Contemplating on another rig

[SolidBladez]

I was thinking about downsizing my parents' rig (see specs below) with a AMD Hudson M1 combo. All they do on their computer is surf the internet (e-mail, watch some YouTube videos, etc.) and use Office, nothing too demanding. That is why I was wondering if it would be worth it to downgrade or perhaps buy one for a HTPC for my upstairs tv room.

• Intel i3 540 @ 3.7GHz (Corsair H60)
• Intel DP55WG
• Mushkin 4GB DDR3 1600
• Nvidia 8400GS
• Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ
• Antec NEO ECO 520C
• Lian-Li Lancool PC-K62
• Windows 7 x64 Professional SP1

 

[tiraides]

I personally don't believe that you should build a new computer just for the sake of "downsizing" your parents' needs. If you're trying to reduce the overall energy used by your parent's computers, that would be something to consider. But what would you do with the old computer?

 

[SolidBladez]

But what would you do with the old computer?

I was thinking about selling off most of the parts.

Not to go into my personal life, I wanted to get some extra cash due to health reasons (food, medical costs). Seeing as how the new AMD APU is fairly energy efficient (then again, so is their current setup), I wasn't quite too sure if it would be worth the downgrade plus selling off their other parts.

 

[tiraides]

You'll never recoup all of the costs from your previous build. It would be better to just stick with what you have.

 

[E4g1e]

I was thinking about selling off most of the parts.

Not to go into my personal life, I wanted to get some extra cash due to health reasons (food, medical costs). Seeing as how the new AMD APU is fairly energy efficient (then again, so is their current setup), I wasn't quite too sure if it would be worth the downgrade plus selling off their other parts.

It would take much, much longer than the maximum usable life of the new computer to recoup much, if any, of the cost of the new system even after selling off the current parts. This is because you would not be getting much, if any, money back from selling that current rig because it is of a previous-generation platform that's already been obsolesced by Sandy Bridge. And that's not to mention that the new low-power-consumption systems typically have a poorer performance-to-wattage ratio than your parent's current rig.

And even if you could save money with the low-power-consumption platform, there is no free lunch when it comes to storage: The SSDs are still expensive in terms of cost per GB while less-expensive HDDs are still quite power-hungry. And equipping sich a power-saving system with a regular HDD would have almost completely defeated the single advantage of such a platform.