Desktops forum: What should I do: upgrade my computer or buy a new one?

Was true once but not necessarily now.

I'm a writer and the Word program in Office 7 is a nightmare. It doesn't respond much of the time, is extremely slow & crashes often. I'm using a Toshiba Tecra, about 2 1/2 years old, and love the computer but wish I could go back to a different office. I skipped the whole XP experience so don't know about it.

Definitely buy something with a second generation Intel processor (core i3, i5 or i7). These also come with a faster hard drive then your 6 year-old. The difference in speed will be phenomenal. Watch for specials at Frys.

I guess it kind of depends on what people want to do, but
these days even the lower end laptops do a pretty good job unless you're
playing advanced video games or doing video editing. A
typical dual core processor with 4 GB of ram will simultaneously run Photoshop,
In-design and Corel Draw. I do it all the time with very few
issues. That said an I3 or I5 processor
is that much more these days either. I
have an I7 processor in my main laptop at home but it often doesn't seem that
much faster than my dual core processor laptops for many applications. I not an expert for sure but I'm thinking
that if your software is 32 bit, a quad core processor while it would multitask
better, it may not be all that much faster for that particular
application. I'd be interested to hear what
you understand about that.




The one thing I've found that doesn't last so well on
laptops is their keyboards. I usually use wireless one these days most of
the time because they have a better feel and are easy to replace if they do
wear out.

If by the word, "upgrade" you include replacing the motherboard, processor and memory, then you can build your old system into a "new" system, without having to buy new CD/DVD, case, power supply, etc.

If you're at all handy, replacing the entire guts may be far less expensive than buying a whole new system. I've done it many times.

Depending on what you want to use it for, expect to spend around $100 for a motherboard, $75 to $100 on the processor, and $50 to $75 on memory. You might want a new/bigger drive, too. Another $75. Add $100 for Windows 7, and you're there....

Actually if you have kids or grandkids then you can qualify for the even cheaper "educational" software.

Now this is really useful information! I'm having a whole bunch of components delivered on Monday to upgrade my partner's machine --his work has developed to the point where his old system simply wasn't up to the job. I'm definitely going to look into the OEM option; I've always wanted to be the OEM and Only...!

Obviously, on the original question, I'm advocating upgrade of components, self-installed. I've now built some ten computers from scratch, and they've all worked very well (sometimes taking longer to achieve than other, of course.) I once bet myself that I could build a new machine using nothing but old components I had lying around from previous jobs. Surprise, I actually built two (I donated them to worthy causes). It's very practical, and actually a lot of fun for anyone of a Certain Age who grew up on Erector Sets and crystal set radios from the Boy Scout Handbook.

New Power Supply! And of course there are the random things you might find come in handy like video card and wireless, etc.

You might as well just bite the bullet but the big question is should you wait for Windows 8 or are you going to upgrade the OS twice?

With the way technology has evolved over the past 6 years - its unlikely that were would be a lot of value in keeping many of the components of your existing system.

Firstly, over time all electronic components have potential wear issues - the most common on which are things like capacitors drying out and moving parts seizing up. If your computer has been running for six years, it is likely that some of its components are on the edge of failure.

Secondly, you reach a point with any system where the practicalities of upgrading start to become difficult.

The most common place to start your upgrade would be with a new CPU - but given the age of your system - that would also mean upgrading to a new mother board, and memory - and possibly a new power supply. You would then also need to look at an upgrade to windows 7 to get the most advantage of these new component's features.

By this stage you have pretty much replaced every main system component except the case and hard drive/dvd.

Which comes back to the title I added to this reply - given how the price of computers has fallen in the past years - do you want to be stuck to your desktop or would you like to be portable.

Seems to me the best option these days is a 15inch laptop - its portable - they are as powerful as your budget.
Westa

I used to work at a terrible IT consulting company that would sell "barebones upgrades" to customers where we would use their existing case, power supply, and hard drive. The labor it took to perform the upgrades ate up the savings from reusing components, and the power supplies and hard drives would pretty much always fail a year or two later anyway, sometimes blowing the motherboard (in the case of the PS failures)!

If the OP wants to go mobile, than a laptop makes sense. If it's only going to be sitting on a desk, replacing a desktop with a laptop is a terrible idea. They have a lower expensive/performance ratio because everything has to be miniaturized and there is a battery with associated charger, components tend to fail sooner because of heat, tiny screen compared to what you would likely get with a desktop, keyboard options are set and cramped, the list goes on. Of course you could add an external monitor and keyboard, but added expense and extra deskspace defeats the purpose. I used a high end Dell laptop on loan from my Mom for a while until I bought a new desktop. Let me tell you, it was SUCH a relief when my desktop arrived!

Yes, laptop keyboards are awful, and I too use a separate keyboard when my laptop is at home. And a separate, wireless mouse. But affordable laptops can have very good screens these days, and very fast processors. Unless you are doing work that is very processor or video or disk intensive a well chosen laptop can keep up with the work and can go with you when you travel.

Having said that, I should note that I sometimes do video work, such as importing SVHS videos to make into DVD's for preservation. For a time, even desktops didn't do that well; I know from trying about 10 years ago with a desktop that according to the maker was perfect for just that. Well, my first attempt took at least 24 hours. I didn't understand then that the available and affordable hardware wasn't up to it despite computer maker and video card maker hype. About a year ago I made a second go at it, this time speccing and building the desktop myself. I could tell you all about the fast drive, cpu, etc., but one factor made the most difference; a video capture card with onboard hardware encoding. Takes all the load off of the cpu, and only the HD shows any work going on. Hard to do that on a laptop since there is not a lot of good and affordable external video encoding hardware available. My point is that for most people a laptop CAN be a good choice as a desktop replacement.

The machine I've been using now for several years is an HP NX6320 Laptop, with a docking bay. My decision was based purely on power usage. A 60W power supply is more attractive than a 600W version. It runs a real IBM clunky keyboard and 1600*1200 external screen. So my total continuous computer power usage is about 100W.

It keeps up with the 'net, plays streamed video and has it's internal screen arranged so that I can lay down in bed and watch a DVD, hopefully falling asleep.

I also am setting up old laptops as mini-servers. One is a print server. I send everything to it as a PDF file, and then when I'm ready to run the big expensive resin printer, I can dump the whole batch in one run, not waste power keeping the printer warm when it has little to do.

Another old '98 machine is still my telephone answering machine. It works, why "upgrade"?

I've also built a gaming+ machine intended to handle video in real time--6 screens, 3 keyboards and all the video hardware you can imagine. If I'm using this in winter, the room shouldn't need a heater.

All my comments above are based on bang per kWh. This needs to become a more serious part of the equation as the Greenhoax effect continues to take hold of the Western World artificially inflating energy costs.

If a 15W machine can do the job required, why have 2.4kW on standby all day?

At six years old your PC is a Dinosaur. Now is the time to upgrade to a new PC. Why? Hardware and Software has progressed to a Advanced State of the Art since you bought your PC six years ago.

CPU's: Specifically the Intel i7 Processor and its Multi-Cores. Memory, Hard Drives: See SSD's, Graphic Cards, Optical Drives, NIC's, USB 3.0, Motherboards, Sound Cards, Windows 7 and soon Windows 8. All have made major advancements.