Win 7 came out, but I never had a compelling reason to upgrade again at that time. Instead, over the years I've done incremental upgrades to the existing PC. I maxed out the memory, added a sound card, added a USB 2.0 card, added external USB hubs, upgraded the power supply, added a higher-end video card, added a DVD burner, replaced the C: drive which failed, replaced and then upgraded the monitor, and added external USB drives as needed.
My current (old) system specs out like this:
Here's the new system I'll be putting together from components I bought yesterday from Microcenter:
- Intel i5-4670K 3.4 GHz 22nm quad core CPU with onboard Intel 4600 HD graphics
- Corsair Carbide 200R ATX case
- EVGA 600w "Bronze" PSU
- Gigabyte GA-297-HD3 ATX motherboard
- Crucial 16 GB (8x2) D3 1600 DIMM RAM, leaving 2 memory slots open
- Samsung 840EVO 250 GB SSD
- Western Digital 4 TB 7200 rpm SATA 3 Black Caviar internal HD
- Creative Labs Soundblaster Z audio card
- ASUS DVD burner
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Malwarebytes lifetime license
I'll continue to use my Samsung monitor which is less than 1 year old and the external drives for backup. I might hook up the second monitor that the Samsung replaced, if I have room for it on my desk.
Some of the components are nothing special. The Corsair case is nice but utilitarian. I didn't need anything fancy. It will sit under my desk where no one sees it. The power supply is more than adequate but certainly not top of the line. The ASUS optical drive is a commodity item. I figured the i5 CPU will more than meet my needs now and into the foreseeable future. I can add a separate graphics card later if need be. Since I'm not a gamer, I doubt I will need it.
I'm excited about the i5 processor, the 16GB of memory, the 250GB SSD and the 4TB fast internal drive. I was kind of on the fence about the OS but figured with the SSD, Win 8.1 would be the best way to go.
Pretax price for all of the above? $1148. Which is one big reason I put off upgrading for as long as I could. But finally, I'll be able to do some things with the cast that I haven't been able to do previously.
Now the fun begins. Putting it all together and migrating everything. I expect it will take a couple of days just to copy all my music over to the internal drive. I'll let you know how it all works out.