Upgrading is an obligation of any self-respecting PC geek. It’s an affirmation of your thirst for power, a healthy rejection of the status quo. Upgrading is an acknowledgement of the fact that there’s always a way to improve your rig. You may have the funds for premium parts—lucky you. We’ll tell you exactly what those parts are. But even if your means are more modest, there are affordable parts in every major component category that can breathe new life into an aged PC.

Regardless of your financial situation, you must address some important questions before embarking on an upgrade. First, you need to honestly assess your rig’s merits. You shouldn’t waste money upgrading your PC if it still sports an AGP slot or a pre-AM2 Athlon 64 motherboard. The question you should ask yourself is whether it’s more cost effective to gut the machine and replace its primary components—motherboard, CPU, memory, and videocard—than it is to do a piecemeal retrofit. If you look at your rig and decide to build new, check out our full build-a-pc guide, but if you’re ready to proceed with an upgrade, click to find out how!

Intel CPUs

The hot new Core i7 offers something for everyone

 

Intel’s Core i7 is everything the company said it would be: fast, furious, and even inexpensive. Those with an eye toward extreme computing should settle for nothing less than Intel’s 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition (www.intel.com). It demolishes Intel’s Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and does one of those Jedi cut-you-in-half tricks to AMD’s best, the Phenom X4 9950 BE. With its integrated memory controller, tri-DDR3 support, Hyper-Threading, and Turbo mode, the chip is simply untouchable at encoding tasks, or anything else that will exploit the eight threads available to it.

But if a grand is a little too rich for your blood, take heart. Intel already has a pretty darn good budget chip based on the Core i7: the 2.66GHz Core i7-920. It outperforms the 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550—and costs less, too! One caveat for true budget hounds: The Core i7 requires an LGA1366 board, not to mention three sticks of DDR3 RAM for optimal performance, which significantly adds to the expenditure.

If you don’t want to go that far with your CPU upgrade, Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 ($185) gets you quad-core performance that’s compatible with most modern Intel motherboards.

RAM

It pays to go name-brand

Quick, what’s the difference between name-brand RAM from respected manufacturers and the generic stuff you get after sorting by lowest price? Blue screens, my friends. While people tend to treat RAM like it’s all the same, it really isn’t. That’s why we’ve long recommended that when you buy RAM, you first consult your motherboard’s QVL (Qualified Vendor List) and then reach for name-brand sticks. Name brands are especially important if you intend to overclock the crap out of your memory. Many high-frequency modules require a ton of voltage, which tends to drastically shorten the life of the memory. Buying a name-brand product means good warranty support, which could come in handy.

How much RAM should you run today? For a 32-bit OS, 2GB is the minimum. For higher-end configs, consider 4GB on Phenom and Core 2 platforms and 6GB with your 64-bit Vista install on Core i7.

AMD CPUs

They’re all budget over here

We admit that it’s pretty difficult to recommend an extreme AMD chip when the company’s absolute top-end CPU sells for a measly $175 bucks. Hell, it costs less than Intel’s two-year-old bottom-end Core 2 Quad Q6600. Still, we understand that some folks are vehemently opposed to Intel CPUs purely on religious grounds. For you AMD diehards, we wholeheartedly recommend the 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition (www.amd.com). Based on the tried-and-true AM2+ platform, the CPU uses DDR2 RAM, which is cheaper than air; plus, there’s a possibility that the new AM3/DDR3 CPUs will also work with the platform.

So what about the really hardcore budget shoppers? You know, like that friend of yours who, when you suggest splitting an order of fries, actually counts the fries out. Well, first we’d say, dude, just get the X4 9950 BE, you cheap bastard. But then again, he did actually tear the last fry in half, so he would be happy to step down to the 2.1GHz tri-core Phenom X3 8450 ($105) if it could save him a few bucks. Yeah, it’s likely a quad-core washout, but your friend doesn’t care. It’s like getting a scratched  and dented fridge—it’s not pretty, but it still keeps the Diet Coke cold.