Okye-doke guys and gals Here's the deal: I have a relatively old (5-6 years) machine that has been mostly rebuilt once and is now growing too weak for the things I want to do with it. Me decision is - do I buy the necessary upgrades to bring it up to acceptable standards, or do I buy/have bulit a new one? What I have now has an Intel Celeron 2Ghz and a (pitifully inadaquate I know) 248 MB of RAM. It also MUST have a new mid-market video card and a CD/DVD player/burner. On top of all that, if I had my druthers, I'd like to have a flat pannel monitor but I can live without it if it comes to it. I'm not chomping at the bit to have Vista, my XP is fine for me but some new package purchases have it pre-loaded and that's added value. So: Option A - Buy what the current machine needs to bring it up to spec...that means at a minimum 512 RAM, the video card, the burner, and another hard drive. Option B - have a machine built to my specs and install my XP on it (asuming there's some savings here) Option C - go to a major distributer and buy a pre-packaed box deal that approximates what I want. This will almost always include Vista and often the sort of monitor I want. My intention is to spend less than $600....as much less as possible. Which of these affords me the best machine for the price? My knee jerk assumption is that B is usually the way to maximize the performance to dollar ration....but I'm asking to be advised here. Opinions?
Option D: Work out the specifications of the new system you want, then buy the components individually and build it yourself. If you are able to replace components like ram and videocards already, then building your own computer will be a piece of cake. With a system that old there is likely nothing on it that is worth saving for an upgrade, save the harddrives since if you have space for them in the new case it makes sense to stick them in in case you ever want a secondary drive for some purpose.
It's best to build, but if you don't want to, DELL offers this: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DDCWBC2&s=dhs Just click confirm so it virtually builds it, and you can see what it has. If you don't want to build, that's the way to go. -J.
Save any useful components (perhaps the HD), and buy the components for a new one. If you can do more than the most trivial upgrades, and you know what to check hardware-wise when something goes wrong in that upgrade, you can build one yourself. Given that's it's a 2GHz Celeron, I'm guessing it's a Socket 478 motherboard on the high end, and possibly it's predecessor, whose precise pin count escapes me at the moment (Socket 304 perhaps? Does that seem even remotely right?). If it's the lower of the two, the RAM and motherboard are useless. Sell them to add to your budged. If it's a 478, you can upgrade to a Pentium 4 3.2 E possibly, depending if your motherboard manufacturer provided an updated BIOS. You're RAM is also good there in any case. If you can't reuse anything but the hard drive, and the market price is poor for what you're selling, just buy a cheap Dell (or better yet, eMachines. Ever since they got bought, they've made decent computers; their parent company, Gateway, is another matter entirely) Re: flat panel monitor: If you're looking for the cheapest price, you may end up with an analog monitor. As it turns out, this is not the end of the world, as long as you can adjust the phase and clock. I've got my monitor at work looking just as sharp as if the picture was digital (it's a digital monitor, but I don't have a DVI cable, and the DVI-out on the laptop dock is DVI-D so I can't use a DVI->VGA adapter ), though it flickers in some areas occasionally (the lower left bit of one particular horizontal scroll bar, for some reason)
Buy the separate components. I agree with O2C - as long as there isn't an issue with the upgradability of the mother board, it shouldn't be an issue. Tell you the truth, at this stage in the game there isn't all that much difference between a 2 GHZ machine and a 4 GHZ machine, the big performance differences have to do with the bus size (which hasn't changed apprreciably in the last few years), the l1 cache, and of course the memory. I'm on a 2.2 GHZ machine now, and while it's upgradable I simply haven't seen the need. However, 284 mb RAM is pathetic. Check your motherboard documentation to see what type your box supports - the current standard is IIRC 128 pin DDRAM, but if you have an older motherboard you might need SDRAM. Either way, 512 mb is the bare minimum. 1 gb is preferred, and obviously the more the better. Memory is cheap enough now that it shouldn't be an issue. DVD burners are cheap as well - you probably need to get an IDE version with your motherboard. So the only real question is the graphics card. When I recently upgraded one of my boxes I found the sweet spot at NVIDIA 7800, a cheap utility card that will do most everything you need at a good price. The more you spend, the better obviously. But unless you are tweaking out your box for online gaming for every advantage in render and frame rate you can get, something in the $100-250 should be plenty for the casual gamer. Remember the biggest issue is the number of pipes, that's a more important identifier of performance than anything else. Of course, if your motherboard is old and no longer upgradable there's lots of cheap manufacturers out there. I got a 2.2 GHZ, 1 gig memory, DVD burner, w/integrated NIC and a passable integrated graphic card (nvidia 6150) for $499. I then purchased a separate NVIDIA 7800 card for $125 and put it in, and the system does everything I want it to. Lots of good info out on the web now about upgrading computers - I'd recommend hitting Computer Shopper if you have basic technical questions, they can get you started in the right path and then check the forums for specific questions. Good luck!
My vote's for building a new one as well. Especially since you need a new videocard, in which case you're better off with a pci-e. Remember that if you stick with this one, you'll have to find an AGP card, which will become useless once you do upgrade your motherboard. So better do it both, now. As for memory: go for a 1 gig minimum. By the way, what do you intend to do on the thing? If you do not play games or do hardcore 3d work, the entire upgrade is useless. Then I'd suggest plugging in 1 gig of memory and be amazed how much life there is left in your 2 ghz machine - running it on 256MB with WinXP is suicide for the machine. To try things out, you might check if there is memory available that you could use both for your old and your new computer, so you can try out adding memory first, and if that doesn't do it, go for the new machine. But memory will probably have changed since your model, be careful that you don't buy stuff you can't take along to your upgrade. {edit-demiurge beat me to the memory remark )
Start from scratch, new motherboard, case, cpu, video card, ram, hard drive. Depending on how much you want to spend.. I'd go with a Core2Duo E6300, Reliable brand motherboard like Asus, 1-2GB of DDR2 Ram (1GB at the BARE MINIMUM), ATI X1950pro Video card (smokes the Nvidia 7900GS), 160GB or larger HD with 16MB Cache, DVD Burner. I'll give you some links. Case (totally random, choose what you want): http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811208005 Biostar MB (have had great luck with their AMD motherboards, but you might want to step up) http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813138034 1GB OCZ Ram: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820227123 250GB 16MB Cache WD HD: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822144701 C2D E6300 1.86Ghz processor (blows the P4 3.2E out of the water): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115005 Samsung 18x DVD burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827151133 Asus ATI X1950Pro 256MB PCI-e video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121031 If you want to save a few bucks on a video card, then go with an Nvidia 7600GT or ATI X1650XT. Now, you could go cheaper if you want to go AMD, but the Core2Duo's blow everything else out of the water currently. There are also some cheaper versions of the parts I listed above, but the ones I linked will give you an awesome performing PC that'll last for years. DO NOT GO WITH DELL, because you'll just be disappointed. Don't use any of your old parts, except maybe a sound card or cd-rom. Any of the parts in your old PC will just slow your new PC down. Old hard drives, video cards, etc. The video card is about the only thing you might want to wait on. Within the next couple of months Mid-range DX10 cards will be out, which should be smoking fast. However, the one I listed is what I currently use and it plays Oblivion on pretty high settings. As far as LCD widescreen monitors go, it all depends on what size you want. 19" are pretty cheap right now, but so are 20.1": I have a 19" Viewsonic and I love it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116065 19" BenQ: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824014129 Samsung: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824001088 Sceptre 20.1" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824112003 Viewsonic 20.1" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116062 BenQ 20.1" (awesome monitor brand) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824014105 Acer 22": http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824009102 Samsung 20.1" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824001087 BenQ 22" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824014131 What I would do is build a great PC and use your old monitor, then when you get more cash, buy a nice wide flatscreen.
Wow, Gear (especially, but others too) thanks. Let me do this...I finally got the Belarc report to work, so let me paste that here and you guys can tell me if it modifies any of your advice. I really am intimidated by the notion of building one, although also a bit intruiged. By the by, even if I don't really want to USE my current hard drive, would it not be kosher to build it into the machine as a secondary if for no other reason than for ease of access to all that's saved on it? Anyway, here's the log.... [/quote]
Yeah, like I said if there is space for it, putting your old drive in as a secondary can be useful. That machine is beyond upgrading though. If you were doing any major upgrading it is basically just the same work as building your own machine anyway.
Yeah, you'd be very limited in what you could do there, as it looks like it has an integrated graphics card.
No reason to be intimidated building a PC. It's so very easy and you also know exactly what goes in it then.
Are the parts you listed here ALL the parts I need (except things like keyboard and speakers and such) ? I've got cable so no modem is necessary but otherwise...is there an expense you haven't noted here?
Just like to add a parenthetical aside here: I wouldn't keep that old hard drive, except maybe as 2ndary storage.... especially if you are gonna go the cheapie upgrade route. The less memory you end up with, the more you are gonna be grinding your disk... having an old crappy drive is gonna make certain operations feel just like they did on your old PC.
Looks like he has included everything. If you picked a different case, check whether or not it has a power supply, if it doesn't come with one, you'll need to buy one. You may want a 3.5" floppy drive. If so you can use the old one from your last machine... unlike virtually every other component, the a floppy drive you buy now is no faster than one you bought years ago. As for GuiltyGear's RAM selection, I'd recommend going for 2 sticks of 512MB, or going up to 2 sticks of 1GB right away... just so you can take advantage of dual channel.
Well, I only mentioned one stick of 1GB DDR2 ram, just because unless he's doing a lot of video editing or gaming, dual channel won't matter much - though with C2D, that might be a different story. Then he can also get another GB stick down the road, make it dual channel. Instead of only getting 2x512 and taking up more slots when he wants to go to 2GB. But if you can afford 2x1GB sticks, I'd definately go for it to get dual channel. As far as floppy drives go, I personally bought an external USB one, that way I don't have to stick the thing in every new case I get. Yes, do not use your old HD as your main storage. It probably has a 2MB cache which will slow the system way down.
