Upgrading vs Buying New?

Question

Please it is worth it to buy a new PC or upgrade? I don't use it for anything but light music, instant messaging, and word processing and thinking of buying/upgrading and getting power point. My rig is -

Intel R 1.4 Ghz Processor, 384 MB SD RAM, Windows XP Home Edition, and a very old graphics card (but I don't play games or photo shop)

Buying or Upgrading? Recommendations for either?

Thanks for the answers but do I need 1 gig or 2 Gigs?

Answer 1

Not knowing your budget...wait did you call THAT a rig? :D

I'd go with a new. You'd end up buying enough parts to buy a new computer.

You'll need a new processor and most likely with that a new mother board. There's a few hundred. New hard drives are around a hundred. Upgrading your dinosaur graphics card is another hundred. RAM...another hundred....

You can get a cheap Dell for that price and it'll be much better than you could achieve by upgrading alone.

Answer 2

From a guy who builds computers for a living, take it from me and buy new. First off, you can't just buy a new processor and start rocking because your motherboard's chipset won't support them. I'm quite sure you're running a Pentium 4 system and all the new Intel systems run the Core 2 Duo processors. Secondly, if you're going to be doing graphical applications, you may be looking into a dedicated graphics card which would require a PCI Express x16 slot. Likely, your older system still uses AGP ports. Thirdly, your older system is probably a native DDR2 533 on the RAM, if it's running DDR2, at all. Newer systems will offer at least 667mhz or 800mhz. Finally, the LAN on your motherboard is probably 10/100Mbps. If you're running a good high-speed connection, you'd see a great benefit from running on a Gigabit LAN chip. Buying new, you can get a computer that is perfectly acceptable for your needs for around $500-600 without a monitor. With a monitor tack on another $150. Upgrading, you may be able to find a used processor, RAM, and AGP graphics card for around $100-150 total and you'd still be running a significantly worse system.

Answer 3

If you are thinking to upgrade your Windows XP to Windows Vista, I highly suggest you don't because I have worked with a computer with Windows Vista on it and It is extrermly slow. If i were you I would go with a brand new PC. (If you are not on a buget try going for the latest SONY Notebook)

Answer 4

If you upgrade, I dont think they make parts like that anymore so yea better go with a whole new PC. Build it yourself and save some money. Then you will be able to easily upgrade it by yourself

Answer 5

If your "rig" is more than 3 years old upgrading is not going to be cheap. your better off buying a new one since you dont play games on it

Answer 6

now here is how to save money....

Download Open Office 2... it as got everything MS office as got. word, power point, spread sheet and data base, though the names are different it can read and write ms format so you will have no problems if that all you use your system for then don't bother you will not benefit much by doing so..

It is Free you can download it from the web site below

Answer 7

music, instant messaing (depending on your client) and word processing are taking up more and more resources as they improve and get newer. I would upgrade the ram about 256MB higher. What you sya you use it for is not worth a new machine.

Answer 8

best bet is to upgrade. its in expensive and you wont have to spend money on another cpu or complete system wiht montor mouse keyboard etc, it will just clutter up your house/apt etc besides by upgrading you get to adjust and buy the upgrades you need for the things yo do the most and use your computer for

Answer 9

Keep what you have until you want to do more. As Long as Windows supports XP you're OK.

Answer 10

HAHAHAHAHA cool rig you got !!!