Should I buy new or upgrade current? PLEASE HELP!

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PCnewbz0r

New Member
I'm going to college soon and my parents refuse to pay for a new computer. They're telling me that this one (Dell Dimension 2400) will get me by. Well like anyone else in this world I don't enjoy waiting 20 seconds for a screen to minimize. On bad days it can take up to 5 minutes for A SCREEN TO MINIMIZE. That is horrible. In college I will NOT tolerate this and I've decided to either buy a new computer or uprgrade the current. The last thing I want while writing a paper is to frustrated with my computer (I'm sure you all know how it feels). So... knowlegable help is GREATLY appreciated. I need to know if I should upgrade my current computer and how, OR if that is a waste of time and for close to the same amount should I get a new rig.

CURRENT: Dell Dimension 2400 (bought about 2 years ago)
All I know is that it has an Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz and 128 MB of RAM (hahahahahha). I would like to be able to write a paper while listening to iTunes while browsing the web without serious lag. I would also like to be able to run CounterStrike with decent graphics and little to no lag. I have ran CS 1.6 in the past but it took LITERALY 10-15 minutes to go through the process of logging into Steam, opening the Main Menu, and getting into a server. I would lose connection every once in a while and I would occasionally have really bad lag spikes. Once I was IN a server and playing it wasn't THAT bad (although most gamers would consider it unbareable) until I'd get some sort of lag or error that ended my fun.

Now I will obviously have to upgrade my RAM memory (512MB-1GB) but is there any other recommendations? Is it even worth upgrading this computer?
 
With a 1 GB upgrade of the RAM (should cost around $100), and if you really want to, a $100 to $150 upgrade on the card (depending on what you already have), you should be able to do/play just about anything out right now. The vid card isn't at all necessary, except if you want to do a fair bit of gaming, but if you want to be happy with the performance of the computer in general, get a Gig of RAM.
 
more ram will allow you to do a few things at once, so it would be good to upgrade that for starters. you should see how that goes before you upgrade the video, it might be good enough with the ram upgrade alone
 
Thanks for the replies fellas. I guess I'll head over to best buy today and pick up a gig of ram. While I'm there I'll take a look at some of the video cards. Horribly newby question.. but is the video card/graphics card the same thing? Hahah and which one should I look for (best value) for around $100-150?
 
Yes they are the same thing are you looking for a possible dual monitor setup or just one monitor? I'm selling a almost new Radeon 9200 which is single monitor setup and very good and am selling it for like 35 plus shipping which is a good deal would even go to like 30 plus shipping man let me know about that but yes definately get the memory!
 
Don't buy a vid card from Best Buy! They are usually overpriced by about 25% or more than places like Newegg.com or TigerDirect.com... Examples:

Oh, and I'll assume that it's an AGP board...
Newegg.com:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814141026

Tigerdirect.com:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2201323&CatId=0

Either one would be a great card...

Just for giggles here's one from BestBuy... (about $60 too much...)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7048795&type=product&id=1108124982622
 
Ram will be the best bang for the buck with applications. But it def wont help ur gaming like a new video card will.
 
One more question guys... what type of RAM do I need to buy? I see that there is like DDR and PCXXX etc. and I don't know what my Dell Dimension 2400 will take.
 
dont go buying an expensive video card to play cs 1.6. all you need is a cheap 6200. save the money and buy a dual core processor for the things you want to do.
 
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