if i upgrade will i see a real life difference?

mattpc

mattpc

mattpc

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Manchester
Currently run Vista Business on my Athlon XP 3000, 1gb Ram, serial ata RAID array and my trusty Abit AN7 motherboard. Had the same system for probably four years but previously ran XP. Been on Vista now for mainly 6 months and I find it a little bit sluggish tbh. I have turned off lots of the visual features. This really helps but vista seems to be very memory hungry. My question is really that if I go for it and spend £850-£1000 on a new PC am I going to notice the difference in real life performance?

My main tasks are: editing basic html, editing photographs (mainly just cropping and making them smaller), email, word, Sage etc.. If I upgraded I would keep the existing array and pop it in to the new system I think. I am torn between just getting some more RAM (maybe 2x 1gb modules as currently I have 2x 256 and 1x 512) or giving up investing in this system and getting a new setup. Don't really fancy having to buy another copy of vista but I guess it may be a necessary evil. Thing is £1000 is a lot of money...but if it saves me time when I am working then it may be worth it and a new PC would be very exciting!!!;)
 
to be honest, i would fork out for an extra gig of ram. It won't be expensive (£30, as opposed to £1k for a new system) and should make a reasonable difference. If it doesn't improve things enough for your tastes, it's only a small amount of money.

My parents run vista home pro with a athlon XP 3000 and 2 gigs of ram and they're happy - though they would be happy with a hamster in a wheel.
 
Hi, Thanks for that. Yes I think it probably is the logical way to proceed since I'm not exactly flush. I am just getting a bit fed up of investing in an old system. It's a pity activation has really put pay to what I used to do which was always swapping bits and bobs over- different 2nd hand motherboard and cpu every 6 months or so (this was quite a few years ago). Now I feel like well what if I cant activate vista, office etc etc...:(
 
Thanks matty. I do occassionally play games but so rarely I could not justify a new PC for games. At the moment I am playing elite II: Frontier on my dos emulator which is not exactly taxing!:D I think perhaps I should get the RAM, maybe have a 2nd monitor and make do as these measures will help my productivity and not cost the earth. Then maybe in a year or so blow some cash on a brand new system and retire this rig to the living room for media center duties or something.
 
mattpc said:
Would then have problems activating windows and my recently purchased office sbe 2007? Don't want to buy fresh windows just for another set of outdated components really.
Click to expand...

OEM copies of windows are tied to the motherboard, i'm not sure what sbe means but if a copy requires activation it'll be fine no matter what you chuck into it as long as the mobo stays the same.
 
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