The best upgrade for your computer depends on how you use your computer and what you want to accomplish. Conventional wisdom says that upgrades should make your old computer roughly equivalent to a new computer and not exceed fifty percent of the cost of an new computer. If your computer cannot be upgraded to be roughly equivalent to current computers, a new computer may be the most cost-effective purchase.
If you are not sure how to do this, or prefer a professional to check over your system, we offer professional upgrade services. A technician will come to your location and evaluate your computer. In addition, we will also offer to update your virus protection to the most current available along with configuring your computer for maximum security.
RAM:
If you frequently do a lot of multitasking with several programs open simultaneously,
adding additional memory may speed up your computer. Additional memory may also eliminate
frequent hard disk access during Windows® sessions. Once you have sufficient memory to
fully accommodate your typical software configuration, adding additional memory may not
provide a further performance increase.
Cache Memory:
Adding cache memory, especially if you currently have no external cache memory, may
increase the overall performance of your computer. However, upgrading to large amounts of
cache memory may not prove very cost effective for many programs.
Video Memory:
Adding additional video memory may not have any great effect on the performance of your
computer. This upgrade should allow you to use a greater color depth and/or higher screen
resolutions. This upgrade is mainly useful for graphics programs.
Processor:
If you are running programs that are computation intensive, upgrading the processor may
provide a noticeable increase in performance. Delays while recalculating spreadsheets and
searching databases should be decreased. If you frequently experience a hourglass cursor
in Windows without simultaneous hard drive access, a processor upgrade should reduce the
delays.
Hard Drive:
Compressing your hard drive can greatly decrease the speed at which information is
accessed. A new larger hard drive should allow you to operate without compression.
Performance also suffers as you begin to run out of space on your current hard drive.
Newer hard drives should have faster access times and higher transfer rates than your
current hard drive, but they also require your computer to support these features.