When To Upgrade Your PC

We have likely written this lesson 10 times or more. Each time, the market changes, and the previous "upgrade time" bar that we set has to be updated once again. Quite frankly, it's getting to the point where in almost no cases is it financially viable to upgrade anything but the RAM or harddrive. That said, we wanted to layout below several situations where you would need or want to upgrade the hardware inside your computer.

You will notice there really are only 3 pieces of hardware listed. It may seem like a really short list, but the honest truth is that not much else inside your computer is worth upgrading. It used to be when people had 4X cd-burners in their PC and 12X came out it was a no brainer; saving 30 minutes a disc every time you burned something was well worth the cash.  Now, everything you already get is super fast, and you would seemingly only be chasing after seconds with dollars.

Video Card:
There really are only two reasons you would ever need to upgrade your computer's video card. The first being for gaming reasons; if, for example, when you bought your computer, you didn’t play many games, but unexpectedly got into them, you might need to upgrade whatever video card your computer came with. The second reason would be if you got into something like graphic design; CAD softwares are extremely demanding on a video card, and most cards that come with computers even nowdays couldn’t handle the load. It's important to also remember that often times, when you upgrade something like your video card, you are most likely going to have to upgrade your computer's power supply. When you budget for the upgrade, make sure you assume an extra $75.00, as the new video card will most likely require more power than your PC was built to supply (the power supply is one of the easier parts to replace, though, so don’t be afraid of that).

RAM/Memory:
Upgrading your computer's memory is one of the easiest things you can do, so do it often. When you upgrade enough, you can provide a huge boost in day to day performance. As more software runs in the background, as operating systems get more demanding, that drains the computer's memory. Upgrading RAM isn’t so much about getting games to run faster as it is to make sure day to day computing doesn’t get bogged down. Most of the slowness you experience day-to-day can be attributed to a lack of computer memory. The install is about as easy as it gets, and places like Crucial make finding out exactly what you need as easy as 1,2,3. 

Hard Drive:
You might find yourself looking for an additional hard drive if you're running out of space. A few years ago, it was worthwhile to upgrade hard drives simply for the performance increase. Things like going from IDE to Serial ATA (SATA) were well worth the money; or going from 5400 RPM to 7200 or even 10000 were a no-brainer for the money. Nowdays, though, most hard drives out there are exceedingly fast, and large (though with high speed internet, video on demand and loads of other available media, these hard drives can still fill up!). You can add hard drive space easily enough now by adding a second hard drive to the inside of your computer, or (if you so choose) external hard drives, which have gotten really affordable and are far more conveniant when you need to transport files.

We realize it seems like there are not a lot of things you can upgrade on a computer, and that's kind of true. With new computers selling for $400, there aren’t a whole lot of financial reasons for it. Sometimes, upgrading can work to extend the life of a computer a year or two; it used to be more effective when computers were $1000 or more, but it can still be used effectivly for that. Always check to see if you will need additional upgrades to support the upgrades you are doing. For example, your motherboard or power supply may not support a particular video card. It's better to be safe and know ahead of time.

If you have any questions at all, shoot on over to our forum and ask away.

Thanks so much for joining us in Lesson 17: When to Upgrade. Please submit any and all questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - we will be happy to answer!

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