To upgrade, or not to upgrade? (General Comments on Processors)

Member Name: dufeu8881

Product:	General Comments on Processors
Date:	10/05/03 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Faster machine

Disadvantages: Can seem a daunting task

When you are after that little bit extra performance from your computer. Thoughts go one of either two ways. 1) Buy a new PC, 2) Upgrading.

The first option can be expensive, but you do get a nice new shiny PC, which will almost definitely be faster/better/newer etc. But by upgrading your current system, better performance can be achieved with much less expenditure.

Often first thoughts turn to the processor, and rightly so. After all the processor is the main "brain" behind your computer. This review/guide will help you with a processor upgrade.

When considering an upgrade, as a general rule of thumb, if you need to upgrade more than 3 or 4 components, then it might be worth starting from scratch and buying a new system. If you need to update that many things, your system is probably quite old and you'll end up spending too much money, for a small performance gain.

To begin with, and I can?t stress this enough. Before rushing out and buying the latest/fastest processor - ?do a little research?. Not all chips will work with your current machine.

If you only want to upgrade the processor, then you will need to know what speeds your current motherboard can handle. You can find this in the motherboard manual that came with your PC, but this is often out of date. The best place to check is on the Internet, specifically the homepage of your motherboard manufacturer.

If on the other hand, you want to upgrade to an even faster processor, then you?ll need to upgrade your motherboard as well. This is a little beyond the scope of this review, but I might write one later on. Keep checking dooyoo.

NB Sometimes you?ll need to perform what is known as a BIOS upgrade on your motherboard. This is a really simple task; follow the instructions from the manufactures web site. But be warned, this can go wrong, and will leave your motherboard broken! I?m not taking any responsibility if th
ings go wrong. If you know what you are doing, and follow the instructions carefully, you?ll be fine.

Armed with the knowledge of what processor can be used, you now have a choice. Whether to buy the fastest processor your motherboard can handle, or one of the slower ones, which might provide you with more value for money. So for instance, processor A might be £150 more expensive than processor B, but A might not be that much faster. So in that instance I would say processor B. A great site is, www.tomshardware.com. Here you?ll find reviews and benchmarks of all the processors that are available. And will help you decide just how good the processor actually is.

Personally would never buy the very latest processor, they are just way too expensive. Instead I would buy maybe 3 or 4 speed lower than this. BUT, as you are upgrading, if you aren?t talking about the latest chip - because your motherboard can?t handle it - I would say get the fastest that you can afford.

When you have finally decided on what you are after. Shop around; by far the cheapest place to buy a processor from is the Internet. High street store can often be 40% more expensive. Check out sites such as www.ebuyer.com, www.scan.co.uk, www.aria.co.uk and www.dabs.com.

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