Hmmm, new build or upgrade?
- Thread starter Noah
- Start date
My budget's about $700-800, but it's gonna take me a while to get it, which kinda sucks, i was thinking i could take that old PC and swap parts in and out, ans eventually build up to a whole new rig, piece by piece, only reason i was thinking of doing that is it's taking me whole lot longer to get $800 than expected, bills are killing me. Would that make sense to do that? I've made some posts about new builds but i figured that way i'd atleast be able to play some games in the mean time while waiting for the new parts. (im using a laptop, that rig is my old desktop that i gave to my mom)
Well with my budget the only technology i'll be able to afford will be yesterdays, haha. I'm not the most hardcore gamer, and i'm definately not willing to dish out 2000+ for an incredible rig, but i do like nice FPS and no jaggies, but i don't see how it'll be yesterdays technology, i'm only talking like a new part every 2 weeks, not every 2 months.
So if i'm waiting 2 weeks at a time, wouldn't that open up the possibility that by the time i finish ordering my parts, some of the parts that i did order could have been cheaper than they were the month before?
i don't mean to sound like i'm arguing or anything, just curious as i don't wanna waste alot of money, haha.
i don't mean to sound like i'm arguing or anything, just curious as i don't wanna waste alot of money, haha.
I think the most important thing that you need to look at is a new motherboard. It really is the platform to everything else that you will add to it. Currently with what you have, you probably don't have much room to upgrade in the sense that you won't significantly notice any performance gains.
The problem that comes with replacing old parts (part by part with time) is that you can only replace parts so much until the platform your running on isn't going to offer anything better for you to upgrade with. Which in a sense, means you'll pretty much be wasting your money on doing any further upgrades to it without starting on a fresh platform.
If you really want something better that you'll notice without having to spend a very large sum of cash, try looking around for a new motherboard that'll support dual processors and pcie slots with the capability for upgrades in the future. Technology changes so fast thats its always going to be an uphill battle, so its best to choose the most practical battle you can fight when your on a budget.
Intel is probably the best way to go atm, but its more costly. You could opt for a new AMD board that supports dualcore with pcie along with a new processor, but make sure it'll support the RAM your using (unless you want to upgrade that as well). Use your current psu, hd, optical..etc. and you should be good for the future at least for a little while hehe.
As far as what firsttimebuilder said, refer to my second paragraph to get an understanding on where he's coming from
The problem that comes with replacing old parts (part by part with time) is that you can only replace parts so much until the platform your running on isn't going to offer anything better for you to upgrade with. Which in a sense, means you'll pretty much be wasting your money on doing any further upgrades to it without starting on a fresh platform.
If you really want something better that you'll notice without having to spend a very large sum of cash, try looking around for a new motherboard that'll support dual processors and pcie slots with the capability for upgrades in the future. Technology changes so fast thats its always going to be an uphill battle, so its best to choose the most practical battle you can fight when your on a budget.
Intel is probably the best way to go atm, but its more costly. You could opt for a new AMD board that supports dualcore with pcie along with a new processor, but make sure it'll support the RAM your using (unless you want to upgrade that as well). Use your current psu, hd, optical..etc. and you should be good for the future at least for a little while hehe.
As far as what firsttimebuilder said, refer to my second paragraph to get an understanding on where he's coming from
Thanks for the indepth post there Kurt, But the first thing that i was going to upgrade was definately going to be the motherboard, im going to rebuild from the ground up, and replace almost everything, but i thought that newer technology usually supported the old? Would a new motherboard not support the DDR ram that i have now? Also, do new motherboards have AGP and PCI? And in reply to your post firsttime, i thought that older parts would work with newer, heh. guess not?
lol. and by then if he waits a few more months new stuff will be out again, and a few months after that more new stuff will be out, and a few more months after that more new stuff, and a few more months after that more new stuff, etc, etc, etc, etc. you cant just wait for new stuff to come out, no matter when you build a pc, there will be newer stuff coming out a few months to a year later.
anyway, you can get...
a core 2 duo for less then $200
a gig of ddr2 ram for less then $50
a motherboard for less then $200, for less then $50 even if you want a cheap one
a decent video card like a 512mb 7600gs is also less then $100
you can possibly reuse your current mouse, keyboard, hard drive, case, monitor, optical drives, hard drive, and power supply.
for less then $500 you can have a fairly decent computerthat will play most games on the market with medium to high graphics settings.
its the nice thing about hardware being so far more advanced then software
on a side note, its not that much more expensive to build cheap now and upgrade later. the above is exactly what i got back in september (went with the cheapo motherboard). then over the past 2 months ive replaced and upgraded until i had the pc in my sig. was it worth it? yep. thats 4 months of great game play i had on a good pc.
just keep in mind...
1. every pc has to be upgraded eventually
2. hardware is far more advanced then software, which means you dont need top end stuff and can easily use cheaper older stuff
3. if you wait for the new stuff, youll pay top dollar for something that you might not get your moneys worth out of it for maybe another year or two, and by then there will be way better hardware out and the thing you have will be cheaper
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