Upgrade or buy new?

Aquw VettelS 776 · **Posted:** November 10th, 2010, 1:17 pm

Germanisland wrote:

If you could get a good build with mostly the old hardware for under $300 I would love you in a completely non-gay manner. $300 is pretty reasonable for me. But to buy new I would need financial aid from my parents.

I cannot implore you enough not to upgrade. A $300 upgrade will get you RAM, a hard drive and a cheap graphics card. But the hard drive won't be very big and the GPU won't be verry good. Like I said in my previous post, a computer this age needs a new processor, and with it, preferably a motherboard as well. But you can't get that on your budget.

If you spend $300 on upgrades now, it'll be money down the drain. Because in a 18 months time you'll realise that you haven't actually got a lot for your money and you'll be looking for more upgrades. Please, just buy a new computer. 5 years is ancient for a computer- it needs replacing.

Even if it means borrowing money from your parents, or even if it means just holding off for 6 months.

Adbot · **Posted:** November 10th, 2010, 1:17 pm

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

^ Agree.

Save your money and wait. Try to build up the cash and not borrow or get a loan unless you can pay it back in a timely manner and with little interest. It'll be worth the wait (as long as it isn't a year or more :shock:

).

Germanisland · **Posted:** November 11th, 2010, 9:52 am

Duke Juker wrote:

^ Agree.

Save your money and wait. Try to build up the cash and not borrow or get a loan unless you can pay it back in a timely manner and with little interest. It'll be worth the wait (as long as it isn't a year or more :shock:

).

I wouldnt need to borrow seeing as I'm indentured to my parents til I go to college and get a job

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

If you still want to upgrade (as long as you're not looking for peak performance, we can keep this cheap, depending on sacrifices) I'll need information about the CPU you've got in there now. Namely the socket and FSB on the processor. I suggest using CPU-Z to gather data on the processor as well as motherboard, then we can go from there.

The one upside to having an older computer is that parts, though usually not new in terms of processors, will be cheap. My 7 year old desktop that I use as a server for hosting some private gaming servers has an upgraded Pentium 4 processor @ 2ghz with a 400mhz fsb. I'm considering going for the current max of the heatsink/what the original Celeron that it came with was rated at, though I'm too cheap to shell out $20 to get the maxed out part for my system. At any rate, some parts you can aquire cheaply. HDDs are cheap, though you won't want a used one. RAM you might as well buy new, and that will be cheap as well. Graphics will be the most expensive, unless you're looking for just a minor upgrade, but even a GPU from 2-3 years ago will be far better than what you have now.

Another option would be to upgrade the entire motherboard and start fresh. Given this option, you'd be able to keep your HDD, potentially the power supply depending on the rated output, and maybe the RAM. This, however, would give you the best upgrade-ability / longevity for your money, but would require a bit more research and cash to come to fruition.

Germanisland · **Posted:** November 22nd, 2010, 2:36 pm

Pfkninenines wrote:

If you still want to upgrade (as long as you're not looking for peak performance, we can keep this cheap, depending on sacrifices) I'll need information about the CPU you've got in there now. Namely the socket and FSB on the processor. I suggest using CPU-Z to gather data on the processor as well as motherboard, then we can go from there.

The one upside to having an older computer is that parts, though usually not new in terms of processors, will be cheap. My 7 year old desktop that I use as a server for hosting some private gaming servers has an upgraded Pentium 4 processor @ 2ghz with a 400mhz fsb. I'm considering going for the current max of the heatsink/what the original Celeron that it came with was rated at, though I'm too cheap to shell out $20 to get the maxed out part for my system. At any rate, some parts you can aquire cheaply. HDDs are cheap, though you won't want a used one. RAM you might as well buy new, and that will be cheap as well. Graphics will be the most expensive, unless you're looking for just a minor upgrade, but even a GPU from 2-3 years ago will be far better than what you have now.

Another option would be to upgrade the entire motherboard and start fresh. Given this option, you'd be able to keep your HDD, potentially the power supply depending on the rated output, and maybe the RAM. This, however, would give you the best upgrade-ability / longevity for your money, but would require a bit more research and cash to come to fruition.

Pfkninenines,

Thank you some much for your help :mrgreen:

however, I have decided to hold off for now, this PC runs most things just fine, and I'm hoping to get a 360 on Black Friday for gaming. Events on popped up on my horizon and I will be unable to focus on upgrading, again, thank you SO much for helping me.

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

Alrighty, so I take it lock the thread?

Adbot · **Posted:** November 22nd, 2010, 9:09 pm