PC's: upgrade vs buy new

[Erin]

@Naomi

The most important question ( and the green question ) is “Do you need it?”
If you need more disk space then surely a bigger hard disk ( or another hard disk) is the cheapest and easiest way to go, and solves the disk space problem. If your CPU/Mem speed, graphics etc etc are not causing you lost time or lost capability, then why waste money on a new machine?
Even motherboards are cheap and easy to replace, provided you a) do not have a laptop, B) bought a clone rather than one of the bespoke manufacturers’ machines.

Nao.

Naomi you make a good point. I have just purchased my first digital camcorder and am finding that the video clips are quickly using the remaining space on my 40 G HD which was about half used before the camera’s debut. I have a 160 G external HD to back things up. I got that hardware recently and got it big in anticipation of the camera and upgrades to follow and actually, in part, because of discussion here when I asked about back up options a while back.

I have learned a lot from this discussion here and am thinking that at this point I may just try to keep adding to my current box as long as the motherboard can support it and it makes sense.

[Spudman]

my dad had to upgrade to use his new video camera…going from 1ghz to 2.4, and upping to a 300g hard drive, did the trick.

EDIT: My dad posted that.