Should you buy a whole new
computer or should you take what you have and upgrade it? It really
depends on the makeup of the system you have now and the new or upgraded
features that you want to add on to your present system. Expandability
is always a plus if you like to upgrade older systems, which is a nice
way to create a “new” system while saving much of the expense of purchasing
new. A motherboard with open expansion slots and a case with available
drive bays may be begging to be upgraded. If you think the same way I do,
adding new component parts that have built-in flexibility allows you to
maintain your plan to constantly upgrade your system without buying a whole
new computer. For example, I can upgrade my current system by simply replacing
the current PC133 SDRAM with DDR RAM, which is much faster and is supported
by my current motherboard. Not all motherboards support both types of RAM.
In fact, newer motherboards are coming out with only DDR RAM slots available.
In my opinion, that is part of the reason that PC100 and PC133 SDRAM is
so inexpensive these days. If you recall your computer history, the same
thing occurred with 30-pin and 72-pin SIMMs. If you don’t have a lot of
money to spend or you don’t want to upgrade significantly, then you can
spring for some readily available, inexpensive RAM and vastly improve your
systems performance.
Case
Case first, shall we? The case is there not just as a box, but it can
allow your system significant flexibility. Most computer cases these days
are tower type cases with sizes ranging from the small Mini-Towers to Mid-Towers
and Full-Towers. As they increase in size, the availability for expansion
increases as well. If your case will not allow the addition of drives due
to not having sufficient drive bays, then you are stuck with the choice
of a new case or of only adding external devices. As a rule, external devices
(hard drives, CD-ROMs, etc.) usually cost more and provide slower performance.
Not only that, but changing your existing system to a new case is no easy
task. A second consideration is the power supply. Modern systems are in
need of power supplies in excess of 300 watts, with upgrading to near top
of the line technology demanding 400 watt power! If you have an adequate
or a fancy modern case like the glass-side aluminum ones that are out that
you want to keep for a long time, when you upgrade the next time, you can
change out your power supply if you need more juice. Some cases have built-in
flash memory readers and/or USB ports in the front or on the side that
provide greater accessibility for external device connections. The choice
of a case used to be based primarily on size but is now influenced by design
features such as what they are made of, their color, plexiglass sides,
extra LED fans, cold cathode lighting and so forth. You can even obtain
water-cooled cases if you want or need them. If you want to get some ideas
or see some of the choices in cases and case additions, then go to check
out the web site Xoxide
or Pimprig.
Motherboard
Next the main part of your computer is your motherboard. Motherboards
often must be upgraded when a computer is modified with a faster, newer
CPU. However, your current motherboard may support a faster processor than
the one you currently have installed. You must be very careful here, since
there are so many different configurations and motherboards with a variety
of different chipsets. Be sure if you are upgrading to a Pentium 4 chip
from an Athlon or vice-versa that you either buy or already have a motherboard
that will support your CPU chip. You have to make sure you are buying the
right motherboard for the job, and it's a good idea to purchase a motherboard
that allows you to upgrade to a faster CPU in the future. Other things
to consider are the front side bus speed of the board, how many slots are
available for expansion, what type of CPU and RAM the motherboard supports,
and what is integrated into the motherboard (sound, graphics, modem, LAN,
etc.). More recently, motherboards have been offered with RAID controls
built-in. Most new motherboards also support 4X/8X AGP graphics cards.
On the horizon, serial ATA drive support is likely to be common among new
motherboards.
Processor
The processor or CPU is a key component in determining your computers
speed. Generally, premium prices reflect top-of-the-line speed and processing
power. Intel and AMD continue to race for dominance. Their price war and
competition is generally good for consumers, as prices fall on second,
third, and fourth line CPUs. Intel is often preferred for servers and high-end
applications and offers good support. AMD chips are generally less expensive
and often provide the home computer user better graphics capability. AMD
has lagged behind Intel P4 chips for a few months but they appear to have
made strides with their new AMD 2600, 2700 and 2800 chips, which, as of
this writing are out but not yet available to the upgrading consumer.
Hard Drive
Hard drives are the primary data and application storage component
in your computer. As they are becoming huge in size, they are getting faster
also. The faster they spin, the easier it will be for them to locate data
on the drive that the CPU or software needs. Earlier version IDE hard drives
spin at 5400 RPM with newer drives increasing that to 7200 RPMs. Logically,
the larger the drive, the more significant this speed difference becomes.
Application intensive work such as video editing relies on hard drives
that are fast enough to keep up with the program without losing data.
Sound and Graphics cards
Cutting edge sound cards and video graphics cards provide significant
enhancement in your computing power. Newer sound cards, in addition to
the everyday analog sound, offer 6-channel, digital sound which attempts
to emulate theatre surround-sound and some newer motherboards even have
this built into them nowadays. Video graphics cards are moving to 8X AGP,
which means graphics data gets processed faster but these are not readily
available and are still quite expensive. So, unless you want the fastest
and best graphics capability out there, moving up may not be top priority.
What does seem most important is that graphics cards are building in more
power and support including DVD, TV and video editing and increasing memory
built right onto the board. Currently, there are basic 16 MB cards with
most cards having a minimum of 32 MB of onboard RAM on up to 64 MB and
128 MBs. Can 256 MB or even 512 MB graphics cards be very far away?
Monitor
Your monitor or video screen is a significant part of your computer.
Older monitors have an analog connection with LCD flat-panel monitors offering
DVI (Digital
Video Interface)
connection.
As far as other peripherals, be sure that there is compatibility between
peripherals that you want to keep and use with your upgraded system and
your new hardware. Besides that, the basics for upgrading consist of deciding
what you want to achieve when you are done upgrading and what you need
to do to get there. If you have more questions, you can always search the
Internet for help, as there are many helpful sites out there. Good luck
in your upgrade project!
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