Upgrading a PC for yourself can actually be rather rewarding (especially considering there are monetary savings to be had), but to many it’s a daunting task. Whilst a full overhaul may never appeal to everyone, there are always components and peripherals you can swap or add that will do wonders for your system. If you’re building to play the latest games especially, consider swapping these parts for something new before you ditch your entire machine:
Graphics Card
Ever since the now defunct 3DFX’s Voodoo range, the first thing any PC builder replaces when they are upgrading is the Graphics Card. Featuring components that are very specifically engineered to make graphical computing tasks faster, these cards will still provide the biggest jump for most machines. They’re also the easiest thing to install in your machine, and finding a decent card is a pretty straightforward process (bigger numbers mean better cards, spend as much over £150 / $250 as you want to).
However, it’s important to acknowledge that there are limits to what a new card can do for you. Very old motherboards will be incompatible with modern graphics cards, (the latest PCI-E v2.1 and v3.0 specification may not be supported by older motherboards). More importantly though, a good graphics card can be held back by not enough ram, or a weak processor.
RAM
No full-sized machine set up for everyday tasks really ought to have any less than 4GB of RAM these days. A games machine ought to have at least 8GB, and 16GB ought to future-proof you against the more data intensive games just around the corner. Broadly speaking, more RAM means that complex visual and mathematical elements – models, textures and the like – can be stored close at hand. This reduces load times and the risk of sudden, prolonged loading spikes during gameplay. It’s also important to get high speed RAM. DDR3 RAM with a 1600Mhz (1.6 Ghz) speed is the current standard.
Hard Drive (Solid State Drives)
Hard disk sizes kept rising and prices kept falling, and now the days of the cheap Terabyte hard drive are a reality. We’re now finally in an age where a Hard-Drive is no more hassle to purchase and install than an optical disc drive. Buy a large enough drive, and never have to worry about your data again.
Or perhaps not. The fact is that the access speeds of a spinning hard disk drive and its data-reading head aren’t especially impressive in modern computing terms. The new pretender to the throne is the SSD – the Solid State Drive. In simple terms, SSDs are like large flash memory disks (not entirely unlike those in mobile devices). They can be accessed, written and rewritten almost instantaneously, translating into extremely fast data access speeds on any PC they’re added to. The only problem is size (well, and cost): you get about 1/6th of the capacity for nearly twice the price of a typical Hard Disk drive.
Nothing is stopping you from running a gaming PC with a SSD and a conventional Hard Disk drive, though. Stick your Operating System on the SSD and all your games on the conventional disk and you’ll be laughing.
Monitor
Often overlooked (though you’re almost certainly literally looking at one right now), having a good monitor is essential for gaming. The 1920×1080 resolution typical of ‘High Definition’ entertainment (e.g. Blu Ray) is the standard for current gaming PCs. But if you’re adventuring into screens of 27” and above, you should seriously consider investing in the sharpness of a 2560×1440 screen. High refresh 3D-capable monitors are certainly within reach too, and 3D technology is certainly most exciting when implemented in games.
Steph Wood has built several PC builds in the past, and is currently writing for Novatech who offer the best cheap laptops to UK customers.
This post has been contributed by a guest poster. Their details, if any, appear at the end of the above article.
Twitter: theapptimes
says:
It is worthwhile to upgrade these over a period of time isn’t it. Doing it at one point of time will not be worth it; you might as well buy a new PC.
Adeline’s recent post ..How to Create a Facebook Timeline Cover
Twitter: stephwoo286
says:
Generally speaking, if you buy a new PC there’ll be labour and other markup in the price anyway, so it always pays to buy the components separately and build the machine yourself. Otherwise, yes, these are the bits and pieces I’d look into buying on a part by part basis if you want to prolong the life of the machine for a little longer, more or less in the order they’re in
Twitter: techsparx1
says:
hello
i must go through two ram and hardisk is one of the most imporatnt thing ram for performance and hardisk to store lots of data thnx for share and one thing for gamers they must go throuh these all things ram,processor,hardisk,and graphic card which is one of the imp. thing thnx for this nice share
vishvast’s recent post ..Top Valentine’s Day 2012 Best Love Gifts Wallpaper
Twitter: AndyTooth
says:
The problem is when you have a really old PC and it can’t take enough memory, or the RAM is very expensive, so you have to upgrade the motherboard – and then it becomes a much bigger job!
AndyTooth@Pencil and Pastel Portraits’s recent post ..Welcome to the new Web site
Twitter: stephwoo286
says:
Oh definitely. Sadly, there’s a limit to how old a machine can be and still be worth upgrading. A big problem I used to have was that old PC cases had terrible ventilation, so it was worthless upgrading the innards to today’s high temperature components!
Twitter: harpreet4564
says:
Yah i think Ram and hard disk upgradation is very important for good computer. because ram is used to increase performance of computer and hard disk is used to store a data.
Aniracetam’s recent post ..Andro pro
Its a good post on upgrading PC. Thanks. I was looking for upgrade my old PC. This is an informative post for me.
Twitter: gary3vans
says:
I have upgraded just about everything in my current pc at this stage. An upgrade usually revolves around the pending release of a new game. Call of Duty 4 being a prime example…
gary’s recent post ..Cloud – A valuable step forward in IT
Twitter: AmandaBlogger
says:
I’m thinking about changing my monitor into a newer one, and your recommendations are most welcome) Thanks a lot for them)
WordPress Themes’s recent post ..Fashion WordPress Themes
Twitter: mmartinell
says:
These are all great tips for desktop computers. I used to always build my own systems, but have gotten so busy over the last few years that I have just taken the easy way and bought something new when I just couldn’t stand it anymore.
Nice article, thanks for posting.
Michael’s recent post ..Light Painting Tutorial and Pictures
As far as I know, then hard disk upgradation is the most important aspect, because your computer’s speed depends greatly on it
Melissa’s recent post ..Top Hobby Flash Cms Templates – Paid And Free.
Twitter: Xboxpcpro
says:
I agree upgrading the pc in general is often over looked , I often hear people say “I need to buy a new computer” when in fact they could probably obtain the same result for a fraction of the price by upgrading system components predominatly memory and graphics cards
Recently i have updated RAM and now looking to update graphic card for gaming purpose, can any body suggest which company graphic card will be better.?
Arjun Rai’s recent post ..Repos
Question arise that which upgrade is the most important and cost-effective? Hard drive is an important component and it plays a critical role in system performance. But we can’t increase our system speed by increasing the size of hard disk. A ram upgrade can be easy and fast way to speed up your computer. Upgrading graphic card also bring improvements in system speed.
These four items definitely hits the nail on the head in terms of components most likely to cause computers to run slow (not the monitor, of course, though).
Twitter: katiepecbvda
says:
I’ve updated my harddrive. Now I have what seems like infinite space for such a small amount of money. I love that computer stuff is so cheap these days.
Katie Woodard’s recent post ..Bow Wow feat. Lil Wayne – Sweat Video
Twitter: WindowsTalk
says:
Yes, PC parts are very inexpensive these days, I can recall paying hundreds of $$ to upgrade RAM (and that was still in the MB days) and hard drives.
James M. Fisher’s recent post ..3 Types Of Computer Security
Definitely a huge perk to having a PC over a Mac is the ability to upgrade your hardware. You can get most of the parts you mentioned for pretty reasonable prices, and if you are willing you can make your computer exponentially better. Thanks for sharing, I was wondering where to start with upgrading.
~Sam
Twitter: namaserajesh
says:
I can agree with you. Graphics Card and Hard Disk are upgrade able parts.
WordPress Tips’s recent post ..How to Create Repository in Linux
Technology takes such great leaps and bounds it is only worthwhile to upgrade your computer for high end functions (ex. gaming) for a short time before the cost of upgrading becomes more expensive than just buying a new PC. If you are just looking for a functioning computer it, it might be more cost effective to revamp on old one than to buy a new one. It’s situation and user dependent.
PCB Board Geek’s recent post ..Conserving Resources: Producing Circuit Boards With Plasma