make your computing experience way better. Here are some of the things to
keep in mind when upgrading: First of course is cost. You have to
ask yourself; is it worth upgrading or is it cheaper to buy a new
computer. If your computer is only two or three years old, it is probably
worth upgrading, if your computer is older than you want to be careful what you
upgrade and we will get into that in a sec.
The first thing to do is get all the specs for your computer...open up the
side and check the out the numbers...what i mean by that is the Motherboard
model number and type of ram...you can remove the stick and read the number on
it, it will be something like DDR2 6400 800mhz...something like that.
Write down the wattage of your power supply, it will be something like 250 or
300 watts usually. Put the side back on and start up your computer.
Right click on "My Computer" and write down the cpu type and size and
amount of ram..now go to your desktop and right click on the desktop and go to
properties...navigate to the display adapter and write down the
type...something like Nvidia Gforce 8800. Now close that up and click
onto my computer (not right click, left click) write down the size of
your Hard Drive
Ok now you have the stats and it is time to make some decisions...say to
yourself..."what do i need this computer to do" If it is just
surfing the net and e-mailing and your computer is too slow as it is right now
it is one of two things...A) it just needs to be sped up by a tech and no
hardware needs to be purchased and/or it needs more ram...that is it no other
upgrades needed
If your computer is working fast enough but you are running out of room to
store your folders then you need to do one of a few things...A) Get a tech to
restore your PC to factory specs and just save the important pictures, docs,
and emails or B) Get a secondary Hard Drive and just store your extra stuff on
that...and back everything important on it as well or C) store your data on an
internet data storage site...check out www.bitratecomputers.com
and click the "backup" tab...there is a great site there that gives
you 50 GBs of storage for free.
If you decide that gaming is your thing and your PC just isn't cutting it,
you will need to make the big decision....because gaming takes the most and best
hardware to work best....you will need to decide if a new computer would be
cheaper...I f you decide to upgrade your PC here is what you need to upgrade on
your computer to make it a gamer....First you will need a Power Supply with a
least 750 watts and that has the connections for possible SLI or
Crossfire..(SLI and Crossfire are just fancy words for using 2 or more video
cards at the same time..SLI is Nvidia and Crossfire is ATI) after your power
supply you want to have at least a quad core CPU...an i3,i5 or i7 would be
better...having said that you will have to ensure your motherboard can handle
the new processor.....then you will need to up the ram...DDR3 is the type you
want and at least 4 GBs of it..ok so a new power supply, CPU, motherboard, and
RAM now the most expensive piece...the video cards...you can spend a couple
thousand on these especially if you get cutting edge and use SLI or
Crossfire....the better the video card the better the game play....
To give you an example of what I have and the final cost...I run a Core i7
processor with 4 GB DDR3 ram...I have a 750 watt power supply, I have a 8800 Nvidia
Video card...no SLI..I can run and play any new game at about 90% and it runs
great...it I wanted 100% I would have to upgrade my video cards only to maybe a
GTX 400 series...my PC cost about 1500.00 and the new card would be about 350
for a GTX 470...hope this helps anybody who is thinking of upgrading
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