PC upgrade

[Jam The Man]

Dear Bible,

My PC is 5 years old, running as slow as you like, on XP Pro, has a Celeron 1700+, 512mb ram and 120gb (3/4 full)...

Is it worth buying a new one or worth upgrading all the bits and bobs of the current one?

JTM of Worthing

 

[Jam The Man]

I take it the techies aren't on here tonight then! LOL

 

[Springal]

tbh i'd just buy a new one from dell, the price gap between building your own and buying a prebuilt from dell or the like is so small now its barely worth it!

www.dell.co.uk

 

[Jam The Man]

Cheers... i suspected as much! HMV (the missus) suggested exactly what you did and to go to Dell

 

[Gwylan]

I had the same problem a few months ago: I decided to upgrade. I got myself a spanking new machine with 2gig of RAM, a dual core processor and a 20" flat screen instead of my tiny 14 incher, all for £600.

My new machine goes like a train so I'm certain it was the correct decision.

 

[1066gull]

New PC.

Vista is huge. Mac's are so much easier to use, but are out of my price range big time

 

[Grizz]

Do you know what you want from a computer, part specific? I bought a decent gaming machine from www.pcspecialist.co.uk and am throughly pleased with it. I could pick everything i wanted after doing research into what components met my needs. Picked a delivery date and it turned up. Well worth a browse.

 

[Jam The Man]

many thanks!

 

[beorhthelm]

buy some more memory, defrag the harddisk, that'll sort it out. if you dont use it for games, you dont need a new machine. save the money for beer.

 

[MOWTCHOPS]

New PC.

Vista is huge. Mac's are so much easier to use, but are out of my price range big time

Get a loan innit, or interest free from Pc world etc etc

I got a iMac just before christmas after being RAPED my Microsoft 1 to many times.. It takes a little getting used to but once you've mastered it its great and oh so so so reliable !!!

 

[Wozza]

Dear Bible,

My PC is 5 years old, running as slow as you like, on XP Pro, has a Celeron 1700+, 512mb ram and 120gb (3/4 full)...

Is it worth buying a new one or worth upgrading all the bits and bobs of the current one?

JTM of Worthing

If you're using it for browing the Internet and writing emails and stuff, all you need is a clean install (and perhaps an external hard disk - there are loads of bargains around at the moment).

You only need to upgrade if you're playing games or, say, doing multimedia work.

 

[Ex-Staffs Gull]

For every good story about Dell, there seem to be 2 bad ones.

Try www.ebuyer.co.uk

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/store/26/cat/Home-PCs

Or buy the bits individually. I upgraded recently for under £180 which was m/board, AMD 957 chip (one before dual core, but fast enough for all current apps and games), 1Gb extra Ram, a 256Mb graphics card.

You would probably need quite a few more bit, plus monitor, so it may pay to look at the link above for complete systems like the following for £449 inc VAT.

Aspire Small Form Factor L100 with 19" 5ms Widescreen Monitor
(with the graphics card on-board, you may look to buy a sepearte one or an extra 1gb of Ram if you want to play some of the really intensive games or run intensive apps)

● AMD ATHLON 64 3800 Dual Core
● 1024MB DDR-400 (Max 4GB)
● nVidia GeForce6150
● Audio connections: 3
● Gigabyte (10/100/1000) Lan solution
● 6 USB 2 ports with 2 in front
● USB Keyboard & Mouse
● Hard Drives 2 SATA HDD 3.5" bays

● Optical Devices DVD Burner dual and double layer
● Housing Dimension 250 (W) x 200 (D) x 60 (H) mm

Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition - Free Upgrade to Vista Premium

I believe it has a 250Gb Hard Drive as this detail seems to have been missed off the description)

 

[supaseagull]

Whatever you do, don't by anything by AMD they're a pile of shit. I've had two AMD processors and they both suck whereas the Intel Pentium's perform great everytime!

 

[MOWTCHOPS]

For every good story about Dell, there seem to be 2 bad ones.

Try www.ebuyer.co.uk

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/store/26/cat/Home-PCs

Or buy the bits individually. I upgraded recently for under £180 which was m/board, AMD 957 chip (one before dual core, but fast enough for all current apps and games), 1Gb extra Ram, a 256Mb graphics card.

You would probably need quite a few more bit, plus monitor, so it may pay to look at the link above for complete systems like the following for £449 inc VAT.

Aspire Small Form Factor L100 with 19" 5ms Widescreen Monitor
(with the graphics card on-board, you may look to buy a sepearte one or an extra 1gb of Ram if you want to play some of the really intensive games or run intensive apps)

● AMD ATHLON 64 3800 Dual Core
● 1024MB DDR-400 (Max 4GB)
● nVidia GeForce6150
● Audio connections: 3
● Gigabyte (10/100/1000) Lan solution
● 6 USB 2 ports with 2 in front
● USB Keyboard & Mouse
● Hard Drives 2 SATA HDD 3.5" bays

● Optical Devices DVD Burner dual and double layer
● Housing Dimension 250 (W) x 200 (D) x 60 (H) mm

Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition - Free Upgrade to Vista Premium

I believe it has a 250Gb Hard Drive as this detail seems to have been missed off the description)

Dell are now shipping with Linux installed I forget which flavour but get on it !!!

 

[Marc]

Whatever you do, don't by anything by AMD they're a pile of shit. I've had two AMD processors and they both suck whereas the Intel Pentium's perform great everytime!

just bad luck or maybe your mobo screwed them in the first place!
AMD are bloody good and for the price they run every bit as fast as Intel and are actually better for Gaming....although its all swings 'n roundabouts these days.

 

[Grizz]

Whatever you do, don't by anything by AMD they're a pile of shit. I've had two AMD processors and they both suck whereas the Intel Pentium's perform great everytime!

What a load of cobblers. The only area that Intel have stolen the lead over AMD is in the initial Dual Core Processor phase, however AMD are catching up fast especially announcing the first Quad Core computer. To the average layman there isn't much in the chips.

Had 2 AMD's before and they've been extremely reliable, only reason i've gone to Intel this time is for the Dual Core technology and price, which will include upgradeability in the future.

 

[Jam The Man]

All good comments - many thanks.. knew I could rely!

 

[Ex-Staffs Gull]

Griz, couldn't agree more. At anything lower than server level, AMD are as good, if not better than Intel. Duo Core are the next level, but for most people, parallel processing is not really that advantageous. The most important thing for the average home PC is RAM, jack that up as high as you can afford. A good graphics card helps as well.

 

[Rangdo]

What a load of cobblers. The only area that Intel have stolen the lead over AMD is in the initial Dual Core Processor phase, however AMD are catching up fast especially announcing the first Quad Core computer. To the average layman there isn't much in the chips.

Had 2 AMD's before and they've been extremely reliable, only reason i've gone to Intel this time is for the Dual Core technology and price, which will include upgradeability in the future.

Yep, never had a problem. I've been giving my AMD a serious hammering for 4 years and it's still going strong. Much cheaper too.

 

[Gwylan]

Dell are now shipping with Linux installed I forget which flavour but get on it !!!

No they're not. They've said that they're looking at it.