Reference number: CH000988

Should I upgrade or buy a new computer?

Question:

Should I upgrade or buy a new computer?

Answer:

In the past a new computer could cost as much as an inexpensive car. However today, the cost of a new computer has dramatically decreased and depending on what you need out of the computer may or may not justify the purchase of a new computer. Below is a listing of different upgrade options and why you may or may not want to upgrade.

Memory upgrade

A memory upgrade is one upgrade that can really affect the overall performance of your computer. Increasing the computers memory can help increase the speed of a computer and help with the load times of many of your programs. In addition to being an effective upgrade it's an affordable and often easy and fast upgrade.

If your computer could use a small performance boost and your computer has less than 1GB of memory this can be an effective upgrade and you may want to do this instead of purchasing a new computer.

Video card upgrade

If you're playing computer games on your computer an upgraded video card can be one of the best upgrades for your computer. With the new improvements and complexities of graphics in games many older computers or computers with inefficient video cards can become real slow.

Adding a new video card is often an easy to do upgrade and is a lot cheaper than purchasing a new computer.

New display

Although a new display is not going to improve the performance of a computer adding a LCD or flat-panel display and/or increasing the size of your display can make using the computer a much more enjoyable experience.

If you're display is 17" or smaller, you're using a monitor and not a flat-panel display, and you have the room to do it, this upgrade is easy and a lot less than purchasing a new computer. Also if down the road you do purchase a new computer you will not need a new display.

Disc drives

Adding a new disc drive such as a faster CD-R/CD-RW (cd burner) or a DVD drive can be a great upgrade to a computer that either has a slower drive or does not have a CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD.

If you burn or create a lot of your own discs a new burner can greatly decrease the time it takes to create each disc. In addition a faster drive can also help with the installation process or load time of any CD or DVD programs. Apart from these two examples this type of upgrade is more of a new feature than a performance upgrade.

Hard drive space upgrade

In the past upgrading the hard disk drive was a popular upgrade. However, today hard disk drives are becoming so large that most users are not running out of disk space. However, if your computer is running out of hard disk space, you're happy with the performance of the computer, and you're considering the options between upgrading and purchasing a new computer adding a new hard drive to the computer is a cheap and often fairly simple upgrade.

Broadband

The Internet is one of the most popular things to do while on the computer and many users often don't look at their Internet connection when considering upgrading their computer. If you do not have a broadband Internet connection, it is available in your area, and you spend a lot of time on the Internet subscribing to a broadband service would be a lot more beneficial than doing any other upgrade or purchasing a new computer.

Users who already have broadband may also consider faster types of broadband. For example, if you have DSL you may want to consider changing to cable or other faster solution.

Other upgrades

Apart from the above recommendations if you're looking at doing any other types of upgrades such as: CPU, motherboard, sound card, modem, network card, etc. today we almost always recommend that you save your money and purchase a new computer now or down the road.

Additional information:

• Additional information about how often you should purchase a new computer can be found on document CH000985.
• Information about upgrading and installing new hardware into your computer is found on document CHADD.