As I'm ruminatin' and contemplating my next complete build (probably AMD after USB 3 comes out), I got to thinkin' about all the upgrades I'd put in my current FX-60 rig and what worked, and what didn't. That the thing still runs games at all considering it's age and only 2 gigs of ram is amazing.

I looked back through my posts on here and other "helP" boards and without a doubt my biggest and best switch was going from an ASUS AGP motherboard to an MSI PCIE board. No more BSOD, no more stutters, stable, fast, cool and able to use even the most modern vid cards. Best bang for the buck swap out ever. What's yours?

Da Worfster

On a previous system I owned, I had an Athalon XP 2000 on a ECS K7S5A motherboard......needless to say, Buying an Asus board and introducing the ECS to my little friend called Mr. Sledgehammer was the best thing Ive ever done.

Then again, turfing the AMD for a Core2Duo was a world of difference as well.

Best single upgrade, as in single peice of equipment, not whole rig upgrade, My Acer 24" S-PVA LCD. Or TrackIR, lol.

Probably a few years ago when I changed my geforce mx440 gfx card for a super duper 9800 pro card.
It was nice to see double fps figures in il2!
Amazing how technology has progressed since il2 came out!

High Joy PC equipment.............................................Though that is a lie.

K2

Guillemot Force Feedback joystick.

Can't even remember what I used before that one.

Dang Worf, that's a tough one.

For me would be one of the following:

9500 Pro from ATI, probaly the best ever video card for price/performance

Koolance Exos system (more than 'one piece' but still a single upgrade.)

Sony FW900 Monitor. 24" of ws CRT awesomeness.

Saitek Rudder pedals.

Now to COMPLICATE matters, there is a piece of SOFTWARE that I would have to consider as well:

HyperOS. Allows me to run multiple operatings systems (9 at the current time).

Best single upgrade: replacing 2 7800gt 256MB cards in SLI with single 8800gt 512MB card packin' a dual slot cooler which exhausts out the back of my case. That replacement gave me:
better performance and image quality in all games/sims
significantly less case fan noise
less electricity usage

I'm sold on two things: rear exhausting GPU cards and never rely on SLI unless you are forced to. The money I spent on that second 7800gt I consider wasted, in that I bought a NIB 8800gt about 5 months later for only $50 more than I paid for that second hand 7800gt on ebay. And performance/IQ wise that single card kicks the SLI's butt around the block.

One other fun fact was I kept those 2 7800gt cards and I'm glad I did. They are keeping my rig alive while my 8800gt is being repaired by evga. I also have some old ram dims that came in handy in the same manner. Consider this: I paid $150 for both a Gf4 4200Ti 128MB and a 8800gt 512MB; and for the money I spent on my first 7800gt I could now buy a 275gtx 1792MB!

Upgrading a previous computer from a FX5600 to a 7600GT. FX5600 cards had to be the WORST pieces of crap ever. Couldn't run anything properly.

Either the extra 3 GB Virtual Memory or this:

It was a while ago, but as you specify bang for buck it has to be this one. GeForce 2MX to GeForce 3 Ti200, second hand and free

Geforce 4ti4200 to ATI 9700 pro. Or 19" Hyundai TFT to 24" Benq FP241.

Best bang for buck would be my Opteron 185 cpu, it's given my 939 socket rig some long legs, for all it's aging now, it's still up for playing games like Crysis at decent framerates.

I really like my mobo too, it's an Asus A8R-MVP Deluxe, again, long in the tooth, but still doing the business day in day out.

Done to many good upgrades on my old AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2Ghz running Windows XP Media Center Edition (R.I.P.), but the best one for that would probably have been the Soundblaster XFi XtremeGamer...

When I upgraded my Win 3.1 pc from 4 to 8 Mb RAM (yes, Megabytes!) I saw a tremendous performance boost!