How to Know When to Buy a New Computer

In the PC building world, we tend to overlook some things, such as how long a PC might last for. Some people have been using PCs which are a decade old, or even longer. Such PCs might work for browsing the internet, but even then, they would be wasting power and being put through their paces just to display a web page.

It might be time for an upgrade. In order not to waste money, here is how to know when you should upgrade your computer.

It Becomes Abysmally Slow

Now, a computer stuttering from time to time is not something that you should replace it for. If it is stuttering, running an antivirus check and cleaning it from dust to see whether it is thermal throttling should be the first culprits. If you have a mechanical drive, then you might be having literal hardware bottlenecks.

If your computer boots for two minutes and then opens a browser for another two and then you can hear it getting ready to take off and ride into the stratosphere, then it might be time to look at a modern solution. Always look at computers which fulfill the purpose you need, and not something overly expensive which will sit there with untapped potential.

Hardware Changes First

If you have a computer that is four years old, there are probably hardware changes which you can implement, without changing the entire device. Hardware which is a couple of years old might have alternatives which could boost your performance. If your motherboard can handle a newer 8 core processor, you might want to change only that and replace your 4 core, for example.

New graphics cards always improve gaming performance. You might hit a CPU limit if it is too old or too underpowered. Check whether you need to update one or both, depending on the use case, of course.

Adding extra RAM can help if you do a lot of RAM-heavy work. Consider adding faster NVME SSDs if you want more drive performance, which is helpful when moving lots of smaller files or loading data which has lots of small files.

Don’t Overbuy

There are two ways you could go about buying a new computer. Buying just the right things that you need, or overbuying. You can spend lots of money and get a device which will be there, underused and its value will drop immediately and later. Once because you bought it and then more, because you are not using its potential, at all.

You don’t need the best devices if you only game a little, or if your job is primarily typing. 

You should now be able to know when to buy a new computer, and how to approach the buying process.