Upgrades Upgrades, Upgrades and
Upgrades
Upgrade or
not to upgrade <- Is it worth the upgrade or better to buy a
new system
Upgrade to Pentium III
platform <- Other options
PROCESSOR UPGRADES
If you have a old Pentium machine ie. Pentium 120.... 166MHz machine
you may consider Upgrade to Cyrix MII- 333 processor. You need a suitable
motherboard with dual voltage settings. For more info visit our CPU
page Price are in the $90 - $100 range.
Motherboard upgrades
Here we are mainly discussing about processor and motherboard
upgrades. Due to the recent fast advancement of technology and the competition
between major players the discontinuation of processors has been dramatic. I mean couple
of years ago you may have bought a Pentium 100 or something with the idea that it
can be upgraded to Pentium 200 by replacing the chip. But both Intel and other players
like AMD and Cyrix has given up manufacturing chips for those main boards. Even if
your system is only 2 year old Pentium 166MMX machine if you want to install a current
processor it looks like you need a new motherboard as well. Intel does not make any more
standard Pentium processors for users to upgrade. Other major player AMD has been changing
the chip voltages so much that none of the old motherboard can run the processor
comfortably.
Upgrade or not
to upgrade
One major issue confronted by most old computer users is whether to
upgrade or not to upgrade. We will try to help and guide you to the proper decision.
The factors you have to consider are
Do you have a good size hard disk, good CD ROM and
most of the other things like floppy drive in good working order. If you need to upgrade
the hard disk, Upgrade the memory and upgrade the speed or upgrade the processor as well
it may be better to buy a new computer excluding the monitor,
keyboard, mouse and software which save you up to $500
Is it NOT a brand name machine
like IBM, Compaq, Packard bell, HP etc?. Then you may incur some additional charges
as those machines are not designed with the upgrade in mind. (They are designed to throw
away after use .. and buy a new machine) One work around is to replace the casing of the
computer which may be about $ 60.
Is your computer less than 3 years old? If
it is an old 386 machine or early 486 there may be nothing much you can recover form the
old machine except the case, monitor and the floppy drive. We suggest you consider buying a computer excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse.
You may be able to get up to $300 discount for excluding the above.
Have you already invested in the machine during
the recent past, like putting a new large hard disk or installing a new CD ROM drive. In
that case it may be a good idea to continue investing in the machine.
Do you want to spend in steps instead of
paying $1000 or more for a new machine
If you answer yes to most of the questions may be
you should consider an upgrade.
AMD -K6, K62-3D and 686-
K6 and other Pentium I level upgrades
. If you
are upgrading from old system with 72 pin memory you may need new memory for this
upgrade.
Please
note : Alternative processors including AMD- k6, K62 3D and 686 may not be recognised by
most programs and software as Pentium processor. This may cause some programs not to
function altogether. Alternatively you may upgrade to an intel processor
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