A question often comes up about whether to upgrade your current computer or simply replace it with a newer model.
In my experience, the answer is usually fairly simple. If what you intend to do is no longer handled by your current equipment, it is generally simplest to replace the whole thing. There are some exceptions, however.
If your current computer does what you want and you just need to give it some kind of boost, you can often had some RAM for $50-100 to give it some extra speed. Your mileage may vary as to how much, but I’ve seen it all from incredible increases to only just a little.
Adding or upgrading your hard drive is also a relatively inexpensive option (at least for the drive itself, again $50-100, typically) and gives you more space for all those family photos you can’t seem to delete and may also help speed things up a tad as well.
Once we start looking at other things like video and processor, the option becomes a little more difficult to give a simple answer as it depends upon your computer whether it can be done at all. Notebook/laptop/netbook computer? The answer there is almost certainly “no.” Bargain desktop? Also likely to be a negative answer as well.
In my own personal experience, when I finally got around to upgrading my computer, so many things had changed that I ended up having to get a new one anyway and could hardly use any of the parts from the old box. Just as an example, desktop computers can often have capabilities improved or added by sticking a card into a slot inside the box. I’ve seen the slot types progress from ISA to EISA, MCA, VLB, PCI, AGP, PCI-X, PCIe. It’s enough to be maddening (and I’m sure I’ve missed a few slot types in there). I don’t even have to explain what those abbreviations mean (although I made them clickable to Wikipedia articles if you’re curious) for you to understand the frustration. Suffice it to say that if your card fits in one type of slot, it is unlikely to fit into another type because “they” found a new way to do things and have decided that there was no point in making it easy to continue doing things the old way.
So, answer yourself the question of WHY you are upgrading, then we can look at the WHAT and proceed directly to the HOW.
Before you upgrade, be sure to backup your system (read the last couple of posts for more on this very important task) in case something goes wrong.