Piece Meal Upgrades pt 3

As already discussed, a piece meal upgrade is performed when a jump to an entirely new platform is not financially possible. A ground up all new part design is best and will give the best price performance ratio if properly setup.  For those that cannot afford a complete rebuild though, designing a system with affordable parts that also support upgrading over an extended period of time is the only option.  While more money will be spent over the life of the upgrade, reselling used parts before they become worthless is the best way to help narrow the gap in the price performance ratio.  Now that some reference material has been supplied in the first 2 parts of this series, we can focus on the intention of this article, the end result.  Taking a trip without knowing the destination, can be a fun diversion, but is not an efficient means of accomplishing a goal.  Discussed in part two of this series we covered the four basic purposes of building a new personal computer: web browser, general purpose, Home Theater (Multimedia) PC, and a gaming PC.  It is important to know that CPU architecture can vary greatly, and certain tests used to measure a systems performance may favor one manufacturer over another, architectural differences bring with them their own strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Intel currently makes the most powerful commercially available CPU.  Their i7 line outperforms anything AMD manufacturers for numerical processing in a desktop system.  Intel has maintained a competitive edge in industry, because even back at a time when in all other areas their chips were inferior to the competition, one thing they could always do well was crunch enormous amounts of data fast.  Enhanced instruction sets can carry this lead even further, if using specialized software.  (SSE4 instructions for Intel CPUs, CUDA for NVIDIA GPUs, Stream for ATI GPUs or DXVA for either GPU manufacturer, will all provide enhanced performance in software based on its specific purpose). Stream and CUDA use a GPU for number crunching abilities that outperform an i7 CPU to a magnitude of 10 or more.  This requires thought and explains why AMD maintains a competitive level.  While strict number crunching is important for a CPU, flexibility is more important.  Latency is a key player in flexibility, and this is an area that AMD has been very successful in over the last few generations.

Software choices are as important as hardware choices in designing a system.  All software is not created equal.  Simple programs written in Java or Visual Basic can be found for free all over the internet.  Usually this software, due to free licensing requirements, does not allow proprietary code to be instituted in its design.  Companies that include technologies in their architecture, for enhanced software performance, must pay a licensing fee to the company that developed it; software is not excluded in this.  The software you intend to use effects the hardware you purchase based on these architectural features. This is not meant to denigrate open source software, only to ensure that the right hardware is being purchased for the task at hand.

Particular attention should be paid to operating system choice, the first software you install on a PC.  90+% of users will choose Windows for their desktop preference, but OSX and Linux have made some great strides in the ability to completely replace windows in the office.  Due to even more restrictions, this series will focus on windows based computing, as all hardware is not fully supported on the alternatives.

Microsoft, in their wisdom, sees fit to offer a range of OS choices and among those OS choices, variations in licensing.   The most expensive is the “retail” choice.  OEM and upgrade versions can be as cheap as half the cost of the retail version of the OS; however they can severely limit your ability to upgrade.  The limitation is in the license, an OEM license is tied to hardware that you purchased (specifically, the motherboard), an upgrade is tied to a previous operating system you own.  (***Check and see if an upgrade on an OEM license, is tied to hardware***).  A retail operating system is tied to the purchaser, as long as you only have the OS installed on a single system, you can reinstall it as many times as you need to.  If online activation fails, a short phone call to a Microsoft representative will have the OS up and running legally in less than 5 minutes.

For general purpose and web browsing PCs, the choices of software matter less than for specific purpose machines.  In either case, a lower performance PC will be adequate to meet the average end user needs.  For simplicities sake, a recommendation of AM2+ socket AMD system architecture will offer the simplest upgrade options.  The average AM2 motherboards supports (with BIOS updates) older AM2 socket CPUs, the improved AM2+ socket CPUs, and the current generation’s AM3 socket CPUs.  This upgrade process covers the currently less expensive DDR2, and the soon to be less expensive DDR3.  One can even purchase an AM2+ motherboard that includes both DDR2 and DDR3 slots.  Although this limits the user to only two sticks of ram of either type (not to be run in tandem) it does offer the user the ability to purchase a motherboard now, which supports 3 generations of CPUs and 2 generations of memory.  This allows the piece meal upgrader to only purchase one new component at a time.  The essence of the piece meal upgrade, purchasing a component that utilized immediately.

Gaming PCs are typically among the most powerful PCs that a user can build.  These require more powerful CPUs, more memory, a better GPU (or even multiple GPUs), a computer case capable of cycling the air in and out very quickly and of course a PSU that handle the demands of a power hungry system.  Many advertisers offer “gamer specials” which are little more than general purpose PCs with a slightly more powerful GPU attached.  Generally the term “Gamers edition” on a product means a 25-50% increase in cost, and a flashy package.  There may be some small increase in performance, generally not worth the extra cost incurred.  A gaming PC does not need the latest and greatest of every component to be successful.  More often than not, designers are building lopsided systems, which are not efficient at all due to bottlenecks.  Running a lower resolution display decreases demand on the GPU, but increases the demand on the CPU.  Running a higher resolution display with a weak GPU will also create an unbalanced and inefficient system for gaming.  Balance is more important that having the latest and greatest component.

The age of the system being upgraded can also make a huge difference in the initial investment, and in some cases, an older system could have more upgrade options than a slightly more modern one.  A dedicated video card can be reused in a more modern system, except in the case of AGP.  PCI cards are not necessarily an upgrade option, if drivers are not supported by newer Operating Systems or carry widescreen format resolutions. There are modern PCI video cards, a 2400 pro PCI card will make a welcome upgrade to any aging IGP based computer, and carry over into even the most modern of systems.   Although price performance ratio takes a hit, the fact that it is a noticeable upgrade carries over, and is the essence of the piece meal upgrade; not just upgrading on a budget, but seeing a difference in every purchase.  This is a goal but a difficult one, there are times when an upgrade you make now, will not be realized until a future upgrade.  CPU/GPU plays a delicate balance when considering the best price performance ration, the only constant in computing is, new architecture comes out and prices fall on less competitive products. When a device is EOL for too long, high end parts of said architecture will go up in price for a little while, far beyond their efficiency.

The upgrader following this series will have upgraded the peripherals, either before, or in conjunction with upgrading components.  Sometimes a small video upgrade is needed when upgrading a display unit or OS upgrade due to driver or hardware support issues.  So this section will now focus on CPU, motherboard and memory.  These are not necessarily mutually exclusive upgrades.   It is common to upgrade all three components at the same time.  This is an architecture jump and has its benefits and drawbacks.

The immediate benefit is a possible massive performance improvement in all system experiences.  The drawback is, to keep costs low you have to sacrifice something.  Purchase a motherboard that will give you options for upgrading in the future.  AM2 socket is great for this, especially the 780/790 chipsets.  For a piecemeal upgrade 775 is an option, although it EOL, it covers CPUs from the Pentium 4 era (the Pentium D) all the way up to 45nm quad core processors, and DDR3 was also implemented near the end of socket 775, so a ram and motherboard upgrade offers a step towards the newer p55/X58 Intel chipsets that will only accept DDR3 memory.

Focusing on the finished product sets the upgrade path that is best suited for the piece meal upgrader.  Purchasing components that help you meet your end goal, while at the same time utilizing the components in a current system build, is the definition of piece meal upgrades.   Focus attention on price trends both at online retailers and used marketplaces such as craigslist and eBay.  If you are currently a member of any technology based web forum, see if they have a classified/marketplace area of the site devoted to individuals selling or shopping for individual components.  Next week stay tuned for data protection.  Maintaining multiple copies of important data both offline, online and redundancy, for multiple Operating system reinstalls associated with motherboard upgrades.