Upgrading a PC vs. Buying New - Buy or Upgrade continued
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Hard drives are always a cheap upgrade but should be based on the space you use. If you don't use much, then 80 GB might be enough. Most people, however, have moved on to bigger hard drives. I have seen 250 GB hard drives for about $80.
That old integrated graphics is probably on its last leg; this motherboard still runs on the older AGP, but luckily the AMD HD3850 has come to AGP, so for $150 you can get Direct X 10 and start playing some good games. This computer now should run much more smoothly and also be able to run Vista with ease.
The total cost of this upgrade will be around $400. Looking at this new computer, it should serve you well for a few more years. It's well worth the upgrade.
Next is a computer that really isn't that old, but could use a little pick me up and be screaming. This is the Gateway GT5432. It has AMD's Athlon 64 x2 5000+, 1 GB DDR2, a 320 GB hard drive, and Nvidia Geforce 6150SE. I first went to check out a better CPU, but without spending $150 you can't get anything better than what you have already. With dual core 2.6 GHz cores, it should be fine for gaming and Vista, so there isn't much reason to upgrade. AMD didn't really get over 3.0 GHz and an upgrade to that would be unwise.
DDR2 in the last year has bottomed out. I would put 3 GB of RAM into the computer; it will run you about $60. I would leave the hard drive alone unless you really need more space.
The killer in this system is the graphics cards. This is an almost new computer, and it has a video card that is three generations old already! For $130 you could throw in an Nvidia 9600 GT. This will make your computer ready for the best games and won't kill the bank. Simply upgrading the memory and graphics cards will make this a great computer for anything.
This total upgrade will run you under $200. Not a bad upgrade at all. About a few months ago, the graphic card itself would run you $250 easy.
Next: Final thoughts before upgrading >>
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