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I would be interested to hear people's thoughts.
I presently run a Pentium 3, 1 gig processor with 256 mgb ram, and 20 G of hard drive space. My graphics card is something like an Nvidea 32. Okay, I may have screwed up on some of these technical terms but I think you know what I mean

I am contemplating upgrading and obtaining a new video/graphics card, a second hard drive and maybe more ram.

However, I am also wondering if maybe I should just get a new computer instead.

Suggestions?

Is price a factor? Is your current system still under warranty? How much extra performance do you need? How much extra performance do you want?

Originally posted by HighLordDave
Is price a factor? Is your current system still under warranty? How much extra performance do you need? How much extra performance do you want?

Price is a factor to a degree.. I don't want to spend much more than $1000 Cdn. My system is no longer under warrenty. Basically I want to be able to play upcoming games like "Knights of the Old Republic" without a hitch. This makes it really difficult to justify the purchase of a brand new system, because in essence it still does everything I need it to.

Here's what I would do (but this means that you'll have to do most of your own tech support):

$1,000 CAD is about $650 USD, right?

Buy a case, power supply, motherboard (MSI, of course), AMD Athlon XP CPU (in the 2400+ range), 1 GB of DDR RAM, a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 sound card and an nVidia GeForce FX video card. Get the best and fastest that you can find.

Strip the hard drive, network card, ODDs and FDDs out of your old computer. Build yourself a whole new machine. Use your existing peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.)

You won't have to (although you probably should) reinstall the OS and software on the HDD since you're moving it instead of buying a whole new one. I say you should reinstall the OS because when you change chipsets, it's usually a good idea to reinstall the OS, although it's not always necessary. Still, this would give you some time to back up your data before a format>reinstall.

: ockets checks from nVidia, AMD, MSI and Creative::

@HLD,
thanks ! I may well end up doing something like that, I was trying to determine if it would be worth it. I may end up getting a new monitor though. I have a real interest in getting a 19 inch flat screen. The monitor I have is 15 inches and has the old slightly curved screen.. sometimes tough on the eyes.

Yes, $1000 Cdn, is approximately $650 US; it might be a bit higher, though not by much.

lol! I was wondering if you had shares in those components

I did basically the same thing last year at about this time. I spent a little over $500 (USD) on the major upgrade components then stripped an old machine for the minor stuff. I figure I saved myself about $600 over what a comparable machine would have cost from Dell or Gateway.