upgrade tips?

[Cayen]

hey guys i have a dell pc i was wondering if i should upgrade it or just buy a whole new rig i have a 1500$ budget

these are my specs:

HardDrive: 596 gb ATA

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor, 2800 MHz 2.80 GHz

Ram: 8 GB

Video: ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 series

Power supply need a new one its broken but can unsafely connect to my pc.

if it helps its a dell inspiron 560, i think.. and it might be a mini tower

please suggest good rigs to buy and make myself with newegg.ca if possible thanks, n hopefully its good enough for BF3.

o and for now i chose this rig to build on my own

my pc

[Maines]

iBuypower website has great computers for your budget

[Elder]

Don't waste cash on upgrading your pc.. I already did that with my old tower... bad mistake on my own.. the computer crashed another 2 times, and became slower (put in a new HDD and RAM) So, wasn't worth it on my hand. Still works fine and all, it's just a little slower and can handle games a bit less better.

[Fujiwara]

If you have a trustworthy friend that lives on the border of US and Canada, I say paypal him/her to buy all your parts during the US Black Friday, then either you can pick it up or he can ship it to you, or meet somewhere in the middle. That way, if you do decide to purchase parts to make a rig, then you'd be saving a considerable amount of money (I saved around $500 + $200 in MIR on my computer).

You could also have someone else build it for you, ie ibuypower or cyberpowerpc, but in my opinion, unless you're really afraid of somehow messing up or just don't want to go through the RMA process for DOA/defective parts, then there is really no reason to use their services.

The benefits of building your own pc (from my experience):

- You have a better understanding and appreciation for the parts you install

- You can save a lot of money if you buy smart, ie free shipping (esp. if you buy a lot of parts, you don't want to pay another $100 in shipping), instant discounts and promo codes, MIR (they can be a bit tricky, but so far I've had no bad experiences from several companies)

- You know what should be in your computer (for instance if you run benchmarks or CPUID or GPUID then you can compare your results with others over the net, and thus find if something is out of spec)

- The feeling you get when you build your own computer, and when it boots for the first time

The downsides:

- Well you have to spend some time to build it correctly, especially if it is your first time.

- Like I said earlier, there can be parts that arrive in bad condition, and some RMA processes & customer services can be horrendous + the $ for return shipping, and some can be just fine

- Sometimes the MIRs don't go through or whatever, and so you might not get as much savings as you originally thought

- The feeling you get when you build your own computer, and when it doesn't boot during the first attempt.

BTW, $1500 is an awesome budget, but what else are you going to do with this rig? For gaming, that might be too high for a mid- to high-end gaming computer (unless you're a real enthusiast), but I am not sure since I haven't kept up with the tech races as of late. Last time I actually did any research was when the HD 6870 and 6970 just came out so there's probably a lot of new items out on the market.

Anyone who's kept up can probably fill you in better than I can. And there are probably some things I might have missed so I'll just give some guidelines:

1. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

2. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

3. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

4. Setting a budget and knowing what the PC will be doing is very important. You can have a $5k rig, but if all you do is Word Documents and Web Browsing...

5. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

Alright, so, hopefully I have stressed the importance of one's own work. Remember, it's your PC, so whatever YOU decide to go with, YOU will have to deal with it for however long it lasts. This is not to say that asking for our opinions is not a good thing, but our opinion's should be taken with a grain of salt.

If you need help finding sources of information regarding PCs and parts, here's a few:

overclock.net

tomshardware

maximumpc

guru3d

Theres much, much more. Some of the sources though can be viewed as biased sometimes, but again, its important to do extensive research to make sure the parts you're considering are up to your specs.

Cheers,

Fujiwara

[Maines]

If you have a trustworthy friend that lives on the border of US and Canada, I say paypal him/her to buy all your parts during the US Black Friday, then either you can pick it up or he can ship it to you, or meet somewhere in the middle. That way, if you do decide to purchase parts to make a rig, then you'd be saving a considerable amount of money (I saved around $500 + $200 in MIR on my computer).

You could also have someone else build it for you, ie ibuypower or cyberpowerpc, but in my opinion, unless you're really afraid of somehow messing up or just don't want to go through the RMA process for DOA/defective parts, then there is really no reason to use their services.

The benefits of building your own pc (from my experience):

- You have a better understanding and appreciation for the parts you install

- You can save a lot of money if you buy smart, ie free shipping (esp. if you buy a lot of parts, you don't want to pay another $100 in shipping), instant discounts and promo codes, MIR (they can be a bit tricky, but so far I've had no bad experiences from several companies)

- You know what should be in your computer (for instance if you run benchmarks or CPUID or GPUID then you can compare your results with others over the net, and thus find if something is out of spec)

- The feeling you get when you build your own computer, and when it boots for the first time

The downsides:

- Well you have to spend some time to build it correctly, especially if it is your first time.

- Like I said earlier, there can be parts that arrive in bad condition, and some RMA processes & customer services can be horrendous + the $ for return shipping, and some can be just fine

- Sometimes the MIRs don't go through or whatever, and so you might not get as much savings as you originally thought

- The feeling you get when you build your own computer, and when it doesn't boot during the first attempt.

BTW, $1500 is an awesome budget, but what else are you going to do with this rig? For gaming, that might be too high for a mid- to high-end gaming computer (unless you're a real enthusiast), but I am not sure since I haven't kept up with the tech races as of late. Last time I actually did any research was when the HD 6870 and 6970 just came out so there's probably a lot of new items out on the market.

Anyone who's kept up can probably fill you in better than I can. And there are probably some things I might have missed so I'll just give some guidelines:

1. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

2. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

3. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

4. Setting a budget and knowing what the PC will be doing is very important. You can have a $5k rig, but if all you do is Word Documents and Web Browsing...

5. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

Alright, so, hopefully I have stressed the importance of one's own work. Remember, it's your PC, so whatever YOU decide to go with, YOU will have to deal with it for however long it lasts. This is not to say that asking for our opinions is not a good thing, but our opinion's should be taken with a grain of salt.

If you need help finding sources of information regarding PCs and parts, here's a few:

overclock.net

tomshardware

maximumpc

guru3d

Theres much, much more. Some of the sources though can be viewed as biased sometimes, but again, its important to do extensive research to make sure the parts you're considering are up to your specs.

Cheers,

Fujiwara

-sigh- if only i could get ANY money...I've been stuck at 235 bucks for 3 months now...