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Note: This feature first appeared in the July issue of Maximum PC. Some pricing info may have changed.
The PC upgrade is, sadly, a lost art form today. Fifteen years ago, the vast majority of PC buyers bought machines with long-term plans to upgrade them as newer, more capable parts became available. Today, most people would rather just chuck an aged PC into an e-waste bin and buy a completely new computer. We say boo to that. A well-thought-out upgrade can be the most economical option, extending the life of your PC’s still-useful parts—not to mention giving you a tremendous sense of satisfaction at your resourcefulness.
The trick is in knowing where and when an upgrade makes sense. Sometimes the lure of an upgrade can walk you down a path you never should have started on. For example, it may be tempting to buy that Core 2 QX9650 on eBay for $300, but you’d be much better off upgrading the CPU and motherboard to a Core i7 instead.
On the following pages we detail three distinct PC builds desperately in need of performance boosts. We walk you through our thought process in determining realistic upgrade goals for each PC and how and why we choose the parts to get there. Before and after benchmarks reveal the fruits of our labor.
While these are just three case studies, let them serve as useful examples of sound upgrading practices that you can apply toward the resurrection of any elderly PC, within reason. The first step is always to thoroughly weigh the costs/benefits. Some PCs, after all, truly should be retired.
One of Dell’s first PCs to eschew proprietary parts is just begging for an upgrade
| ORIGNAL BUILD | |
| CPU | 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 |
| RAM | 2GB DDR2/800 |
| Motherboard | Custom Dell |
| GPU | GeForce 8800 GT |
| COOLER | Custom Dell |
| HDD | 320GB 7,200rpm |
| ODD | NEC DVD burner |
| OS | 32-bit Windows Vista |
| PSU | Dell 750 watt |
The Dell XPS 630i was budget state-of-the-art in 2008, but is now in serious need of more performance.
Crank back the clock to 2008 and you get Dell’s XPS 630i. A nicely outfitted gaming rig for its time, the XPS 630i sported a 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600, a GeForce 8800 GT, a 750-watt PSU, and—get this for a last-decade flashback—a Hitachi 320GB 7,200rpm HDD. In 2008, this was a decent machine in a very nice brushed-aluminum case for around $1,500. What made the XPS 630i particularly special was its use of off-the-shelf industry components. Dell has long been kicked around by the media for using proprietary power supplies and motherboards in its machines. Dell’s defense has been that the changes were made to improve the specs. For example, Dell was one of the first consumer PC makers to use larger, server PSUs and plugs in its machines—a practice that bugged everyone, including us. Today those server power plugs aren’t unusual at all, but a staple of ultra-high-performance machines, so it seems like Dell was on to something. But we digress…. More to the point: The XPS 630i was one of the first rigs in which Dell exorcised proprietary parts. It’s industry standard all the way, or so the company said at the time. Well, baby, we’re going to find out.
Since the XPS 630i began its life as a budget gaming rig, we thought we’d keep the machine’s mission the same, with upgrades that would transform it into a budget gaming rig fit for the modern day. Since we’ve always been fond of XPS 630i’s case, we had no intentions of upgrading the enclosure—just pretty much everything else.
If you run old games or a browser all day, the classic Core 2 Quad Q6600 is plenty of computer—but we wanted more. We pondered a CPU upgrade for about five seconds, but the prices of older LGA775 chips and the performance it would yield didn’t seem worth it, particularly since we didn’t know if the board in the Dell would support higher FSB chips or even 45nm parts.
| UPGRADES | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| PART | URL | PRICE | |
| CPU | Intel 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K (overclocked to 4GHz) | www.intel.com | $225 |
| RAM | 8GB Patriot DDR3/1600 | www.patriotmemory.com | $42 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 | www.gigabyte.com | $155 |
| GPU | XFX Radeon HD R7870 | www.xfxforce.com | $359 |
| Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | www.coolermaster.com | $35 |
| SSD | 120GB OCZ Agility 3 | www.ocz.com | $136 |
| USB Expansion | NZXT IU01 Internal USB Expansion | www.nzxt.com | $18 |
| OS | 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium | www.microsoft.com | $99 |
| Total | $1,069 | ||
We next considered an X79 board paired with a 3.6GHz Core i7-3820, but most X79 boards are simply too wide for this chassis. We also had to mind the Intel-style front-panel connector, which rules out any Asus board without doing some wiring surgery. Then we remembered the internals from our May 2012 “Build a PC on Any Budget” story. The Sweet Spot PC and its Core i5-2500K part seemed perfect for this upgrade. Yes, Ivy Bridge would have been nice, but we simply didn’t have access to the budget IVB parts yet. Since the Sweet Spot indeed seemed like the sweet spot, we figured we could just migrate all the internals over to the XPS 630i. Well, almost all of them. We hit a problem with our GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 card. It requires an 8-pin PCIe plug, and the Dell only gave us two 6-pin units, so we opted for a slightly pricier XFX Radeon HD 7870 card instead. It’s faster than the 560 Ti 448 card. Another option would have been to spring for a GeForce GTX 680, but that seemed to break our budget mantra. The machine originally came with the 32-bit flavor of Windows Vista Home Premium, so that was ejected for 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. The 320GB hard drive was dismissed from its boot duties in favor of a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 drive.
We’ve always wondered if Dell was true to its word when it pledged that the XPS line used industry-standard parts. Our experience here shows that Dell wasn’t fibbing, provided you stick with a narrow board that uses a standard Intel-style FP connector. The Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 fit like a glove. The only sticky part was that the front USB and FireWire connector cables were too short. There are two ways to overcome this: $5 extension cables or a $20 NZXT internal USB expansion. We opted for the latter. You’ll also need to pick up a $5 internal cable for the front FireWire port if you plan to use it; we just left it disconnected since the board has a rear FireWire port, too. The original 320GB drive gets erased and reused for storage to keep costs down. It’s easy enough to swap in a 1TB or 2TB drive, though.
AFTER
The Dell XPS 630i was surprisingly easy to upgrade and exceeded our expectations in performance.
| BENCHMARKS | ||
|---|---|---|
| PRE-UPGRADE | ||
| Vegas Pro (sec) | WNR | 3,021 N/A |
| Lightroom 2.6 (sec) | 1,224 | 343(+257) |
| ProShow 4 (sec) | 2,442 | 868(+181) |
| MainConcept 1.6 (sec) | 5,580 | 2,009(+178) |
| STALKER: CoP (fps) | WNR | 47.4(N/A) |
| Far Cry 2 (fps) | 25.9 | 107.3(314) |
The performance difference was like night and day. If you’re idling a Core 2-class machine today and wondering if you really need to upgrade, we say hell yes (unless you get paid by the hour and want things to go slower.) The 4GHz Core i5-2500K smokes the 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 part in everything we could run. And believe us, some apps would not run, such as Sony Vegas 9, which gave us “out of memory” errors in 32-bit Vista. In Lightroom, we saw a 257 percent improvement; in ProShow Producer 4 we saw a 181 percent boost; and in MainConcept the difference was 178 percent. Even in general use, it was hard to believe how far we’ve come in just a few years. Thanks to the SSD, our boots went from two-minute affairs to 30‑second ones. In the end, we’re declaring mission accomplished, because this old dog now sings.
Comments are closed on this article
shoan
July 13, 2012 at 7:24pm
like Arthur replied I am shocked that a student able to earn $9035 in four weeks on the internet. have you seen this web link NuttyRichDOTc om
Athlonite
July 13, 2012 at 5:56pm
I do believe that once you replace a mobo it's a rebuild not an upgrade if you must also replace the CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD. PSU replacing any of those on their own or two of them is an upgrade and I don't class installing a clean copy of an newer OS as an upgrade
most those PC "Upgraded" on here really only needed more ram a better GPU and maybe an SSD to probably score 90~95% of the scores realized using the options chosen in this article
OmNomNom
July 12, 2012 at 9:15pm
I got excited for a sec when I thought it would be an XPS that used a BTX mobo. I had a XPS710 that had a mobo crap out and I just scrapped the whole PC. Between BTX case and the odd double 24 pin 800watt psu wasn't much to salvage but the old core2duo.
+1 on not calling it a "rebuild" if you have to upgrade the mobo.
Benjo
July 12, 2012 at 9:00am
This article has inspired me to finally ditch my P4 and Athlon 64 boxes. My last build involved gutting a Packard Bell mATX tower of it's Slot 1 Celeron innards and replaced with a socket 754 system.
I wonder how much of a speed boost these would give:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=COMBOA7L3B&cat=MBBI saw the high-end mATX build article here a while back. Drool-worthy, but I buy/sell/fix beater cars for that price :P
Hilarity
July 11, 2012 at 3:41pm
Just junk or sell all three and build a new box. For a gaming PC, 2yrs is it. Then its time to upgrade if you built with upgrades in mind or a whole new build. That's tech for you.
limitbreaker
July 11, 2012 at 1:25pm
Sorry but respectfully... This article is terrible. Like many other said, a lot of these are new builds and not upgrades. I think if you need to change the ram, motherboard, cpu and even the videocard then it is no longer an upgrade and you might as well get a new case with it too. And I feel a bit wrong with upgrading a gtx 295 purely to get dx11 because that card is still fast enough to play every game at max settings with a smooth fps possibly in 3dvision to top it off, there isn't enough mind blowing tesselation games out there to merit 500$ for one feature.
praetor_alpha
July 11, 2012 at 2:43pm
That's exactly the same reason why I'm still using a GTX 285. Skyrim is pretty much the only game I can't get running at 1920x1200 at 60 fps at all times, but that's because it's mostly CPU limited (i7 2600).
rshawnk
July 11, 2012 at 1:18pm
You guys must have been bored that day. "Hey, I know what we can do...".
jhains
July 11, 2012 at 9:16am
Only #2 qualifies as an upgrade in my book; #1 & #3 are basically new PCs housed in their original cases.
Upgrade implies replacing a few parts. Replacing the MB, CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD & OS, is building an entirely new PC.
Add to that the "upgrades" are essentially the cost of a new PC (add $100 for a case and PSU), this article is left wanting.
I think a better approach would have been to take the 3 PCs, and a budget of $500 each for upgrades, and demonstrating how changing specific items would affect the performance. For example, on PC #1, replacing just the RAM, GPU and OS; on PC #2 replacing just HDD and OS; and PC #3 replacing just the GPU and HDD. Then change it up, and replace $500 of different parts in each and show the results.
The data from those benchmarks would be much more useful to a potential upgrader, and would make for a far more interesting article.
strangelove9
July 11, 2012 at 10:49am
"I think a better approach would have been to take the 3 PCs, and a budget of $500 each for upgrades, and demonstrating how changing specific items would affect the performance. [...] The data from those benchmarks would be much more useful to a potential upgrader, and would make for a far more interesting article."
Perfectly said, bravo!
That would be a much more interesting article, indeed!
strangelove9
July 11, 2012 at 10:52am
Actually, the people who say these aren't technically upgrades, but full rebuilds, are right.
In the case of the first PC, for instance, everything got replaced, except the case. That's the definition of a rebuild.
MrMakapuu had the right idea - and his solution was much cheaper, too!
Please provide TWO (one could be just a fluke, and is not statistically significant) real-life instances in which a Quad-core Q6600, paired with enough RAM and a good ~$150 videocard, won't rise to the challenge of everyday tasks... and even most specialized tasks. And I dare anyone but the most hard-core gamers to claim that you can't play every conceivable game on that system at 1080p resolutions.
Not to mention that the article was misleadingly advertised on the MPC main page under the headline "Operation Upgrade: How We Resurrected Three Dying PCs"... They're anything but "dying", if they're still functional - and at least one of them is still kicking a$$ even against current competition!
kixofmyg0t
July 10, 2012 at 8:15pm
The second builds old 295 GTX got 772 fps in Far Cry 2?
Screw the 7990 I'm getting a 295 GTX instead!
EDIT: Til that the Radeon 7950 is a 3 year old GPU according to this article. (3rd build under original parts) and got over 1,000 fps in Far Cry 2. I take it all back. This article taught me that both the 295 GTX and the 7950 are 5 times(rough estimate) as powerful as a 680.
praetor_alpha
July 11, 2012 at 4:57am
Indeed. Guess this seals the debate I'm having as to whether or not to up my GTX 285 to something else, like a 680.
I doubt those are typos, as those figures are complete with commas.
PreacherSeven
July 10, 2012 at 7:44pm
I own Houdini's magic wand, when I first got it I had to replace the top white cap because it was loose. Last month I replaced the bottom white cap because it fell off, then the shaft broke last week so I replaced the middle section. Anybody wanna see Houdini's wand?
Zig
July 10, 2012 at 7:32pm
This is the knife my grandfather used to kill indians with (sorry, not pc). we've replaced the blade 3 times and the handle twice, but it's the same knife.
mikeyfree
July 10, 2012 at 7:46pm
I CANNOT FREAKIN BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT.....YOUR GRANDFATHER WAS A COWARD AND SO ARE YOU. IF YOU WOULD HAVE SAID THIS ABOUT BLACKS OR WHITES THEY MIGHT ARREST YOU. YOU ARE A SORRY INDIVIDUAL.
YOU SHOULD BE BANNED AND I'M POSTING THIS ON ALL THE MEDIA I CAN.No white man ever killed and indian with a knife, they did it with small pox blanks, alcohol and false flags.
PreacherSeven
July 10, 2012 at 7:46pm
Relax, that's an old joke and it simply is not funny if not told correctly. Plus I don't.... wait I smell a troll-lo-lo-lo-lol
HeroOfCanton
July 10, 2012 at 8:14pm
I don't know. You could change it to Nazis and it would still work. Seriously, no one likes Nazis. "This is the knife my grandfather used to hunt Muppets" would also be pretty funny.
"I sure could use some help counting to four..." *gank* /TheState
Oh wait, I forgot we're supposed to be "outraged". Ahem... LET'S CALL THE INTERNET POLICE AND HAVE THEM DO A BACKTRACE!!
mikeyfree
July 10, 2012 at 7:54pm
I grandfather changed the handle on his whip cuz it broke whippin his slaves. He called it an upgrade. 1st known use of the word during the slave trading years.
Biceps
July 11, 2012 at 8:06am
Zig did mention when he posted that it wasn't pc (which stands for both Personal Computer and Politically Correct), and he was obviously just trying to make a point. To shuffle around all the indignation and actually get to the heart of the matter, I have to say the muppet-killing knife is actually NOT the same knife. BUT, it is an UPGRADED version of the same knife. The same goes for computers.
If you upgraded a computer and it was still the same computer after the upgrade, then you just blew a bunch of money in order to have the same machine.
The case on my computer cost about $400 and is kind of like a Ferrari body. I'll be using this case for partial and complete upgrades for years, as it has a 1000W power source and is built like a rock.
If you come back snarking about native Americans again, mikeyfree, then you are a troll. If you come back to the topic at hand, perhaps this can be an intelligent discussion.
PreacherSeven
July 10, 2012 at 7:28pm
The first thought that ran through my head as I was reading this was "they must like that Dell case because they just built a whole new pc inside it". Sure enough that's what happened, so I would consider that more than an "upgrade". Now about using two 460's and keeping the same cpu: using video cards that are 3 generations old is hardly an upgrade and these machines are meant to do more than just gaming so hyper threading might come in handy. That being said I think the only pc that was just "upgraded was the last one and the other two were a little excessive and leaning towards "new pc" rather than "upgraded"
SilverSurferNHS
July 10, 2012 at 9:53pm
while this is true to us, who haven't had those systems under our desk for months to years, for themselves or in a scenario where a person makes such changes to their personal computer, i bet when that person talks to friends and what not about their computer they will refer to it as a great upgrade from their previous computer
i wouldn't consider something a new build unless there's a new case and parts list for it, something that will ultimately run separate or at least mostly separate with a few carry over parts that could be quickly replaced... but yeah, its just semantics and we all define it differently - like where one might be in their own "upgrade" cycle.
Biceps
July 10, 2012 at 7:20pm
Ok, this article makes up completely for the lack of a low-end build in your monthly line-up. Well done.
mikeyfree
July 10, 2012 at 7:10pm
800 or more for an upgrade? Might as well put together a new build. Either 1 or 2 changes to your rig, like new video card w/psu, or change old hd to new ssd. Things like this is what I consider an upgrade, and the if I can get them on sale. Around 200.00 bucks would be a target price unless of course you have money to burn, and if that's the case you wouldn't be reading this article. You'd be driving your BMW around with your model girl friend smoking cigars and chewin gum.
Jeffredo
July 10, 2012 at 6:45pm
Two of the three aren't "upgrades". They're new builds in the old case. Once that motherboard comes out "upgrade" no longer applies.
Biceps
July 10, 2012 at 7:22pm
I upgraded a Core2Duo with to a new MB with a Core2Quad Extreme a (long) while back, inside a nice case. Everything except the power supply, the case and the cables was new. And I considered it an upgrade. I think you are arguing semantics.
renodude18
July 10, 2012 at 5:55pm
About ten years ago I bought Dell's Dimension 8300 desktop. For the majority of that time it was stock till a few years back when I decided to add a new video card, Power supply, Hard drive as the stock 80GB was way to small for its new purpose as my Entertainment system as I replaced it with a Laptop. I thought about upgrading the processor but the stock P4 does just fine with Windows 7. I dont know how many more years this machine has left but its ran great with no issues at all even with the upgrades. But I think windows 7 is the last OS upgrade that it will see sad to say. I'd love to get an Newer Old Dell and Upgrade it in this ones place at one point..
Also as an afterthought I think the only system worth upgrading is the Dell as the others are more newer were custom built.. I personally like to see OEM machines upgraded as they can be more of a challenge as noted at the beginning.
Strangelove_424
July 10, 2012 at 5:47pm
Awesome article. Most people I know do small step upgrades like these, in a trusty case, instead of re-starting from scratch every generation.
Also, for anyone with thermal paste to clean off, don't forget to use something that doesn't shed fibers... coffee filters do the trick.
MastaGuy
July 10, 2012 at 3:23pm
I have an old Dell Dimension E521, and I have done upgrading too, not at this level however. The problem is that Dell previously used BTX style cases and motherboards, making it impossible to add a new motherboard and CPU.
In case anyone is curious, I upgraded the Dell to a AMD Athlon X2 64 6000+ (the 89w version) a 60GB SSD, PCI network card, an EVGA GT430, 4GB of RAM, and Windows 7 64bit. I spend about $200 on that upgrade and I'm glad I did it. However I wish I could do more.
510Gamer
July 10, 2012 at 3:18pm
These seem like pretty substantial upgrades, $1000 seems excessive...
Also I think the formatting on the article is wrong, you have the new parts and their prices at the end in the results section, while the performance charts are in the middle in the upgrade section. There are also some line breaks because of pictures.
MrMakapuu
July 10, 2012 at 3:15pm
Oh and BTW you can overclock that Q6600 to 3.0 or higher on air easy...And if not buy a used Asus 775 board somewhere for under $100!!
MrMakapuu
July 10, 2012 at 3:09pm
When I saw the title of this article i was thinking you were going to just upgrade the components not everything in the case that doesn't make sense to me what you did and wasnt green or resoureful at all!
So I put a quick build below for you and the extra money you can save for the next generation after x79?
Anyways,
$1K for a upgrade? You can buy a new computer for that..
Try and be more resoureful bitches.
You still got a quad core there...And who uses HT for gaming anyways.. with these upgrades you can run Bf3 fine... looks amazing on 42" LCD in 1080p btw ;P
Use the old MoBo, go to ebay or craigslist you can probably pick up 2 used 460gtx's or AMD's version for under $200, use them in SLI or Xfire, max out the ram for another $50, and get a SSD for under $100... an OCZ 750watt for around $75 with rebate or equivlant on newegg or something, and x64 Win7 for $150... And you can take advantage of that extra GPU for folding or extra graphic processing outside the SLI...
$575 Total
I just saved you $494... you wasteful seaman!!!
CaptainFabulous
July 10, 2012 at 3:47pm
And you got something that's a fraction as powerful as what they built.
I'm sorry, what was your point again? That you know how to do a half-assed upgrade?
Try and be more intelligent bitch.
kixofmyg0t
July 10, 2012 at 8:32pm
You should see the 3 year old(according to this article) Radeon 7950! It got over 1,000 (complete with a comma) fps!
SilverSurferNHS
July 10, 2012 at 9:08pm
i stopped reading after a while cuz these r a dime a dozen - mpc needs to kick in come creative chaos to shake things up... the most fun i have on the site lately are watching trolls troll and flamers flame, all over... meh
