Do you think that overall, it is cheaper and probably better to build a new machine every 2/3 year as opposed to continually upgrading the components? Opinions pls IHMO I think it's better to build a fresh, all-new machine every couple of years as opposed to upgrading summat all the time till you end up with a bit of a mess, or mis-matched components.
Good idea - but for now that can be included under 'build a new machine every 3 years', light mods/alterations can go in that group.
OK then, where is the option that says do moderate upgrades but build a new system every 5 years or so?
cheaper to keep upgrading because sayu upgrad in 2 yers time u have a good pc again but u make a new one all thetime its gonna cost££
The last complete computer I purchased for myself was in 1987. Since then all I've done is upgrade. The only two parts I buy together are the motherboard and CPU, and that isn't always. I upgrade one and then pass the parts on down. Spare parts get made into new computers, who then get sold or thrown away, Funny side story: As a side effect of upgrades, I get a few boxes of old parts that I hold on to just in case somebody needs them. I threw a bunch of ISA NICs, sound cards, and controller cards away. And I had a stack of harddrives in there. All under 10 gig, most under 2 gig. I always write the size on my drives in marker. Some even had "Bad" or "Dude...I'm ****ed" written on them. All in a big a cardboard box by the curb. My neighbor, Ultra Computer Smarty Man(He liked to tell me about his 20,000 dollar Intel Athlon 786) sees this and is shocked to find out I am throwing away good computer parts. At first I laugh because I think he is trying to wind me up. He isn't. He is serious. He wants them and asks for a price. I tell him to take them and go away. He says he is worried I will call the cops and say he stole them. Fine. 500 dollars for the lot. I figured make it unfathomably high and he would drop it. The next day he brought me 500 dollars. I'm not sure what he did with the parts, but a few days later he was arrested for shooting at police cars. Not near as funny as the time I put a broken recliner at the curb and it was taken and returned three seperate times by people in the neighborhood.
AHHAHAH wtf!? i bet you that the guy thought you called the cops on him anyway, and he flipped out and started 'poppin' caps' as the negroloids would say. thats some funny stuff. i dunno, ISA components you say? that some old stuff- when did this happen? like 1995? LOL. i built my computer bout 1999.. upgraded the HDD, upgraded the CPU (traded somone else who didnt need it and payed the idfference $10), upgraded the ram (buddy had some extra 256ddr pc2100 costed me $20) and im still able to play new games with relative ease. all together it costed like 700 +upgrades ($150-200) so id suggest goin the 5 year +upgrades plan. it works quite well. im also about to build a new system for myself anyhow. i really need a new mobo\ram\cpu\vidcard\burner. i still got an 8xSCSI burner and no DVD drive. an im still usin a GeForce2Ultra64 so, in my oppinion, upgrade lightly AFTER YOU KNOW THE PART IS GOOD. do not buy somthing brand new of the market (ahem, athalon64's) because you dont know if the hardware\software is good enough to actually be worth the $$. when you get your awesome rig, wait it out on the upgrades. it will be worth it. trust me. my XP1400 costed me $125 back in the day, and now a XP2100 is like $50. do yourself a favor. spend 700ish, and wait for a bit =) good luck witht he system buddy.
Summer of 2001. I was in the process of moving and throwing away stuff I deemed I didn't need. One thing I do is I typically buy the part that is one under the top of the line. That gives me a good part that is normally not such a premium and has been found to work.
Maybe he thought the cops were going to try and confiscate his newly acquired, top of the line, massive storage capability harddrives eh?
I constantly upgrade, until I end up with a new computer and an old computer. Then I sell the old computer ( or give it to my wife ) and continue the cycle ( much to my wifes displeasure ).
I'm much the same as these guys, I upgrade one piece at a time (I can't afford to go and blow £700 on a PC at once), then the parts I replace get passed on to a family/friend, in return for their old hardware, which I keep most of around just incase someones PC dies, so I have spare parts (happened quite recently actually, I bought an NF7-S, installed my old EQS mobo into my mums PC, and got her nasty mATX board. 1 week later my sisters PC dies, needs a new mobo ).
I'm with Solarius on this one. I never buy a new computer, the last time I did had to of been like '96? And even that got upgraded beyond the point of sanity, then I just stuck all the new parts into a different case, and put the old ones back into the orignal case, and sold the damn thing for double the price I paid for it! And I've done the same ever since (kinda how my side business started).
built my old computer in 2000, and swapped parts out when I needed an upgrade. I built my new computer 2 months ago, and I swapped in the gfx card 1 hdd, cd rw, psu, monitor,fans, sound card. And I still managed to blow $600 on new parts
I have to say continiously upgrading is the way to go, especially with the rapid progress of graphics cards. The last full-system I bought was a 286 16MHz, since then I've upgraded periodically (I threw out the old 286's ATA case last summer, along with it's duel 44Mb HDD's), usually buying products released around 3-6 months previously to keep costs reasonable. I also like the idea of investing £100 every few months rather than £1000 every 3 years!
I buy new after a period of two years. When I got my PIII 700 in 2000 it was quite high spec. 256Mb RAM, 40gig HDD and a GF2 GTS which was absolutely kick ass at the time. The only thing I put in was 256Mb more RAM and that was that. Two years later and I decided to get an AMD system, XP2100, 512 RAM, 80gig HDD and the GF2 GTS was still such a great card that I transferred it to the new PC. I've since sold the GF2 and replaced it with a 9600 Pro. This time round I don't think the 9600 Pro will be transferred coz by that time BTX and PCI Express should be established, and unless those new boards have AGP slots, it won't fit. It'll be like starting with a totally clean slate
I don't upgrade gradually, rather go on upgrading sprees every year or so, purchasing loads of components each month until my system is upgraded. Then I sell on the components or use them for another system, as I am doing at the moment for my LAN pc.
