Tech Reaction

Components

The longevity of your computer components varies wildly, with the most expensive pieces often being a top performer for the shortest period of time.  In order from longest lasting to shortest Hard Disk Drive/ Optical Disk Drive, Power Supply Unit, Video card, Memory, Motherboard, CPU.  This breakdown is purely subjective, and while easily could instigate discussion on what pieces do have the longest longevity citing specific models of components, for brevity’s sake we will continue in this order with explanations as to why.

HDD/ODD Drives have been using a 40pin or 80 conductor interface for over a decade, while device performance has increased and the interface has evolved to accept Serial ATA over Parallel ATA for various reasons, the PATA interface is still included on motherboards today.  PATA Expansion cards are also available very cheaply to allow even more devices to be connected to a PC. The newer SATA interface, is about due for another upgrade, but much like USB and PATA before it, the ports will be backwards compatible to support older hardware, either automatically, or more likely initially by a BIOS setting controlled by the user (much as early SATAII/SATA300 did).  Both hard drives and Optical disk drives however are mechanical and will suffer the effects of wear and tear faster than many other components will, and it is very important to secure your data accordingly.  Extra hard drives in your PC for data storage, their access rate will not be as severe as your operating system’s hard drive and will be less likely to fail.  Raid is instituted on many motherboards today to allow you to use two or more drives for performance or data redundancy.  Online backup is also a viable option with high speed internet, as it provides a 3^rd or 4^th tier of data backup.  Lastly a flash drive or optical disk with network drivers on it is important, if you ever have a PC fail in a single PC household, and nothing else works, an operating system reinstall can get your PC back up and running.  The network drivers you have secured are to make sure that you can get online to download updated drivers for other components.  A small spare hard drive can also be used, as a “backup OS” to just install when you need to recover data from a corrupted or infected PC.

Note: Most motherboards only have a single IDE (PATA ) channel built on them, if ODD and HDD are run on the same IDE cable they will operate at the speed of the slowest device (the ODD).  A cheap SATA drive will alleviate this major performance issue, and to further enhance storage capability external solutions can usually be found for your PATA hard drive in the $20 range, this also gives portability to your backed up data)

Power Supply Units (PSU), only handle longevity if purchased well as an individual component.  OEM Companies will install a power supply made of the cheapest available parts that will handle exactly what it is specified for with very little else added.  Modern CPUs with discrete Video cards, extra hard drives or upgraded multi-core CPUs can put a toll on the PSU that will have it overheating, breaking down or simply failing to boot within no time at all.  A solid PSU from a reputable company, purchased with headroom on the wattage, will make upgradeability and longevity synonymous.  There are a number of online power calculators to help you consider the wattage needs of the planned system, extra head room should be added for upgrades that are not foreseen.  Power efficiency of a PSU tends to be greatest in the midrange 50-70% of a PSUs wattage rating, and the online calculators are geared for full load on the entire system, something very few applications can do at this time.   While the difference is only a few percentage points, it is something to e considered when building a power efficient general purpose or home theater PC where heat is more of an issue.

Video cards, for the most part have a pretty decent longevity, for all but Video game PC builds.  As long as the GPU is supported with software and can handle widescreen resolutions it can be used on even the latest x58 core i7 system.  AGP cards are the exception, as an EOL interface, AGP cards that are still being manufactured break the price: performance ratio into the expensive category, and tie one to a motherboard that is most likely end of life as well.  Before AGP there were PCI video cards, while these cards are not capable of supporting modern video games, due to limitations in bandwidth on the interface, PCI slots are still included on motherboards due to the wide range of expansion devices that still utilize it.  PCI-e or PCI Express is a new interface standard, with much higher bandwidth capabilities that all new video cards are built on.  (Note: PCI-X is another industry standard, a PCI expansion that offers a double wide data path for PCI, used almost exclusively in servers and workstations, when PCI was not fast enough, but PCI-E had not yet been standardized.  This is an unusable standard as well).  There are 2 revisions of PCI-E out at the present with a third version due out in 2010.  Backward compatibility should be identical to PCI-e 1 and 2 with cards from either generation working in any of the others. (Although with reduced bandwidth, it could cause performance issues).  As long as the card is supported with software, and in some cases, by your PSU (with PCI-e power cables) it can remain in a system or carry over in upgrades through a few generations.  The average $100 video card today from an online retailer like newegg, should handle even minor video gaming for the next couple of years, by then DirectX 11 might be fully supported and an upgrade could be reconsidered.  For Avid gamers, a more powerful GPU is more important and care in selection should be treated as such.

RAM or memory is only readily available in 2 standards currently, DDR2 and DDR3.  DDR2 is in the process of being phased out, as both CPU manufacturers are supporting DDR3 now.  As such DDR2 is selling for much less than DDR3.  While some chipsets support using DDR2 or DDR3 the only motherboard that actually supports installing either one on the same motherboard is Asrock.  Asrock dual standard motherboards will be covered in the motherboard section of components.  DDR2 is slower, with tighter latencies than DDR3, and is available to run in single or dual channel configurations.  DDR3 has the same pin structure as DDR2, (240 pins) but operates at much lower voltages, with superior speeds, usually at the expense of latency, and can run in single dual and triple channel configurations.  32 bit operating systems can only address 4 Gigabytes of memory, this includes all memory a system can access not just the amount of RAM you have.  PAE extensions can add support for more memory in a 32 bit environment with an accompanied loss in performance; 64 bit operating systems can address much more ram and should be considered when shopping for an Operating System.  Purchasing enough memory is important, 4 gigabytes is the new standard for serious PC usage, with 2 Gigabytes being accepted for almost any usage in a 32 bit PC (with gaming being an exception in certain cases). I7 in triple channel works well in 3 or 6 GB amounts, although 4 GB in dual channel will also work very well and be a great upgrade for many PC users.

Motherboard upgrades are the trickiest, and the shortest longevity next to CPU’s.  A motherboard upgrade usually necessitates an operating reinstall, both for OS activation reasons and Driver incompatibilities.   The previously mentioned support for soon to be released operating systems, is a little more lax, since one can often ID the specific ICs (integrated circuits, or computer chips) used on a motherboard with a simple web search, (chipset, audio, networking) and find updated driver support from the original manufacturer not the company that built the motherboard.  BIOS support however is up to the motherboard manufacturer, and purchasing motherboards with well known BIOS support is important to using your motherboard as a stepping stone to more powerful setups.  Price is not indicative of effectiveness either, as many manufacturers will simply code out some enthusiast class features, and remarket the board for less money, as a “budget” board.  Motherboards should be selected based on expansion slots and onboard features that enhance any upgrade roadmap.  Integrated Graphics Processors, or IGPs are video cards that are built into the motherboard, while not suitable for gaming purposes, some models are more than adequate for most other purposes, from multimedia playback to hardware accelerated video encoding for HD/BluRay video.  AsRock (a budget brand of motherboard from the makers of ASUS products) have cross-architecture motherboards available, which support 2 separate architectures on the same motherboard.  Socket 939 to AM2 upgrades, DDR to DDR2 upgrades and DDR2 to DDR3 upgrades were all designed and produced, the effectiveness however is debatable.   Most modern motherboards that support AM2 socket will support AM2+ and AM3 socket CPU’s as well.  Intel socket 775 maybe end of line, but it supported chips from the Pentium D processor, up to quad core processors with a couple of die shrinks thrown in as well.

CPU or central processing unit is the brain of the PC.  The most rapidly evolving piece of technology in your PC, keeping up with the changes can be a constant process.  There are traps to get caught in with these purchases as well.  As mentioned previously in the motherboard components section, socket 775 and AM2 both had a very good run with support for a number of architectures that suits the piecemeal upgrade perfectly. Bottom of the line electronic components can be purchased very cheaply online either from e-tailers that offer used/ refurbished components, eBay/Craigslist sales, or from your local paper.  While the ultimately dead socket 478 Pentium 4 systems can usually be purchased for under $100, a Pentium 4 D or AM2 Athlon 64 system can be found for little more, and offer many more upgrade options.  Purchasing an entire PC also can add temporary memory, PSU and storage increases until a better performing upgrade can be acquired.  Parts can often be sold individually for more than there sum as well.  White box purchases (no name complete PC purchases) are also a good way to acquire Windows licenses, especially if it is a retail license.  These are most valuable as a retail license can be reused on many PC’s (although only one at a time) any issues with activation can be solved with a simple phone call to Microsoft.

The main problem with using an OEM build to start off upgrading however is part of the end of life path.  OEMs often cram the best components on a motherboard it can handle, and even though the architecture could support upgrades that would vastly improve performance, without BIOS updates, the OEM PC’s are maxed out.  This saves them money on construction costs, and reduces user error issues and damage, as well as well as generates new revenue, when a consumer needs to upgrade the entire PC to see a performance boost. Identifying your needs, wants and haves is vital to designing a system that keeps you from making a large financial investment, or if purchased on credit, still paying for the equipment after the expected lifespan of the system has expired.  Another large benefit of upgrading your own PC, aside from financial reasons, is knowledge gained.  The average person can benefit greatly just from knowing about the different components in a PC and that there are different industry standards with interfaces.