TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

I have been thinking about this for a little while. I'm running a pretty low-end machine now-a-days, it was a star a while back, but technology is changing so rapidly that I have no desire to shell out money by the buckets, to keep up. However, it's become a problem when I decide to play a new game that looks really good, only to find out, it sucks on my computer. So, the big question, upgrade or not to upgrade?

I currently have a Foxconn mobo, with a 1.85 GHz CPU, running 2.5GB DDR (Yes, DDR not DDR2) RAM. Nvidia GeForce 6200 AGP gfx card.

Upgrade Gfx card, or my whole Mobo? If anyone has any cheap but performance upgrades they can share with me, I'm happy to listen, as is, buying a new mobo, would cause me to buy new RAM, and a new gfx card, probably would upgrade CPU as well... Any pointers?

Look others may say your Mobo can do this or you just need to do that, or buy this one thing.

But you are best to buy the entire new computer box (with everything in it, including Windows key)
Then sell the old one, and recover some costs in doing so.

So therefore your Title would say, help me to purchase a new computer. To run these games or this certain program, or whatever that you want it to do

I was thinking about building a new one, not really rolling in money though, what is a moderately priced build, with a pretty good performance gain would you think? I certainly can't afford an 8800 GTX, but something that will go pretty good without dropping thousands of dollars.

I've looked at www.newegg.com, but would I be better off getting refurbs and stuff off of www.geeks.com?

So here's the next question New or Used?

Well yours is used! (well it's probably worse than the other used ones I admit)

The prices of computers have really dropped massively
The new Dell Inspiron 530 is $230 (incredible!)
Now true that ones not high on gaming at its base level
But I'm sure you could find a great deal for a new computer, made in gaming in mind.

As for building your own, well this gets difficult too. You have to make sure all parts are compatible and then you have to make sure that your game (if you like one specifically) is compatible with that hardware, so this can take a while!

Sorry I cannot help you with what Hardware to purchase (I usually work on Windows software faults). But I noticed your present specs and thought I'd reply with my thoughts on the matter.

Go have a look at the prices for new, you might be amazed

Thank you for the help and tips, I'm surfing newegg as we speak, I am really bent on building my own computer, as I built this one, maybe since you're a OS faults guy, you can tell me why I get BSOD's telling me IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL, or some variation of that, Hehe. Maybe my computer is just too old, and it's telling me to upgrade!

Maybe

But it's likely the Drivers are (Sound Video so forth)
You need to check at the Manufactures support page, for any Motherboard updates (although update Bios can be critical) and your Video card drivers too.

I don't want to go to in depth here though "CPUs, Chipsets and Mobos" forum

But if you're upgrading soon, I wouldn't worry about putting lots of attention on it.

Actually, what you should do, is get it ready for sale, ie Backup, and re-install Windows clean. (also all the updated drivers and stuff (stuff like Adobe Reader; Flash...)