Upgrade cost

[Ebow]

My computer is about 4 years old and I want to upgrade just a few things. I have been told to have a "Bare Bones" built and then put the parts from my puter into the bare bones. I don't want to get the "biggest/fastest/best...I just want to be able to add to the new one as money allows. I would like a 1.? gig processor....a second HD....maybe 20gigs( I have 10 and only have used 4-5 because I have a burner and back up things on CD-R)I am happy with my sound card/video card and all other stuff. I am told a new mother board/processor/HD/ more RAM ( I have 384.but I'm maxed out on space) I would like the puter wizards to give me an idea what this might cost...or would it be better to buy one of the TV specials I see from Dell or Gateway??
Thanks

 

[WMH]

Problems you are going to run into are, is your mother board. AT or an ATX, what type of processor does it have now and will the motherboard handle a higher processor (if so what?), Memory?. In many cases an older system can't be upgraded to much more in the lines of speed (ie; cpu memory). Alot depends if this was originally a custom built system or a store bought system (gateway, compaq, dell, etc...). Custom builds are usually the easiest to upgrade but let us not forget, alot depends on the motherboard you have now. In most cases you may be better off either getting a barebones system or just buying the parts one at a time and building it yourself. Beware though, some barebones systems are cheap because the parts are cheap (and I don't mean price cheap).

If this helps, good luck
WMH

 

[Ebow]

I know a new motherboard is needed. The current processor is a Pent II ( 450) and I know I need one that accepts a Pent 4 and hopefully will be upgradeable in a couple of years to 3.? gig processors. I also know that I want a minimum of 512 RAM and upgradeable there also. My ethernet card/sound/video are all good enough for my use and because I burn alot to save HD space, a huge HD is not important. It is a custom built unit and after 4 years I realize it has a few bells and whistles that I have never/will never use. The TV ads are tempting (Dell/Gateway), but I don't need the other goodies, monitor/keyboard/speakers/printer/etc.
As you can guess, I'm not a wiz at puters, and admit to not being comfortable about "building your own" At the same time a TV special @ $7-900 is real tempting if one can get the goodies wanted.....key word wanted.not what they sell.

 

[Spirit]

Personnally I would never go down the Processor / sound card / upgrade road. I bought a dell p3 500 / 128MB / 10GB in 99 and it still runs every I want (even latest games just not at full spec). I stuck more mem in it because its dirt cheap and I was considering chucking in a new Processor (it can handle upto 733) and new graphics card and new Sound card just these three would set me back about £300. But for an extra £200 I can get a whole new system with 3 year warranty and reliable BRANDED parts. So I've got until November until I pay this one off (Dell Credit, the system was top spec and cost £1200 cash but £1450 including credit charges and interest which is about £35 per month).

So next year I will look at a new system but will only consider buying a full system with a warranty (not that I've ever used it!) and either set up a mini network or give my old PC away to a relative (they make brilliant christmas pressies) or I could sell it for about £300 (there's a lot of silly people out there).

A lot of my friends go for the upgrade route and its always muggins who has to go round and try and fix their PC's because somethings broke even thought they "know a lot about PC's", unless you really know your stuff a clone or bare bones system will cause a lot of head aches.

Of course someone will no doubt write the exact opposite of what I said it is down to Personal choice.

Just my thoughts, but something to consider I hope!

Iain

 

[WMH]

I can somewhat agree w/ Spirit..... Unless you build or work w/ computers all the time, a warranty is the way to go. As for the CPU, there does come a time when you really do not notice a difference in speed. We built 2 DNS servers @ work (one with a P4 1.7 GHz and one with a P4 2.0 GHz CPU) and noticed no real difference. Unless you are doing alot of graphic design or using programs that just eat processor usage, CPU speed isn't critical. Servers have duel CPU's since they have many users banging them all day long. The key thing in my own opinion is , you can never have too much RAM.

If you are wanting to build something like a gamming box, get something along the lines of an AMDxp CPU 1400+ and throw about 512MB RAM in the thing. Put it on an ASUS, Gigbyte or Abit board, make sure it runs cool, get a GeForce or ATI video card, a decent sound card and away you go. As for hard drives, you can always put in a larger size later on (using ghost and moving the contents from one to another..EZ as pie), or even add one as a slave for stroage or setting up a Raid array. Remember, even though CPU speeds are going up, not alot of programs right now really utilize CPU speed so don't worry about it being "outdated in the next few years". My own quote is this "a system becomes obsolite when it no longer performs the functions in which you need it to".

Spend alittle and bank roll the rest.

Hope this helps,
WMH