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Upgrade Motherboards or Buy New Box?

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Being a relative novice to hardware, I’m not sure whether it would be better to buy a new Case/Motherboard/CPU and transfer the hard drive, cd-rom, network card, etc. or just put a new motherboard in the old cases (April 99). I have four workstations that are identical, and need upgrading since they are running 350 AMD K-6 motherboards. Any experiences? Suggestions?

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CPU Upgrade?

In reply to Upgrade Motherboards or Buy New Box?

Since you are already running K-6’s, I believe that you can just pull them and drop in a replacement. The AMD site’s search engine is down right now, but once it’s back up, have a look over there. Also, check your Motherboard for any details about model number. (I kinda thunk that a K-6 was a CPU and not an M/B, but then again…)

Once you’ve checked the manufacturers’ specs you’ll likely confirm that a CPU swap is possible.

The next question is: should you?

Followed by: have you maxedout the expansion possiblities on your current M/B? Can you up the RAM? Do you have (or need) empty PCI slots? And so on.

If an upgrade of more than just swapping out a CPU, and adding a stick or two of RAM seems indicated, then in general, I would not go the complicate route you describe (moving HD, CDr, etc.). Just buy new systems. If you really need to upgrade, then consider the whole system, including more HD, more RAM, faster CPU, better NIC, better AGP and so on.

Well, that’s my $.02

Why do you need to upgrade

In reply to Upgrade Motherboards or Buy New Box?

Why do you need to upgrade ?

What is it that is causing you to look at hardware issues ? Are applications running slow ? Is your internet access too slow ? What problem is making you want to spend this money ?

I would first define the pupose or expected outcome before spending any money. If it is a software issue then an upgrade might not help. The machines are pretty modern so I’m thinking you might only need to put in more memory or a bigger hard drive.

Can you let us know what you expect to get out of upgrading. Maybe there is another, more cost effective, solution

Upgrade or New

In reply to Why do you need to upgrade

The issue is mainly speed of applications. I think I will try upgrading memory on one station and see if we get good results, then we can decide from there. Thanks for your input.

Apps Speed

In reply to Upgrade or New

One other thing you might look at is graphics are the applications graphic intensive. If so you might wish to upgrade you video cards. Agreed the RAM is the best and most cost effective upgrade.

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