Buying Advice - Motherboard/CPU
A CPU upgrade for your computer is akin to upgrading the engine in your car (but a lot less costly). You can only go so fast with a faster processor than your existing one, and after the upgrade you may not notice a huge speed difference. Applications such as Photoshop or high-end games might utilize all of the CPU, but your web browser or calendar application probably doesn't utilize all of its processing power. Therefore, you may not always benefit from the time and expense of a processor upgrade depending on how your computer is used.
Upgrading the motherboard is another option. Rather than having to purchase an entirely new computer, you may benefit from purchasing a new motherboard and a new processor while still being able to keep your original DVD drive, power supply, and sometimes the hard drives. You can also purchase a new motherboard that has a socket to fit your current CPU, but this may be impractical. Upgrading your motherboard will not give you a speed boost.
Cost is another important factor. If your hard drive has a recovery partition that restores it to it's factory condition, a motherboard upgrade wont work! How is this so? The recovery partition loads the data specifically for (the majority of) your computer's hardware. If it detects that you're trying to reinstall Windows onto a different motherboard that it came with, it will not let you proceed with the install, then you're forced having to pay $100 for a Windows 7 or Windows 8 DVD license. The small benefit is that you'll have the Windows DVD to be installed on another computer if you choose, but only one DVD per computer. If you try installing the same Windows DVD on another computer that has already been activated, the Windows installation will not go through.
Upgrading the motherboard is another option. Rather than having to purchase an entirely new computer, you may benefit from purchasing a new motherboard and a new processor while still being able to keep your original DVD drive, power supply, and sometimes the hard drives. You can also purchase a new motherboard that has a socket to fit your current CPU, but this may be impractical. Upgrading your motherboard will not give you a speed boost.
Cost is another important factor. If your hard drive has a recovery partition that restores it to it's factory condition, a motherboard upgrade wont work! How is this so? The recovery partition loads the data specifically for (the majority of) your computer's hardware. If it detects that you're trying to reinstall Windows onto a different motherboard that it came with, it will not let you proceed with the install, then you're forced having to pay $100 for a Windows 7 or Windows 8 DVD license. The small benefit is that you'll have the Windows DVD to be installed on another computer if you choose, but only one DVD per computer. If you try installing the same Windows DVD on another computer that has already been activated, the Windows installation will not go through.
