What You Need to Know about PC Upgrades

Featured article by Calvin Paige, Independent Technology Author

Upgrading your PC is the simple solution to combat planned obsolescence. The most commonly upgraded PCs are those used by gamers, as they don’t need to keep buying new consoles. All they need to do is add components to their existing PC, and they can enhance their play. However, this isn’t the only reason to upgrade your computer. If your non-gaming PC is feeling slow, for instance, you might be thinking about upgrading it. Here is everything you need to know about doing so.

Is an Upgrade Suitable?

The first step you need to work out is whether an upgrade is actually an economical and intelligent decision for you. The only way of doing this is deciding which upgrades you desire, totaling up the cost, and comparing it to a computer that specifically fits your needs – for a good guide on which computers suit different requirements, jobs and budgets see Fancy Appliance and their guides.

Graphics Card

Upgrading your graphics card is fairly specific to gaming – gamers know they need to upgrade their graphics card or GPU when their computer can no longer run a game’s framerate or when their games aren’t looking as beautiful as polished as they feel they should do. It is unlikely that you will need to upgrade your GPU, but if you work with 3D rendering or graphics-heavy processes in your line of work or hobby, you might want to consider it. If you’re looking for a cheaper way of upgrading, you can go multi-GPU and match a second card to your current one, running them at the same time.

CPU/Motherboard

The CPU and Motherboard are akin to your computer’s brain; they connect with everything from memory to graphics. If your laptop motherboard has pads on the processor that are soldered to a ball system, you can’t upgrade your processor. This is bad news if your CPU is ancient and your computer is running very slowly because of it, and if that is the case, you might want to look for a new system. If your PC doesn’t have a ball and solder motherboard system, you can check which CPU will fit your motherboard by downloading the app CPU-Z, and checking the socket that your current CPU is using. Only choose a CPU with the same socket (they really matter). Replacing your motherboard is like building your PC all over again and can often double the cost of your upgrade – you should have a serious think about whether you should get a new system.

RAM

You will need new RAM if your task manager is frequently reporting RAM as close to 100% used and/or if your computer keeps freezing and crashing when you try to run too many programs at once. RAM is a complicated issue, and it’s actually very difficult to know that when you buy a 2000MHz upgrade, you’re not actually getting 1000MHz due to marketers taking advantage of the RAM improvements that came with Double Data Rate development. If you like gaming or content creation, you should be looking at higher-end upgrades – closer to 16-32GB+ mark. However, if your computer is running slow and all you use is Microsoft office, look into upgrading to 8GB, which will also be suitable for simple entry-level gaming.