I am Windows all the way, running mid range second hand PC parts.
I was running an I5-3570K with 8 gigs of ram and five SATA connections running 4 x 8TB (32TB) and 1 x 1 TB SSD
Sadly I am a bit of a collector and 32tb is just not enough hard drive space, so I started looking for another motherboard on ebay with more SATA ports.
I ended up winning an auction for an i7 3770K with 8 gigs of ram and a motherboard with eight SATA ports for £110 tonight.
I picked up the other 8 gigs of ram that he was selling for £12 so I shall now be running 16 gigs on a slightly better CPU.
Yes I know that it is not an ideal PC, it might not be able to run everything, especially PS3 stuff, even though I have had some good results on the old CPU, apart from Skate 3.
However, for basic emulation and some mid range PC stuff then it will do the job. As I am UK born and raised then I am used to 30 FPS so I don't need to play a PC game at ultra high settings and ray tracing and all that jazz.
The next thing on the shopping list is another 8TB hard drive as I just installed a reclaimed one 8TB and already it is pretty full with PS2 so I have 3 TB across four drives to play with at the moment, which is not enough.
I have seen HS sellers boasting a 48TB setup and one thing that I saw was someone saying about 7 TB of media files, and judging by my 1 TB SSD I am not going to have much more room as I am down to 22 gigs, so I don't think upgrading to a 2TB SSD is going to do much good.
I certainly would not call this a hobby any more, more obsession.
Just to add, I got a bargain compared to buying it all separate sellers want £69 just for a MOBO, £90 + for the CPU, and that is just the buy now prices.
I also just brought
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09KGYWLBX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 for £13.99 as when I do start building my arcade cabinet, then I want shelfs on the inside so I can sit the motherboard and have hard drive trays or leave them lose. The old computer will end up being used for the Atgames Pinball table once I purchase that.
A massive difference in the loading time of a MAME rom, previously with the I5 I was loading at seven seconds, now with the I7 it is four seconds.
Regards
Mark