Upgrade computer vs. buying new?

I have a 4 year old dell desktop. I have upgraded it over time and it now has a rocking 256mb graphics card and 2gb of memory. It has an old 1.6ghz processor so I am wondering. Can I simply buy a new intel processor and be rockin, or will it be of huge benefit to me to buy a whole new system? I have just started taking classes on website development and graphic design so I want it to be able to excel for multimedia applications. Thanks for the help!
Upgrade computer vs. buying new?
Buy new!!!
Upgrade computer vs. buying new?
I would buy new.
Reply:Well, dell is going bankrupt, so it might be a good idea to look for another brand of computer.
Reply:Please add CPU model.


1.6 GHz seem new dual core type (too low freq for a 4 year old desktop). Which is not too slow.


Too slow if it is Prescott, single core or earlier
Reply:Time to buy new...





Your ram, although 2 gb, is probably slower than the newer ones. The new video cards, require a new compatible motherboards.





Err, at least you can keep your hdd.





You could go for a "skeleton upgrade" which they give you the case, motherboard, and cpu. If your ram is still new, you can throw it in, along with you hdd. Saves some money.
Reply:its tough but you can def. use some upgrades. do whatever is cheaper go to this site here www.magic-micro.com and build a custom one and see how much. i just build a custom one from there with top of the line everything except for motherboard and gpu (graphics processing unit) for $850
Reply:I would just upgrade, but you could also buy a laptop for the road and use the old PC for work at home.
Reply:From a guy who builds computers for a living, take it from me and buy new. First off, you can't just buy a new processor and start rocking because your motherboard's chipset won't support them. I'm quite sure you're running a Pentium 4 system and all the new Intel systems run the Core 2 Duo processors. Secondly, if you're going to be doing graphical applications, you may be looking into a dedicated graphics card which would require a PCI Express x16 slot. Likely, your older system still uses AGP ports. Thirdly, your older system is probably a native DDR2 533 on the RAM, if it's running DDR2, at all. Newer systems will offer at least 667mhz or 800mhz. Finally, the LAN on your motherboard is probably 10/100Mbps. If you're running a good high-speed connection, you'd see a great benefit from running on a Gigabit LAN chip.





Buying new, you can get a computer that is perfectly acceptable for your needs for around $500-600 without a monitor. With a monitor tack on another $150. Upgrading, you may be able to find a used processor, RAM, and AGP graphics card for around $100-150 total and you'd still be running a significantly worse system.
Reply:I am using Adobe Photoshop CS3 and MS Visual Web Dev 2005 for graphic design and web development. Opening them both make my pc slows down and it's pretty annoying.


Considering my spec's are 256mb gcard, 2gb ram and pentium 4 3ghz. If you're going to use these apps. I suggest you sell that old pc of yours and buy a new one. Hope it helps.
Reply:surely u'll be better off buying a new system , coz


1) even if u purchase a new mother board that might not be compatible with the other components of your system


2)there can't be any substantial performance increase by just increasing your ram also your motherboard is so old that a new processor might not be compatible for it amd can result in system crash


3)with price of core 2 duo and even core 2 quad now


becoming very low u would be better off buying a new one ,or else wait untill sep till intel comes out with 8 core processor


4) for graphics design atlest 2 ghz is required for optimum performance depending on your software