Buy a new system or upgrade current?

[c0ncept]

I've had my PC for close to 4 years, but I have upgraded a lot of things including Power supply, video card, and RAM. Several things though, are still old and I'm starting to notice it chugging up in certain situations, such as games (with graphics set on max).

Here are the things I know off the top of my head of my system:
AMD athlon xp 2600+
120 GB HDD
1g of ram
Nvidia geforce 6800 gs

And heres a screenie of Astra32:

If someone could be kind enough to name a few things I should upgrade for better performance for around $500, give or take a little, I would love you forever.

 

[darkop16]

theres not much to upgrade with a prebuilt except the memory and gpu. You could get another stick of ram to run more programs, but i don't see much else you can do. Im guessing the gpu is agp and you can get a better agp gpu, but your procesor would prob bottleneck anything higher then a 6800.

I would suggest save up your money, read up some of the stickies on how to build a pc just to become fimilar(i don't mean knowing everything there is to know, but just what components go where and how to set up yourself....its really easy) and when you have $800 to $1000, you can upgrade to a better computer that you put together .

sry if i don't tell you what you want to hear, but your current system has little room for upgrade. If it was built by you though, then you would have a little bit more room to upgrade, which is why building your own is much better.

 

[macdude425]

eMachines use off-the-shelf parts, so the above point is essentially moot.

However, building a brand new machine isn't the worst idea in the world, as you will be replacing practically everything; just get a new case and transplant the optical, floppy, and hard disk drives is my suggestion. You can also keep peripherals and monitor.

 

[c0ncept]

Thanks for the ideas.

Is there a way I could just get some things like a new motherboard and new processor, or would it not be compatible or something?

 

[WorldIndustries]

Is your GPU an agp or pci-e?

If it's agp, you're pretty much better off getting a whole new system... Your CPU and memory platforms are out of date, especially if your cpu socket is 754, and if your GPU platform is agp too, that's a pretty good reason to get a new system.

 

[macdude425]

It HAS to be AGP if he has an Athlon XP.

You could get a new motherboard, and it would probably fit in the the case, but odds are, you'd have to get a new PSU, and you'd defiantly have to get a new CPU, new RAM, and a new video card.

Why not pull the HDD, CD and floppy drives, and get a new case?

 

[c0ncept]

It HAS to be AGP if he has an Athlon XP.

You could get a new motherboard, and it would probably fit in the the case, but odds are, you'd have to get a new PSU, and you'd defiantly have to get a new CPU, new RAM, and a new video card.

Why not pull the HDD, CD and floppy drives, and get a new case?

So you mean I should keep the hdd, CD and floppy drives, get a new case and just buy all new everything? But why is it that I would need a new PSU, CPU, RAM, and Video card if there was a new motherboard? That isn't too bad, as I could just sell the old stuff on Ebay for a little.

So overall you guys suggest a brand new system? Sounds like a deal to me. Christmas is soon.

 

[Apokalipse]

you could upgrade the motherboard to socket 754, and get a Sempron. Sempron's are quite cheap now, and they perform pretty well.

 

[c0ncept]

you could upgrade the motherboard to socket 754, and get a Sempron. Sempron's are quite cheap now, and they perform pretty well.

But do you think all my current stuff would be compatible with a new motherboard?

 

[Apokalipse]

yes. socket 754 is DDR1 only, and it is AGP in the vast majority of cases.

the only different thing would be the CPU socket; but this would be for a new CPU anyway.