One of the biggest questions I get on a day-to-day basis goes something like this:  “Eric, should I upgrade my old computer or buy a new one?”  Well, the answer is not as cut and dried as you might think.  But I will give you an answer.
First, how old IS your system?  My basic rule of thumb is that if a computer is four or five years old, just go get a new one.  If you upgrade a system that old, you are only delaying the inevitable replacement by a year or so.
You see, it’s not that computers 5 years old stop working.  It’s that they aren’t powerful enough to run the software built today.
If your computer is only a year or two old, then, sure, upgrade:  Get your RAM up to to 2 or 3 gigabytes.  Add a new hard drive.  And if you’re a gamer, get a faster graphics card and a larger monitor.  But remember my five year rule.
After all, if you just keep upgrading your old system, you’ll eventually end up with what we call a Frankenstein system.  And you know what happened to him!

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