PC - Upgrade myself or buy new?

ThemeOne

I'm still interested to hear what the OP got and how much it was.

Parva

PC's are always going to be a controversial subject as they are built from so many different variables. Ultimately it depends what you want to do with it. Yep, I have an old PC sat in a cupboard which I could fire up and do Facebook and other net surfing quite easily. Ok, it will take 5 minutes to fire up and and settle but hey, no problem. I could add RAM, add a bigger hard drive, maybe even add better graphics but it's never going to improve much beyond what it is, an old PC.

This PC I use now is lightning fast due to having 16Gb of RAM, a decent graphics card and 2x SSD's (a Vertex3 and a Vertex4 for the connoisseurs). Upgrading it however is problematic as the newer Intel CPU's are out and have a different connection requiring a whole new motherboard and hence, everything else needs to be upgraded.

I'm not suggesting anyone dumps their old PC, if it does what you want and you can score some cheap RAM on Ebay or whatever to give it that bit of a boost then by all means, go for it. Just don't expect to turn that old PC into some sort of game playing machine. It doesn't really matter what I say because I'll get shot down but hey ho.

NiftyDigits

Parva wrote: »

PC's are always going to be a controversial subject as they are built from so many different variables. Ultimately it depends what you want to do with it. Yep, I have an old PC sat in a cupboard which I could fire up and do Facebook and other net surfing quite easily. Ok, it will take 5 minutes to fire up and and settle but hey, no problem. I could add RAM, add a bigger hard drive, maybe even add better graphics but it's never going to improve much beyond what it is, an old PC.

This PC I use now is lightning fast due to having 16Gb of RAM, a decent graphics card and 2x SSD's (a Vertex3 and a Vertex4 for the connoisseurs). Upgrading it however is problematic as the newer Intel CPU's are out and have a different connection requiring a whole new motherboard and hence, everything else needs to be upgraded.

I'm not suggesting anyone dumps their old PC, if it does what you want and you can score some cheap RAM on Ebay or whatever to give it that bit of a boost then by all means, go for it. Just don't expect to turn that old PC into some sort of game playing machine. It doesn't really matter what I say because I'll get shot down but hey ho.

It's true, but only because you are writing nonsense.
We were writing about spending £25 on making a slow PC more usable.
Now you are suggesting that the OP expected it to metamorphise into a games machine.

Your old PC takes 5 minutes to fire up and settle down??

Really....stop. You are just digging a deeper hole.

PenguinJim

Parva wrote: »

This PC I use now is lightning fast due to having 16Gb of RAM, a decent graphics card and 2x SSD's (a Vertex3 and a Vertex4 for the connoisseurs).

I have to ask... what are you doing that requires more than 8GB of RAM? (And I hardly think a SSD connoisseur would have bought the OCZ Vertex 3 or 4 two years ago... )

To be honest, it sounds like they saw you coming. If you're not sure which parts to buy, you might find it helpful to ask, either here or on a dedicated PC hardware forum.

Parva

PenguinJim wrote: »

I have to ask... what are you doing that requires more than 8GB of RAM? (And I hardly think a SSD connoisseur would have bought the OCZ Vertex 3 or 4 two years ago... )

To be honest, it sounds like they saw you coming. If you're not sure which parts to buy, you might find it helpful to ask, either here or on a dedicated PC hardware forum.

I'm pretty certain that both of my SSD's are 2 years old or more. The Vertex3 I bought when I built the system, the Vertex4 I bought 6 months later.

Regarding the RAM, sure, get along with 1Gb if that floats your boat, what does it matter if you're only using the PC as a word processor. RAM is so cheap relatively speaking these days. If the OP is so cash-strapped then I would recommend getting an Android tablet! But hey, it's my opinion so shoot me.

PenguinJim

Parva wrote: »

I add a caveat here, gaming PC's are a whole different animal, my gaming PC is 2 years old and cost me over £1000 to build but even now, it holds its own with more recent stuff.

Parva wrote: »

I'm pretty certain that both of my SSD's are 2 years old or more. The Vertex3 I bought when I built the system, the Vertex4 I bought 6 months later.

I think it's quite important here to point out that people should not buy second-hand SSDs. You have no idea how many P/E cycles they've been through already. Always buy SSDs new. Parva's the first person I've seen buying second-hand SSDs, so it didn't occur to me to share this advice before. Buying second-hand SSDs is not good MSE advice (and apparently doesn't save much money anyway, considering how much Parva was charged!).

Parva wrote: »

Regarding the RAM, sure, get along with 1Gb if that floats your boat, what does it matter if you're only using the PC as a word processor. RAM is so cheap relatively speaking these days. If the OP is so cash-strapped then I would recommend getting an Android tablet! But hey, it's my opinion so shoot me.

I did ask what purpose you had found that requires more than 8GB, as it would be helpful to share that information on here in case others want to use their PCs for the same purpose. From your non-answer, can we assume that it's "nothing"?

(Also, I'm reasonably certain that there aren't only two choices of "1GB" or "16GB"! )

Parva

PenguinJim wrote: »

I think it's quite important here to point out that people should not buy second-hand SSDs. You have no idea how many P/E cycles they've been through already. Always buy SSDs new. Parva's the first person I've seen buying second-hand SSDs, so it didn't occur to me to share this advice before. Buying second-hand SSDs is not good MSE advice (and apparently doesn't save much money anyway, considering how much Parva was charged!).

Eh? Where did I ever say I bought or recommend buying 2nd hand SSD's? Mine were both brand new. Go fishing elsewhere.

Parva

Parva's the first person I've seen buying second-hand SSDs, so it didn't occur to me to share this advice before. Buying second-hand SSDs is not good MSE advice (and apparently doesn't save much money anyway, considering how much Parva was charged!).

Just to reiterate the point in question, please explain where I said I bought 2nd hand SSD's and also point me to the post that explains the "considering how much Parva was charged!" bit. I don't recall mentioning buying either used SSD's or prices that I paid.

PenguinJim

Parva wrote: »

Eh? Where did I ever say I bought or recommend buying 2nd hand SSD's?

In the bits I quoted. You said you built the PC two years ago and bought one SSD. You said you bought another SSD 1.5 years ago, but you said you're pretty certain that both SSDs are "2 years old or more". It's pretty difficult to read anything other than "second-hand SSDs" from what you said.

You also said you spent over £1,000 on that PC and two years later you "wouldn't think twice" about upgrading, which heavily implies that you were overcharged two years ago.

(Apologies if English is not your first language - sometimes I forget how global the Internet is!)

Parva

PenguinJim wrote: »

In the bits I quoted. You said you built the PC two years ago and bought one SSD. You said you bought another SSD 1.5 years ago, but you said you're pretty certain that both SSDs are "2 years old or more". It's pretty difficult to read anything other than "second-hand SSDs" from what you said.

You also said you spent over £1,000 on that PC and two years later you "wouldn't think twice" about upgrading, which heavily implies that you were overcharged two years ago.

(Apologies if English is not your first language - sometimes I forget how global the Internet is!)

Be as condescending as you like, especially with your tiny ad-lib about my English language. I'm sorry that you got so confused about my posts regarding SSD's. To make this clear, I built the PC now well over 2 years ago and at that point, I purchased a brand new Vertex3 along with all of the other bits to build the PC. Some 6 months later, I decided that I liked the speed of the SSD drive so I purchased a brand new Vertex4 which I fitted to the PC I built.

Always buy SSDs new. Parva's the first person I've seen buying second-hand SSDs, so it didn't occur to me to share this advice before. Buying second-hand SSDs is not good MSE advice (and apparently doesn't save much money anyway, considering how much Parva was charged!).

I still fail to see where I ever mentioned using 2nd hand SSD's, furthermore, where did you invent this idea of "considering how much Parva was charged!"? Where exactly did that come from? Apologies for my poor use of English.