Upgrading: power up your PC

by Tim Dean on Jun 30, 2005

Tags: PC | upgrade

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

Perennial as the seasons, is the PC upgrade cycle. The IT industry moves so fast that it only takes 18 months or so before your new whiz bang PC starts losing its whiz and after a couple of years becomes well short on bang.

However, in lieu of forking out a couple of grand for a brand new PC, you can upgrade a few select components, and breathe new life into your system. Besides, why get a new PC when your existing case, keyboard, mouse, CD burner, speakers etc are all fine, but you just need a bit of a performance boost?

How much you can upgrade really depends on the age of your PC and how many of the existing components are salvageable. You may find that a CPU upgrade requires a new motherboard, which might also mean new RAM, but if you make some frugal decisions, you can still save a bundle. You should also be wary of creating new bottlenecks with your upgrade, such as if you install a new 3GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM, but are still running Windows ME off a 10GB 5400rpm hard drive.

To take the guesswork out of upgrading, we’ve picked out the most important components for a number of different roles. With a few well chosen upgrades, you can turn your three year old PC into an as-new gaming system, digital content creation workstation or even a home media centre.

So grab your Philips head, tear off that anti-static wrapping, pack some sandwiches and make a day of upgrading your old PC with the PC Authority quick upgrade guide.

The Ultimate PC Upgrade Guide - Part 1: Motherboards

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This article appeared in the July, 2005 issue of PC Authority.

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