is as smart with their money as you are.

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313Wolverine@reddit

OLED monitor. I'll never go back.

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jameslolman@reddit

For everyone without an OLED, you should compare your phone to your current monitor and see if the difference is worth how ever much it costs in your country. I personally upgraded and regret it, on the basis that all text looks like crap and it genuinely wasn't a big enough upgrade to my m27q to justify the little out of pocket money I spent.

Lowkey 170hz to 280hz was the bigger difference lol

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ShinyMoogle@reddit

For the longest time, I thought OLEDs were overrated. My monitor was fine, I didn't need to worry about burn-in, and for the price I could get a better graphics card and play with higher settings which was surely better than some nonsense about blacker blacks. People were probably just being graphics snobs.

Then I got an OLED. And... yeah. I'm a convert now. The colors, the contrast, everything just looks nicer. Like putting on glasses for the first time and realizing what you could have been seeing this whole time.

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Odom12@reddit

Switching from HDD to SSD

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Zildjian134@reddit

3800x/3070 --> 9800x3D/5070ti but that's obvious.

The true sleeper QoL upgrade in that switch was going from 1440p 144hz LED to a 1440p 240hz QD-OLED. Such a massive game changer n

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munzter@reddit

Getting a Riva TNT back in 1998

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ZdzisiuFryta@reddit

Adaptive sync

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wtfnst@reddit

got a 3090 for like $800 new on sale sold my 2080 for $300. thing is still ripping games at 3840x1600 pretty much no problem.

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Firebelley@reddit

My answer is always the same - a lightbar. This needs to be more well known.

It's an LED lamp that sits on top of your monitor and illuminates your desk area. It saves a ton of room on your desk, provides ample lighting, and is relatively cheap depending on which model you get.

It was one of those things where once I found out about it I could not believe it wasn't more popular. This is going to become a staple of every setup I have.

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Old_Minimum_9284@reddit

2×8 gB de ram à 2×32 gB, ddr4 3200Mhz, pour 100 euros...

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ari5501@reddit

Don't know if this really counts but I'll mention it anyway. I work from home, so I have my laptop on the same desk as my gaming PC. Every evening I'd need to unplug my mouse / keyboard from the laptop, go under my desk, and plug it into the back of my desktop. Then every morning I'd have to do the same but in reverse.

I finally bought a $13 dongle that plugs into both computers and lets you switch with the click of a button. Such a huge quality of life improvement.

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NotShane7@reddit

Recently upgraded to a 21:9 oled from a 16:9 VA panel and the improvement in immersion, colours and motion smoothness is so nice. When you get a new gpu your frames go up, but with a new montor you can visually see the upgrade. Didn't even realise my old monitor's "red" was actually orange until I had them side by side.

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Choice-Recognition-6@reddit

since i am not so long into PCs as many other commenters i had an pc with ssds and ram since the start, for me it was definetly from 60 hz 1080p monitor to 144hz 1440p. recently swaped from that to 240 hz Oled, and i have to say oled feels very good too, but the jump was not as big

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FlyLikeAHedgehog@reddit

Probably going from an Intel Pentium 166 MMX to an AMD K6-2 450 Mhz. Amazingly, that was in the same motherboard.

Later, I had one of those Celeron 300's that ran perfectly stable at 450 Mhz. Also extremely good value.

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BlaxeTe@reddit

Switching from non-X3D to X3D processor was at least a 20-30% performance bump for my 1440p system on a 3090.

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tigerscomeatnight@reddit

28.8k modem to 56k modem

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hi_im_snowman@reddit

I bought a brand new 8TB Samsung 9100 PRO nvme drive for $780 CAD a few months ago. It’s like generational wealth at this point lol

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Jurisprudenced@reddit

For me it was walking into microcenter and finding a pre-built 5090 open box with all of the protective film still on the case.

Great computer once I fixed the wifi issue.

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Skullduggory@reddit

One of the first large capacity (at the time) SSDs I bought was a 1TB Samsung 860 Evo m.2 for $330. Amazon lost my package and gave me the option to repurchase, so I did. They accidentally sent me two, then 4 weeks later I received the lost package. I used two of the drives and sold one for $250. I loved those things and when I got rid of them after around 4 years of reasonable use, the drive health was still around 90% for both. Spending $80 for two 1TB drives felt like winning the lottery

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rchiwawa@reddit

The Sony FW900 i picked up gently used in the late 2000s is up there but I gotta go with either my first SSD or my first GPU... a brand new Orchid Righteous 3D w/ 4mb of sweet, sweet EDO ram

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MWink64@reddit

I think it's kind of funny you tout the EDO RAM (which wasn't all that desirable on a video card) while leaving out that it was a Voodoo chip. BTW, depending on what definition of GPU we're using, that card may not qualify. GPU was often used to refer to 3D accelerators with hardware T&L, famously introduced with the Nvidia GeForce 256 (and ATI Radeon).

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rchiwawa@reddit

You're absolutely right but the kiddies probably didn't know the difference. The original Radeon was my first GPU & non 3dfx as the RIVA 128 drivers scared me off from nV until, of all their chips, a Fermi based card.

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Nickanoms88@reddit

Went from 60hz ips 24inch to 32inch OLED G81SF Went from a 1080ti to 4070ti oc.

A few other upgrades like SSD and 64gb ddr5 cl30 but those 2 were the standout features for me.

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Heretic817@reddit

24" 1080p 60Hz TN< 27" 1440p 144Hz IPS. That was years ago but easily the best upgrade for the money.

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Kardlonoc@reddit

I got in early on DD5 RAM this late last year lol.

But seriously, I upgraded my very old desktop, and while GHz on a single core didn't increase the L-cache, the upgrade was huge.

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Drakengard@reddit

Without a doubt, it would be SSDs. Going from old physical platters to just flash memory was just a whole new experience. Suddenly the audible creaking seek action of a drive pivoted to a smooth nearly instantaneous (by comparison) action. Response times through the roof.

The only things that come close was seeing the internet move from 56k phone line setups to actual cable internet and moving to a quality high refresh rate monitor setup. But the whole internet was evolving rapidly in real time as I went through school to the point where 56k was around but practically a blip to most of us.

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ultraboomkin@reddit

OLED monitor

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VegaDelalyre@reddit

Adding RAM, I suppose.

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EstablishmentNo3469@reddit

For me it was replacing me SSD to nmve m.2.

The difference was huge

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PogTuber@reddit

Not really? Unless something was seriously wrong with your sata SSD, or or was seriously cheap or your system was throttling it for some reason , you would have a hard time noticing the difference between Windows or games performance between a SATA SSD and a NVME drive.

I still have a 1tb SATA SSD that still has games on it.

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EstablishmentNo3469@reddit

Huh, weird. Windows boot time went from 15seconds to 3 seconds or so lol

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PogTuber@reddit

Well, that's awesome though

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Wolfey1618@reddit

That's... Odd. Really shouldn't be much of a noticeable upgrade

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Hetstaine@reddit

Me going from an onboard geforce2 setup in 2003 to an ati9600xt. Then going from 256mb of ram to a 1gb stick. Both actually massive gains. Next was hdd to ssd.

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Sam5253@reddit

In my own purchases, it's got to be the SSD upgrade too. But when I was young, my dad replaced our Intel 80286-based pc with a 80486. WOW, what a difference!

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Which_Football9376@reddit

Going from a 60 Hz TN panel to a 144 Hz IPS was my “ohhh so this is what I’ve been missing” moment. Games felt smoother, mouse input felt cleaner, even just moving windows around looked better. Honestly made a mid range GPU feel high end.

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DarkflowNZ@reddit

In that same vein, buying a display port cable so I could actually USE my 144hz monitor since at the time HDMI couldn't do it. Best ~$40 I ever spent lol. I still have the monitor too, it's my secondary now. The Asus vg248qe

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antCB@reddit

Also have one of these in storage.

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General-Gold-28@reddit

> $40 display port cable

Uhh what? Is it like 30 feet long?

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aintnotmisbehavin@reddit

Wait until this guy finds out how much they used to charge for HDMI cables

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IAMA_Plumber-AMA@reddit

Get the Monster ones with gold plated contacts and low-oxygen copper! It adds 5 FPS!

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FemboiTomboy@reddit

what is the most common problem you find with household kitchen sinks?

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IAMA_Plumber-AMA@reddit

Oddly enough, people putting straws down the drain.

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chaseair11@reddit

the fuck? where do they think they go?

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ThePrussianGrippe@reddit

You’re a fool!

You forgot to upsell them on the 6 month warranty for an extra $89.99!

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IAMA_Plumber-AMA@reddit

NINETY NINE NINETY NINE NINETY NIIIINE!

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DarkflowNZ@reddit

No it was 2013 and in New Zealand. And it was probably more like $30 but I can't remember and just guessed

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Nyuusankininryou@reddit

I agree. So much value.

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Jmazoso@reddit

1070

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rossfororder@reddit

I recently went from an old 60hz va panel to 144hz IPS and holy shit everything is brighter and cleaner and beautiful

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antCB@reddit

HDD to SSD, 75hz LCD to 144hz, and more recently R53600 to R7 5700x3d.

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ChromeKaos@reddit

Personally, I have never used a pc with a dedicated gpu. Been gaming mostly on console for the majority of my life, with expections to games that could run on Intel’s integrated graphics such as Battlefront 2 2005. Currently am building a budget gaming pc and I believe I’m in for a shocked (not too much of a shocker tho) now that I have an LP 3050.

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retzrets@reddit

From 8gb VRAM to 24gb VRAM. It was mindblowing for me, I can now render my projects and game at the same time. Only drawback is higher temps but can be managed with airconditioning 😁

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latending@reddit

GTX 1050 to GTX 1660 Super.

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nixhomunculus@reddit

HDD to SSD.

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nesnalica@reddit

i6 6700K and GTX 970 -> Ryzen 7 5800x3D RTX 3090

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IllMC@reddit

I'm on a i7 6700K now. Want to upgrade but so not feasible for me right now. I can't wait though it's gonna be so good.

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nesnalica@reddit

to give you some perspective.

going from 6th gen i7 to the 5800x3D is a massive leap.

getting a used i7 8700 or i7 10700 PC is already a good upgrade. since youre moving from 4 cores to 6 or 8.

modern games like battlefield6 benifit from 8core CPUs compared to the older 4cores.

you can get a used PCs with an 10th gen i7 without a GPU for like $400 which is a relly good deal.

pair it with a 9060XT or 5060Ti and you can play games in 4k 60fps if you lower the settings.

counterstrike 2 for instance, will run at 300+ fps. its awesome.

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liggieep@reddit

i just went from 6600k/1080 to 7600x3d/5070. its like i can breathe again

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Neoma_Quillin@reddit

For me, going from a single monitor to a double monitor really improves my productivity. Additionally, buying a proper office chair that is not a "gaming chair" really reduces back pain.

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iszoloscope@reddit

The answer is always SSD replacing a HDD, although going from a 23" 1080p 60Hz monitor to a 27" 1440p 144Hz one was a huge jump as well.

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ayashiii@reddit

Had a Ryzen 7 8700F, ordered a 7800X3D, saw it had been opened and amazing allowed me a no return refund so it was free. Works fucking good man

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sjw_7@reddit

Replacing the boot drive with an SSD when they first became available was a huge change.

The other was when I had an 8086 PC with dual 3.5inch disc drives we added a 42mb hard card and being able to run things without having to constantly change the disc was amazing.

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Yeet3579@reddit

rx7800xt from integrated graphics

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iceseayoupee@reddit

Going from single to dual channel ram

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Axyl@reddit

i went from 1080p @60Hz to 1440p @240Hz.

Life changing <3

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Scooter30@reddit

Upgrading to Windows 2000 from Windows 98 was pretty nice. Much more stable,and I didn't need to reinstall about every 6 months.

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Serious-Affect-8538@reddit

Going from a i5 2400 to a i7 2700K. My friend still has my old i7 2700K with my old rx 580 8GB and he's playing his games at solid 50 - 70fps.

I don't know what he's playing except for genshin, but he likes the setup.

I loved that setup! My favourite combo all time.

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WorriedSmile@reddit

Going from an Athlon XP 4400+ to an Athlon 64 X2 3800. The improved responsiveness in Windows from having dual cores was awesome.

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MWink64@reddit

I'm pretty sure the fastest Athlon XP was the 3200+.

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WorriedSmile@reddit

Faulty memory recall, it was a AthlonXP 2000+. I replaced the X2 3800 with a X2 4400 (AM2). Will edit my earlier post.

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TheRtHonLaqueesha@reddit

Switching from USB WiFi to MoCA Coax. Quadrupled my speeds.

Back in DDR2 days (2009), adding more RAM. Just a couple GB and I noticed a big improvement in gaming performance.

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Obone6@reddit

Power supply

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ScopezX@reddit

In like 2014 I opened a CS:GO case (Operation Breakout) with a butterfly knife in it. I sold that for about €300 and bought all the skins that I wanted for basically all my most used guns.

Ten years later I noticed that some of my skins had increased ten-fold in value. I managed to sell all my most valuable skins on a 3rd party site for about €1 200 total.

Used the money to get a new motherboard (ASRock x870 Riptide), a new CPU (Ryzen 7 9800X3D) and RAM (Corsair Vengeance 32 GB).

A couple of months later the CS2 skin market was gutted with the trade-up update and all skins lost a ton of value. Conversely all PC parts, in particular RAM, skyrocketed in price. For example my RAM was €135 and is now €625.

Best decision I have ever made when it comes to PC building.

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Kryptus@reddit

5090

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zulunationslayer@reddit

I don't know if this counts but my very best PC purchase was an electric duster.

I got a Metro ED500 DataVac about 15 years ago and it's been more useful than any single computer part.

Cleaning my PCs quickly and easily has been the best money I have ever spent in relation to my PC experience.

The only negative thing about using it is that it's strong and if you have a case with tons of fans you have to be mindful that you keep them from rotating. Otherwise it's treasure.

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josoap99@reddit

I upgraded my r9 280x and 60hz monitor to a brand new 1070 and a 144hz tn monitor in one go. Blew my tiny mind

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drigocien12@reddit

I upgraded from an i5 7500 with integrated graphics to an amd ryzen 5 5500 with a 5060ti for only 500 bucks

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thequn@reddit

Going from a gaming resolution of 800/600i in diablo2 in 2001 to 1920/1080i 2years later 2003

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MWink64@reddit

I have trouble believing the interlaced part. I never knew anyone in the VGA era who ran their monitor interlaced. It looked horrendous.

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thequn@reddit

I could be miss remembering it. But I could have sworn by huge ass cry was interlaced.

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MWink64@reddit

If it was a big CRT, that makes it even less likely. Interlacing was usually only necessary if pushing a CRT to its highest resolution. That would be something like 1600x1200 on a 17" (or maybe 19") CRT. Even a small 14-15" should be able to do 800x600 at 60Hz (progressive). Regardless, interlacing looked terrible on a CRT monitor.

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fapimpe@reddit

Having a very nice mouse and keyboard make the computer just FEEL better. All you have is the inputs to control the PC. I'd also mention a 32" curved monitor here but we're talking about price. Currently using a Ducky Mech Keyboard and a Ducky Mouse.

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Disastrous-Engineer2@reddit

Anyone saying anything other than HDD>SSD and 60 HZ screen to 144 or whatever, is just lying.

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Sephalus@reddit

Going from a budget mouse, to a quality ergonomic mouse. Suddenly discovered that hand cramps were optional.

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Isotope_Junkie@reddit

Upgrading to 32GB RAM when the RAM prices were peanuts and when people would laugh at me for doing that. I now regret for not getting those additional 32GB last year (when I was very close in deciding to get them) just because I didn’t want system to run the memories at slower speeds by populating all the channels 😏.

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ACS1029@reddit

When I built my computer in June last year, I initially planned on getting 32GB of RAM instead of 16, but since my old gaming laptop had 16GB RAM, I was used to that and ended up using the extra money towards a slightly better CPU or something. I got 2x8GB sticks for 20 bucks.

Throughout the summer I planned on upgrading the RAM, but kept upgrading different things, a better mouse, a new keyboard, stuff that was more “needed”. Then RAM prices skyrocketed and my $20 RAM was now $120.

It wasn’t till January I got lucky and found the exact same RAM on eBay new listed for 70 bucks; I hated spending that much but it was still a “good” deal. Yeah I’ve got all 4 channels occupied but I finally got my upgrade lol

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Orallover1960@reddit

Yeah, I upgraded my laptop to 32gb about two years ago. Now that it's Ramageddon I am very happy.

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SpicySausageFst@reddit

Going from a 386SX to a 486DX4 intel processor. Whoa you should've seen those POV-ray trace scenes render with that bad boy. Under 60 seconds a frame for full 320x200 resolution.

Like butter.

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MWink64@reddit

I went from a 386SX-16 to a Pentium 75. It was quite an upgrade.

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SaintJunnie@reddit

Not the best upgrade but relative to money my new $15 glass mousepad has been amazing, glad I waited til options this cheap are available. Best overall would be my SSD as well, using any machine booting off an HDD feels almost unusable now.

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CleverFauxFox@reddit

Switching from an FX-6300 to an Intel i5-6600k

That freedom from microstutter and an educational experience in the bulldozer series.

Wouldn't do it any differently. That whole DIY kit back that had everything for $500 and what a deal id come to realize that was compared to now.

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themothafuckinog@reddit

IPS to OLED

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vorlinek@reddit

Bought 34" QD-OLED. I cannot going back now to the IPS/VA panels anymore..

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supafly208@reddit

For games, monitor with a higher refresh rate. Shit is so smooth. Just make sure the graphics card you have can output the frames you want (or upscale and use frame Gen)

For regular computer use.... Not sure... Things have been smooth for a long time. SSD, good RAM (be sure to set it to the marketed speed), that's about it.

But... A good chair. Good is relative. Whatever feels good for you.

I tried a fancy office chair, a secret lab one, and the liber novo. Kept the secret lab one even though it's edgelord cheesy because I like how the seat rocks back with the backrest as opposed to the slidey mechanics the others have. Comfortable for upright gaming or can lean it back and use the leg rest thing for controller gaming. Love it.

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Hosierman@reddit

My first 4mb 3dfx card, literally game changer

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Trustydevil13@reddit

Making the jump to am5 with a 7800x3d. Made the biggest difference in my games and projects. A lot of them are cpu heavy.

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Unlucky_Individual@reddit

Monitor: 1440p IPS 165hz to 1440p OLED 240hz

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xdesm0@reddit

I feel like I made it in the last helicopter out of viet nam when I bought my new pc may last year. Just seeing the prices of ram and ssd makes me nauseous.

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foggeenite@reddit

Mini-LED.
I'll say that for both my computer monitor and especially my TV, investing in mini-LED has been a true level up and QoL improvement for a cost that hurts far less than OLED.

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Zeejay421@reddit

Prob my 3DFX Voodoo back in the 90s

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505gearhead@reddit

Alien vs predator on a voodoo… the good ole days..

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kermityfrog2@reddit

Yeah any sort of upgrades back in the day were logarithmic - like an order of magnitude (10x) increase at least. Nowadays the technology has slowed down so much, this computer doesn't feel that much faster than the 10+ year old computer it replaced.

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Grexxoil@reddit

Yep, definitely one of the candidates.

Quake was something...

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Cellist_Acceptable@reddit

Going from a 60hz 720p monitor to 165hz 1080p gaming monitor. It was amazing!

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ocxtitan@reddit

dedicated GPU, HDD to SSD, dialup to broadband, 60hz to 144hz (then now to 240hz OLED)

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jbolts2024@reddit

Last second upgrading from 32GB of RAM to 64GB right before starting my build. About a month later RAM prices sky rocketed to what they are now. That and also deciding to go from a 5070 to a 5070ti.

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DragonGodPadron@reddit

60 HZ to 144 in 2017 for PUBG. It was like playing a different game.

Besides that, same year, getting my 8700k and overclocking it to 5.1. I still have that cpu on a rig.

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Warcraft_Fan@reddit

56k dialup to cable. Updating games in early 2000 like Everquest went from half a day to under half an hour.

$10 a month to $50 a month but I got to *ahem* get free anime video as well.

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SoVerySick314159@reddit

Jesus, I started out on 300 baud! You're right though, switching from 56k dialup to cable was the online equivalent of switching from HDD to SSD. Just such a tremendous, obvious boost. Amazing.

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Bottless@reddit

OLED 240hz panel. The blacks are SO black. Really great for movies.

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Sephonjay@reddit

I bought a deepcool AK400 a while back for $25~ ; that was when I found out that cpu had been throttling everytime I game, went from a stuttery mess to an actual playable experience.

Lesson learned - If you live in a place where it can get pretty hot (SEA), a cpu cooler that isn't stock is easily the best bang for your buck purchase you can get.

[-]

Kavika@reddit

New monitor is the only correct answer

[-]

daneboy83@reddit

Extended power switch so I can power my computer on from a more convenient place.

[-]

YuS0Dum@reddit

Enable power on from usb in the bios and it will turn on with the press of any button on your mouse or keyboard.

[-]

daneboy83@reddit

But then I'm one earthquake away from having my mouse turn on my computer in the middle of the night. Bay Area living for yah.

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YuS0Dum@reddit

I just use my mouse's power switch when I'm not using it.

[-]

GloriousKev@reddit

Building a nas for mass storage instead of paying for cloud storage and then piling on a ton of movies, tv shows and music to it. Then setup Navidrome and Jellyfin and I don't pay for Netflix, Hulu or Spotify anymore.

[-]

Alomare@reddit

HDD to SSD to DRAM SSD, 60hz to 180hz

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HentaiIsekai@reddit

A mouse that actually fits my hand. Every talks about brands they hate and brands they love and as it turns out a very hated model from Logitech is the best mouse I’ve bought, the G705

[-]

Demzel-Russianton@reddit

Moving on from X79 and X99 Xeon's to AM4 with Ryzen 5 5500X3D was a huge leap for me. Made an absolute night and day difference in the games I play. AM4 is absolute budget king right now.

[-]

No-Solid9108@reddit

Modded my Pentium 4 HT Mobo with different circuits . It was an HP running XP . Actually cut out some places of the board with a Lazer cutter and designed my own replacement circuit board with custom integrated components to improve how fast it could compute .

[-]

gremlinlabyrinth@reddit

When I upgraded my gtx 760 to a gtx 1070

But honestly, I’ve got to say a bigger difference was when I went from no gpu to my first gpu a gtx 460.

Obviously, I could tell you a lot of other pc parts that were higher improvements on paper

But going from a potato pc to an actual gaming pc was like night and day.

[-]

Dr__Sloth@reddit

Good headphones

[-]

Rainwalker28@reddit

Getting my first mech/he keyboard. I only used the cheapest membrane keyboards until this year. I spent about 180us after taxes & shipping. But I feel it is worth it after using it daily for months. Monsgeek m1 v5 tmr with astrolink switches.

[-]

_totalannihilation@reddit

Well. A coworker told me he would sell me a 3080 for 240 dollars which he did. I sold my 3060 for 200 after 4 months of using my 3080. Talk about an upgrade.

[-]

monetarydread@reddit

A 5090? I have been building pc's since the 486 days and I have never had such a large performance jump, even when I bought TOTL parts. I use VR headsets and always hated how my 4080 couldn't run a lot of games properly. I bought a 5090 and now I can run VR at a high enough resolution that it actually looks as crisp as a good 4k monitor instead of 1080p monitor like my 4080 was forced to run games at.

[-]

Duke8x@reddit

That's the dream right now for me. A 5070 with 7800x3d just isn't cutting it for UEVR games

[-]

Mithrandir_Earendur@reddit

750 Ti to 2060 Super.

Later it was the 2060 S to a 6950 XT

Both pretty large jumps from the prev. Both also entailed other upgrades so it's hard to compare directly, but these both each enabled a lot more than the prev. card.

[-]

Innsui@reddit

SSD & Monitor will be the biggest visual difference youll experience. After that it's probably CPU > RAM > GPU.

[-]

bricklab@reddit

Oh this is easy for me.

My ATI All In Wonder 9800 PRO with 128MB DDR and Hauppague Win TV. I watched cable TV and had DVR capabilities on my PC pre streaming and that wasn't even the best part. it was an absolute beast of a gaming card.

[-]

Drivebybilly@reddit

Going from a Commodore 64 300 baud modem to a 9600 practical peripherals modem in early 1990s

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United_Ad_9836@reddit

SSD

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NastyKnate@reddit

SSD by far. Back int eh day, buying the first Radeon as soon as it came out. That was huge.

[-]

Jedi-Mermaid-TARDIS@reddit

It's in process right now, but I'm excited by the prospect.

My home desk is a rat's nest of cables connecting my laptop with four external hard drives -- three of them powered through the USB connection.

I finally bought a fifth hard drive a few days, capacity significantly greater than the sum of the other drives, and I'm transferring files over to it for the next n days (n a floating point, value yet to be determined).

[-]

MundaneRent3322@reddit

Monitor hz upgrade and installing an ssd

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Jmazoso@reddit

Honestly, the EVGA 3080ti I got right at the start of Covid. It’s still kicking ass

[-]

PogTuber@reddit

What was the upgrade from? Because yeah i went 2070 to 3080 (10gb) and the 3080 is definitely the long running beast of that generation.

I sold it for a 5070Ti but... I didn't really need to.

[-]

Hetstaine@reddit

My 3080 was showing its age in several games, 5070ti was a definite upgrade.

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PogTuber@reddit

So far it's only been obvious to me in Cyberpunk but pretty much soon after i bought it i had no time to really play games so it hasn't stretched its legs at 4K yet.

I did get to use motion smoothing for Enshrouded though and it worked really well for that.

[-]

Hetstaine@reddit

Rdr2 with the updated textures mod and Dayz really pumped with motion smoothing, left my 3080 far behind. Fgx2 on Grayzone warfare as well with all settings maxed is plus 120 compared to barely 60-70 with some settings medium. Dcs, iracing, nearly every game i have played is just so much better. All 34" @ 1440p with my sims on a 49" 5120x1440.

3080 was good, but man, living the new card :)

[-]

row586@reddit

Upgrading from 2.4gz wifi card to 6E

[-]

SushiBump@reddit

Other than the jump to SSD back in like 2013, I honestly think going from 32gb to 128gb of ram on my work PC has resulted in the biggest qol change I've experienced.

[-]

Hairbear2176@reddit

Hard drive to SSD back in the day. It made every PC feel like a brand new system that was fast AF. I remember putting them in ancient laptops, they would run like a brand new system for years.

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AirricK@reddit

Pretty sure this one takes the cake. 32GB DDR5-6000 and a 7700X for less than $150

https://imgur.com/undefined

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Djs2013@reddit

M.2 nvme right on the board. Less clutter, & speed boost (relative to hdd).

[-]

zerostyle@reddit

What always surprises me is how big PC cases still are. It used to be that everything was separate (network card, hard drives, wi-fi, gpus) but now you can get almost all of it on a motherboard.

Mini-itx or smaller should really be the standard unless you need a full size GPU.

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DontKnowHowToEnglish@reddit

Naa dude I need space for expansions, ATX all the way

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Djs2013@reddit

Yup! I've built a few into mini-ITX cases and they worked out great. Even have decent airflow with zero issues.

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DontKnowHowToEnglish@reddit

Sold my 3060 for $300, bought a mint 6800XT for $390, it demolishes my old card, best $90 upgrade I've ever done.

Also the $120 5700x3d I bought on AliExpress, it got stuck in customs for a month and a half and Aliexpress automatically refunded me, literally the next day I got a call from customs telling me to go pick it up lmao, ended up paying $30 on taxes to retire it.

[-]

D-Alembert@reddit

Adding carry handles to the case

It's merely a nice upgrade, but relative to the money it cost (almost nothing) it's been fantastic value

[-]

Orallover1960@reddit

Costs less than a mediocre monitor??? Please tell me whrre you got a VR headset for < $200!

[-]

D-Alembert@reddit

You're thinking of a budget monitor. A mediocre monitor is more in the $300+ range

[-]

Orallover1960@reddit

$14 DP cable. I only recently learned why it was neccassary and bought one about 6 weeks ago. Of course the new PC with a 9800x3d and a 9070xt might have had something to do with it. But I was running my laptop with a 3070ti connected to my 1440p 165hz monitor with HDMI before I bought the desktop so I had a capable 1440p machine to start with.

[-]

cp_carl@reddit

Sound card and better speakers

[-]

KuuUkko@reddit

A monitor arm mount instead of using the built in mounts.

Made a huge impact on my posture and viewing angle.

[-]

ScottyBeans@reddit

Taking the time to finally set a custom fan curve in my bios

[-]

zeptillian@reddit

New GPU after 4 years.

Felt like getting a new PC.

[-]

emmfranklin@reddit

Nvme and mechanical keyboard

[-]

vav247@reddit

Probably my first upgrade: getting a 9800gt and tossing it in my HP prebuilt for 160 USD back in ‘08. More recently going from 3700x to 5700x3d for just 150 USD comes to mind.

[-]

CaptMcMooney@reddit

adding more ram back before it became really expensive.

Lian Li aio is probably my second best, i really really like not hearing my pc

[-]

zerostyle@reddit

First was a real GPU back in the early 2000s (things like 3dfx voodoo, geforce).

Second big leap was SSD's around 2014 (bought a 256gb)

Third has been Apple Silicon on 5nm which absolutely blew away intel after a decade of 5% performance gains.

[-]

OkShirt1995@reddit

Getting an OLED monitor changed it for me

[-]

dustin-dawind@reddit

16 GB of RAM for $31.99 in 2024.

[-]

kinisonkhan@reddit

Intel Pentium II 300mhz.

If the serial number said SL2W8, then it was basically a 450mhz CPU under clocked to 300mhz. Moving two jumper pins correctly clocked it at 450mhz, saving maybe $300 back in 1998.

[-]

m4tic@reddit

From booting from HDD to SSD in a new 2014 build. Before this time, I haven't built a PC since 2006/2007 when flash SATA disks were barely entering the mainstream, and they were super expensive. Think $500-$600 for a 64GB disk.

[-]

alkatori@reddit

Actually, a nice chair.

That's probably the best upgrade.

[-]

ProxySoxy@reddit

I went from a $50 Staples chair that gave me chronic back pain at the age of 18, to a $600 Aeron. My back pain went away, now I'm 32 and still have the same chair

[-]

nokei@reddit

igpu to dgpu on first family pc just plopped in the card and games that couldn't even be opened could be run.

[-]

BossHogGA@reddit

A different take, going from the 140mm Lian Li case fans that my case came with to Noctua fans. Computer runs cooler and is quieter too.

[-]

Tokena@reddit

Yeah, i used the cheaper Noctua Redux 140mm case fans for my last two builds and replaced the fans that came with my case and it has been worth it. They move allot of air and even at max RPM have a good sound profile. I will still use the higher end ones on a CPU air cooler or maybe an AIO radiator where static pressure it really counts.

[-]

HisAnger@reddit

Good pc speaker. Have the same one since 286

[-]

boredbutcool@reddit

Getting ryzen 7 5700x3d after many years on 3600. Playing competitive games mostly, and the difference is huge

[-]

hiirogen@reddit

It's kind of irrelevant now but back when most home computers had 5400RPM ATA-100 drives, I got a good deal on 2x 7200RPM ATA-133's. I also got a RAID card and made a RAID0 with them.

I don't know for sure how the speed of that setup compares to modern NVME etc but it just felt amazingly fast in those days.

[-]

drfreemanlv@reddit

Bought amd 5800x3d, what a time to be alive

[-]

SuperLuigi9624@reddit

I recently upgraded my CPU cooler for my i9-10900 and got a 30% performance uplift and that was like $35.

[-]

twisty77@reddit

Back in the day I went from a 5400rpm hdd to a ssd. Legit night and day difference

[-]

EfficientMongoose317@reddit

SSD, and honestly, it's not even close.

I've upgraded CPUs, GPUs, RAM, monitors, all of it. Nothing made my PC feel as dramatically different as moving Windows from a spinning hard drive to an SSD. The second place for me would be going from 8GB to 16GB RAM. Not as flashy as a new GPU, but it made everyday use so much smoother and stopped Chrome from trying to consume my entire system.

[-]

Bigjayj0705@reddit

As a an old time gamer who misses CRTs, the invention of Pulsar is simply magical.

[-]

tigerbreak@reddit

I had an HP Elitebook W model that was amazing for the time - i7, 16GB of RAM, a GeForce dGPU, great screen. It also had a SSHD (1TB platter drive with a 128GB NAND module for “fast caching”)

I spent like 350 bucks for an 256 GB mSATA drive and a 1TB SATA SSD and that thing was perfect. Probably my favorite windows laptop that I’ve owned, second overall to my MBP M5 Pro.

That gulf between spinning drives and SSDs is real.

[-]

pixel-sprite@reddit

8TB SSD for like $320.

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twd_2003@reddit

IPS to OLED

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pcguytx@reddit

Just recently upgraded to a 27" 1440p OLED monitor after upgrading my TV a few months prior. Now it's difficult to go back so I just use my LED monitor as the 2nd monitor.

[-]

defpat5@reddit

Spent $200 on 128 GB of 3200mhz DDR4 ram back in December of 2024. I had tons of Amazon gift cards from the holidays and figured to just be obnoxiously future proofed. Same ram would be $1000 today.

[-]

Kinetic_Strike@reddit

I think it's somewhere between multi-core processors and SSDs. Everything else has been incremental. But those are just an immediate jump, and honestly I'd rather have a single core CPU on an SSD versus a quad core on a HDD, so I guess SSD is the real answer.

Best bang for the buck was in 2005. Bought a refurbed Radeon X800XT PE 256MB (AGP) direct from ATI. They weren't really refurbs though, they all appeared to be brand new overstock from somewhere. Put an Arctic Cooling Silencer of some sort on it and ran that card for years.

Then a few years later, class action suit #1 went through, and I got the entire purchase price refunded.

A couple years after that one, class action suit #2 went through, and they sent out a free HD 4350 or something.

[-]

BrewingHeavyWeather@reddit

#1 Voodoo2. 'Nuff said.
#2 First SSD. Again, should be self-explanatory.
#3 Always buying more RAM than is technically, "enough," at any given time (so long as RAM costs are reasonable).
#4 Chair. Twas dirt cheap, at a thrift store, and I've yet to find another like it (I'd like one or two more similar ones, and one in better shape). Screw for height adjust, small stiff flat seat, no arms, spring-loaded back, and no lumbar support.
#5 Helping to pitch in, back in the 90s, to get our Winmodem-afflicted friend a hardware modem. No more lagging us all!

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G-T-R-F-R-E-A-K-1-7@reddit

Good quality Bluetooth headphones - the AUD$200 Sony over ear noise cancelling headphones have changed my life for the better even when not gaming and just looking for peace and quiet wherever I am.

[-]

Julio_Ointment@reddit

My thermalright CPU coolers were like 25 dollars and are easily the best performer cooler I've ever had

[-]

Lopsided_Engine_9254@reddit

Same as OP.. Upgraded to ssd’s in 2011. Two Intel 510s. The speed difference and system response was insane. And they still work!!!

[-]

BeefistPrime@reddit

Nothing can beat your first SSD in this category. Even if it was $120 for a 30gb SSD for windows in 2012 or whatever, it blew your mind.

[-]

PigSlam@reddit

HDD>SSD most likely.

Then again, I spent $300 on a Logitech Craft Keyboard and a Logitech MX Master 3 in 2019, and I'm still using them today, even though I've replaced the computers they connect to twice (I still have and use both of those computer, but not as my primary machine like these are my primary inputs. The MX Master 3 may have come along after the keyboard, but it was around that time. I got the MX Master 3 to replace an older MX Master mouse only because the MX Master 3 was USB-C instead of Micro USB. So per hour, this mouse/keyboard combo has been well worth it.

[-]

hiimswizzle@reddit

RTX 5060
I recently upgraded from GTX 1650 Super. I feel confident that I’ll be able to play a huge amount of AAA games in higher settings now.
I haven’t upgraded my cpu, which is Ryzen 5 3600. To reduce bottleneck, I hope that I would be able to upgrade before the year ends.

[-]

hiimswizzle@reddit

RTX 5060. I recently upgraded from GTX 1650 Super. I feel confident that I’ll be able to play a huge amount of AAA games in higher settings now.
Currently, I only have Ryzen 5 3600 as my cpu. I hope that I would be able to upgrade before the year ends.

[-]

p0lka@reddit

I went from using a bulky crt monitor at 100hz to a lost decade of 60hz flatscreens, urgh. Switching back to a 144hz monitor after that lost decade fulfilled me.

[-]

Mikaeo@reddit

OLED monitor, and it's not even remotely close. The pixel response times are insanely better, and insanely consistent across the entire range of fps the monitor can put out. Whether at 60 or 180 fps, the motion is nice and clear. This is vs my previous IPS monitor that I had to change modes on depending on which fps range I was playing in, in order to get that motion clarity.

[-]

Nervous-Assumption24@reddit

Going from a 1080p 60 Hz TN panel to a 1440p 144 Hz IPS monitor was like unlocking a cheat code. Games looked better, felt smoother and even just moving the mouse around the desktop was weirdly satisfying. Honestly after that, GPU and CPU upgrades felt way less dramatic.

[-]

fray_bentos11@reddit

Downloading losslessscaling for £6.

[-]

CrazyStar_@reddit

It sounds silly considering how expensive it was, but for me the 5090. No more tinkering or half measures, I can run whatever I want without worrying about performance and if things keep on going the way they are wrt resale, I’m liable to upgrade to a 6090 at minimal cost.

[-]

Noobitron12@reddit

Going from a 1660 super to an RTX 3060 4 or 5 years ago. Made me realize how bad that card was. 1660 super sounds like it would kick ass but it did not

[-]

justlikeapenguin@reddit

Going form a VA to an OLED has been game changing. Even staying at 1440p

[-]

JrkSoldierX@reddit

learning linux

[-]

RBJesus@reddit

GTX 1060 on an Alienware Laptop to a 4090 on a PC I built with an ultra wide. Shit blew my mind.

[-]

Mawk1@reddit

Intel Celeron 366 overclocked to 550. And getting my first SSD HD.

[-]

mglatfelterjr@reddit

Ram and SSD

[-]

Puiucs@reddit

way back in the day when we got a sound card in the 90s for my first PC. or when we went from iGPU (which was on the motherboard back then) to the Radeon 9250.

[-]

PogTuber@reddit

I first heard a PC with a sound blaster at someone's house who was playing Wolfenstein 3D. It instantly got me to beg my parents for one and i got it for Christmas.

I think i replayed every single game i had.

Ironically the free game that it came with (i think Indycar or something) did not actually work and no amount of file tweaking fixed it.

[-]

InfernoCRO@reddit

Going from 128mb ram to 512mb in 2004

[-]

RogLatimer118@reddit

Definitely going from a hard drive to an SSD.

[-]

AttorneyPotential@reddit

9070 xt

[-]

IWillAssFuckYou@reddit

$10 contact frame for my $12900k, $7 for Arctic MX-6 (as I was on old dried out Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for years) and an undervolt. Much better thermal performance. I'm still running the same CPU cooler as before btw (NH-D15).

Contact frame because LGA1700 bends over time (a frame will decrease temps by up to 10C). And also it's insane how aggressive motherboard vendors are with CPU voltage. My CPU runs 50W less when rendering and the render completes in times that are very similar or the same as before.