After numerous 486’s, my first proper gaming machine was a ferocious Pentium II 266, 32Mb mem with a generous 10gb hdd.
Win 95.
I must have added to it over the years, as when HL1 came out, it was running a couple of 3DFX Voodoo 2’s in SLI…4mb each!
It simply flew…most of the time.
I´d say my first gaming rig was my third pc, a Pentium 233 MMX with 16mb of ram, 4.5Gb HDD, an Ati Rage Pro 2mb with an added Voodoo 2 12Mb (top of the line version)
Which brings me to my next point, there was only 8 and 12mb versions “A Scientist” as far as I know :S
You’re probably right Luciel.
Know what? I still have those two Voodoo’s in an old rig at the back of my shop.
Fire em up occasionaly:pirate:
My first real gaming rig was a AMD 3500+ Winchester socket 939, 1GB ADATA ram, 6600GT 128mb and a A8n SLI Deluxe mobo, I upgraded that rig later with a Opteron 180 oc’d to 2.8ghz, 8800gts and 3GB ram.
My first proper gaming rig is the one I’m rockin’ right now. Intel i5 2500K, Nvidia GTX 580 from EVGA, 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM at 1600 MHz, 1TB 7200 RPM HDD, 24" ASUS VH242H monitor. Its name is Beast.
Before that, I had an HP laptop with nVidia 7400 Go graphics and an Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.0GHz. It could handle source games on low settings, but not anything much more advanced. And before that, my very first computer was an old Dell that I bought from my dad’s company for $50 when they went out of business. 256MB RAM, 800MHz Intel Pentium II slot processor, 8.5 GB hard drive. Integrated ATI RAGE 2.0 graphics.
that is awesome mate, brings back so many memories. I remember running Half life and Quake 3 on that P1, that voodoo 2 really was worth it´s money. I believe I changed PCs when return to castle wolfenstein came out, it was an amd k7 with a geforce 2 if I remember correctly, after that, I never spent near as long without changing my pc or upgrading it.
First was my VIC20 w/ 5kB of RAM and a tape drive. then I went upscale and got a Pentium 386, 16 MHz
A8N7X-E… plausibly the best AMD based motherboard ever made!
I have always went for Asus motherboards after that one 
And I’m writhing this on my Asus G74SX “laptop” 
Btw I remember that HL2 was one of the first games I did run on that rig, and I did it at MAX settings!! (1280x1024) my 6600GT got hot and unstable so I had to put an 120mm fan on top of it, but that’s just nitpicking:p
Another ASUS fan myself and again, since that motherboard, writing this from a rig with an asus maximus iv gene-z/gen3 with 2x asus 560 ti top in it : )
My first gaming rig was a 486.
Many hours of C&C/Red Alert among all the other little gems from the past.
Some notable memories include Under a Killing Moon, KKND, of course DOOM and all that were there as well, damn, memories and feels all over the place.
Funnily enough when I first got it, it only had 4mb of ram and C&C barely even started a mission, literally one frame per 2-3 seconds. Soon enough I got myself a further 4mb of ram and it ran like clockwork.
My second gaming rig was the one I played HL on.
AMD Athlon… 600 I believe… may have been 650.
Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64
It´s funny how you would really really notice the upgrade from 4 to 8 or to 16mb of ram, and yet today, 2-4gb of ram… sure it helps but eh
Compaq Presario 5460 Internet PC - AMD K6-2 475Mhz, 96mb RAM, 14 gigs HDD, 8mb onboard Ati Rage and DVD-ROM.
Heavy as fuck, REAL STEEL tower. Shit felt bulletproof.
Came with 5.1. Altec lansing system w/ subwoofer and a huge CompUSA 19 inch CRT.
386 DX40 \o/
Whoa that thing was god awful…
AMD 1.3 gig cpu, I think 256 MB ram, and a Geforce 2 Ultra. The ram burned out a few months in, the company I bought the PC from sent a whole new motherboard, and downgraded my CPU to 1.0 gigs.
My first gaming rig was also my first PC.
A Pentium III 533 mhz, 64 MB ram, ATI Rage 8mb, 8gb hdd.
It ran HL1 and Quake 3 like a champ.
Then I upgraded to 256mb ram and a Geforce 2 MX and it was like a night and day difference.
Like Maxey, my first PC was also my first gaming rig. Except it had a Pentium processor, 16mb RAM a integrated video card (2mb) and 2gb drive.
It had trouble running StarCraft with 8 players. Had to play Quake II with 320x240 resolution. MDK ran fine though. Good times.
EDIT: By the way, it was just “Pentium”. No number.
Dell XPS 410
Intel 2.4GHz q8800 quad core
nVidia 256mb 8600gt
2GB of RAM
It feels good to be young. 
Back when I hesitated to use mouse in shooters. Somehow managed to win Quake III matches against bots with keyboard only.