If you are a PC enthusiast, then you'll probably always remember that first PC. We all have fond memories of 'the one'. Depending on how old you are, that first PC may have been a gaming PC or even a workstation that housed a Pentium, Athlon or maybe even an Amstrad, BBC or IBM? Or something a little more modern like a Ryzen or Intel Core processor? With a little nostalgia, and a lot of fun, we asked our customers to tell us about (and show us photos of) their first love!
Before we get into the specs and pics, we want to say congratulations to our three winners!
Each of the three lucky winners will receive an MSI Vigor GK30 Combo RGB Mem-Chanical Keyboard and Mouse Bundle!
WINNERS!
- Roberta R. from Hounslow
- Greg T. from Barry
- Tristan S. from Huddersfield
Your First PC Specifications
"My first big & beautifully bulky purchase was a 2006 Dell Inspiron desktop" - Nadine from Glasgow
"My first PC was a machine my father bought for the whole family. A big white tower with an old Intel Pentium processor. I remember how my father stored information for his business on floppy disks after I managed to do a format C. I was about 7 years old and that is how I fell in love with Computers and Computer Science :)" - Roberta from Hounslow
"My first PC was the family's Dell Optiplex 466/L with a 486DX2/66. I can't remember the specs as it's so long ago but over the years we upgraded the RAM, HDD and added a Sound Blaster 16 and 2x CD-ROM. I remember playing everything from Catacomb Abyss, F1GP and Commander Keen through to multiple versions of MS Flight Sim, Civ 2, Doom, X-Wing, Strike Commander and Ultima 8 (which was unbelievably slow to load!). We used it for many years - it was very slow by we made the HUGE jump to a PII 300." - Richard from Darlington
"My first PC in 1981, was the tiny Sinclair ZX81, which had the ZX80A 8-but processor and 1kb RAM which was expanded to 16kb. This was followed In 1982, by the much improved CBM Commodore 64. Running a 1.02 MHz processor and 64 kb Ram. This was upgraded with a cassette deck, a 5.25" hard drive and a printer plotter. Later on a modem was also added." - Kevin from Ammanford
"Was a bad PC but it played TF2 for 12 year old me haha: Core 2 Duo e8200, 2.75GB ddr2 ram, Nvidia GeForce 210, Random 250GB HDD" - Hannah from Huntingdon
Jack from Leeds gave us the spec of what sounds like an incredible gaming PC!
- Seagate BarraCuda 2TB SATA III 3.5" HDD
- Aero Cool Aero One Mini Eclipse Mini Tower Case
- MSI MAG CORELIQUID 240R CPU AIO Cooler
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7GHz 6 Core (Socket AM4) CPU
- Crucial P2 1TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD
- EVGA 650 B5 650W Modular 80+ Bronze PSU
- Patriot Viper Steel RGB 16GB (2x 8GB) 3200MHz RAM
- MSI GeForce RTX 3070 VENTUS 2X LHR 8GB OC GPU
- ASUS PCE-AC58BT 1733Mbps PCI Express WiFi Adapter
- MSI B450M MORTAR MAX AMD Socket AM4 Motherboard
"I5 3570k, 8GB Corsair RAM, GTX 970 Windforce G1 Edition, ASUS PZ77 motherboard, H100i AIO, 3 SSD's about 3TB of storage and an NZXT case" - Craig from Sheffield
"My uncle built me a PC with the following spec for school and for games in 1996: CPU Intel Pentium MMX 200Mhz, RAM 32mb SO DIMM, HDD Seagate 1.2gb, GPU 3dfx Voodoo, AUDIO Sound Blaster 16. I still remember the whiring and clicking of the hard drive, I used to play Quake and Duke Nukem on it. Thanks for helping me to remember it." - Greg from Barry
"Core i3 540, stock cooler, Kingston 4GB RAM, GT 710, HDD 500 GB" - Gevork from London
"First PC and I built it myself in only 8 hours after watching enough YouTube videos! Good spec for the time - i5-3570k, 16gb DDR3 and an EVGA GTX 660!" - James from Calvert
"AMD Sempron 2800+, 1gb 400-ddr3, ASUS K8V-VM motherboard." - Cheung from Norwich
"FX 8320-E chipset with an MSI 970 Gaming motherboard and an MSI GTX 960 Gaming 2gb GPU, a Black and Red NZXT S340 case and a CS450M, as well as a 4TB Western Digital HDD, all bought in person at the CCL showroom. I thought this thing was fantastic, but to Hell with any cable management, took me about 8 hours to put it together as my first ever build :') !" - Thomas from Halifax
"Amstrad 1640, 8 MHz Intel 8086 processor, 640kB RAM, 2x 5.25" 720kB floppy drives, 20MB HD + controller card, 14" EGA Monitor and need I say more ?" - D. from Rochdale
"Can't remember the manufacturer but it was 1994 and it was an early Pentium P5 (60-66 MHz) dual boot Windows & OS/2 Warp PC with a tiny HDD. The HDD failed after just a few days and they replaced it with a HDD twice the size of the original but I lost OS/2 Warp to play with. I gave it to my sister after I bought my next PC a huge Gateway 2000 tower PC that cost £3000 and came with a 19" CRT Monitor that weighed as much as a small planet. My first PC perished around a year later in a house flood when their central heating system failed whilst away." - Darren from Milton Keynes
"Photo is the earliest I have but that's probably about halfway through the upgrade process‚ original machine was a CCL Alpha pre-build think it had a 400w psu, Intel Pentium G63 (I think) Dual Core processor, 4GB value RAM unsure about motherboard but it was MATX and a 250GB HDD. Slowly upgraded almost every part now. Photo is about 4 years ago with an AMD Phenom II X4 965 CPU which I had for about 8 or 9 years, a Gigabyte GA970a UD3 mobo, 24GB DDR3 RAM and some limited RGB with a Cooler Master MF 120 Halo pack that includes the RGB controller and an AMD Radeon HD6670 GPU. Now have an Aorus Elite B450, Ryzen 6 2600x, 16gb Adata Spectrix 3200mhz RAM and an AMD Radeon R9 290 GPU. Had the same 550w Aero Cool X PSU for the last 10 or 12 years." - Tristan from Huddersfield
"Ryzen 5 3600, GTX 1650, 32GB DDR4" - Mike from Lincoln
"Pentium 1 166MHz, 16MB Memory, 28.8 Kbps Modem" - Danny from Aldershot
"AMD A10, A10-5800K 3.8GHz CPU, 8GB DDR3 Memory, Asus A88XM-E Motherboard, Radeon HD 7660D, 1000GB Hard Drive" - Adi from Sheffield
"Pentium 4, Radeon 9600, 120 mb hard drive (2003 year)" - Mikahail from Newport
"My first bought one was from PC world, I can't remember the brand but the motherboard died after 11 months. They replaced the whole pc under warranty with one that I found with a similar spec. That lasted about 3 or 4yrs and then I built my first PC using the ASRock P67 Extreme4 Gen3 board when it first came out. It is still going now although it has had the CPU, GPU changed and extra RAM added. It has been running 24/7 since I built it using a used Corsair 520 watt PSU that I bought used." - C. Barbour
"The mighty Ambra Hurdla from 1992! 386SX25 processor, 1Mb RAM, 80Mb HDD, 14" SVGA monitor, running DOS 6 and Windows 5.1. Cost me £850 from PC World at Lakeside Thurrock. I added a mono sound card and a joystick and remember flying F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 missions over Iraq. Happy days!" - P. Crockford
"I definitely do pentium 133mmx from CCL fitted with a soltek mainboard and a cirrus video card with 2mb ram - it also got at upgrade later on with a 1x dvd writer which I prob still have somewhere lol also from CCL at Gibson street and at that time it was a lovely lady called Tracy" - C. Wood
"Pentium dual core 4gb ddr2 ram a gt9400 series 500gb hdd all for playing world of warcraft" - D. Walker
"Pretty sure my husband still has his first computer in the same way Trigger had that broom" - S. Sutcliffe
Happy Valentine's Day!
We had great fun with the giveaway, and we loved seeing all of the specs and photos our customers sent in. For some it might have been a trip down memory lane, and rekindled their love for PCs! Have an awesome Valentine's Day, and don't forget to Love Your PC!
Still Looking For Love?
Looking for that first gaming PC? Need an upgrade to finish off that perfect battlestation? Look no further with our latest deals!
