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Help! Upgrade or buy?

mattchapman

mattchapman

Gawd
Joined
Dec 30, 2005
Messages
572
Over 3 years ago I bought my first PC, a Dell Dimension 4550 with 2.6GHz P4, 128mb Radeon 9700, and 768mb RAM. I was very happy with it (not really knowing what else is out there) but I feel it may be time to upgrade. I recently got into gaming (Battlefield 2, FEAR, Civ 4, Call of Duty, etc.) and some basic multimedia stuff (video editing, etc.) and I'm in need of some more power. Also, my fans have gotten much louder and the noise is driving me crazy (may be caused by me buying a new desk which houses the PC in a closed 'cabinet').

Anyway, my question is - should I buy a new system or would I be better off spending less and upgrading my system with a new video card and some more RAM??

I have a budget of about $1200 which I know will buy me a new Enpower Nitro Extreme for example, or even a Dell XPS 400 with 3GHz dual core and GeForce 6800 at Dell Outlet. Or I could save most of my cash and buy a 256mb video card and up to 1gb RAM. Would one of these new systems be so much better to warrant splashing out the $1200?

Thanks for your help and advice. :)
 
Well you could upgrade your system, although seeing as this is an old-ish system, your upgrade paths would be limited and I don't think you could put that $1200 to very good use.

So I would say yes a new system will be much more powerful than just an upgrade.

However if you want a PC from Dell or whatever because of convenience, that would still leave you with a much better PC than if you upgraded.
 
I'd love to be able to build my own PC some day, but I don't think I'm experienced enough for that just yet. I've read all the bad posts about Dell here (incl. the XPS 400 review), but I think most of it can be rectified by cleaning the system of bloatware first. They're also pretty darn cheap from Dell Outlet. The PC Club Nitro Extreme looks nice and got a rave review.

A new video card would only set me back 200-300 however.
 
You guys are welcome to PM or go to General Hardware, but this forum is meant for discussion of full OEM system options. This includes upgrades, but only in the context of an OEM system.

To address your question, for those games, I would definitely recommend a new system. PC Club does very good builds for budget users.
 
DNA Doc said:
You guys are welcome to PM or go to General Hardware, but this forum is meant for discussion of full OEM system options. This includes upgrades, but only in the context of an OEM system.

To address your question, for those games, I would definitely recommend a new system. PC Club does very good builds for budget users.
Click to expand...
Sorry Doc... my bad. Didn't mean to upset anyone. :(
 
No worries. Good questions and good answers, but they need a new home :).

If you need any of the information in the deleted posts, I can PM you.
 
Matt - keep your eye on the HotDeals section. There are always users posting coupon codes for Dell systems. You might get lucky and get a 10 to 25% off coupon if you want to buy another OEM. I wouldn't worry about spending money to choose a higher-end graphics card with them, as they likely will only be able to provide a 6800 series or X800 series gpu at the most (and maintain the price range you are looking for, that is).... might be best to buy something like a 7800GT and put it in yourself. You might even be able to call them and have a system custom configured with no video card, saving you even more money.
 
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