How can I upgrade my computer instead of buying a new one?

Question

My computer has:

AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3400+

994 MHz, 448 MB of RAM

Physical Address Extension

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Do stores such as Circuit City and Best Buy upgrade computers? Also, what's the cost?

I just want to upgrade it to be able to play today's modern games.

Answer 1

The best way is to toss in a seperate compatible GPU, maybe GeForce or Radeon. I recommend you surely buy a better CPU. This one's a too slow for gaming today. I suggest at least a 2.0 GHz dual-core for DESCENT gaming.

Answer 2

Disregard Antikash. A 2.0 ghz processor would be outdated in less then a year from now. You would have to replace most of everything in your computer to meet today's standards. If you're happy with just browsing, file sharing, etc. Then just get more RAM. But if you want to do gaming, or a little on the side, or even video/audio editing/recording you'll have to toss the entire thing. I'm betting the case doesn't even have USB 2.0 being that old.... Building your own computer can also be very reliable if you know what you're doing. If you want more info or anything email me. Don't send me messages via Yahoo! Answers, email me.

EDIT: Also, a GeForce graphics card wouldn't even matter if your processor is 994 MHz

Answer 3

you can upgrade it yourslef,its so easy, first of al go on crucial.com,run the scanner and it will tell you what ram is compatible,ireccomd buying 2 sticks of 1gb ram so then the computer will be 4x faste,that should cost about £30r,theres no point upgradin the processor cause to upgrade that will prob cost more than new computer,judging by your terrible ram im assuming oyu got it a while ago therefore you will have a terrible hard drive, trust me m8, your better to buy a new computer cause even if you upgrade it, it will still be lame becuase, i bet you the computer is very big and quite noisy, if im right then buy a laptop for about £250 and then at elast its in this technoloagy, it will have a decent hard drive but not good ram, so all you do is spend £30 to buy new ram for hard drive so technically you spening about £280 on a laptop thats excellent.and for that computer to do good gaming you would have to buy a new graphics card,new video card, new procesosr,more ram,new fan,becuas eif you have a better computer then you need a better fan to keep it cool and that will come out at about £250

you better off to buy a new computer cause to upgrade that terrible computer is going to cost a fortune,and plus you are never going to have good gaming with an old ocmputer because of the bad processor, you would be luckey to play a game as bad as train simulator

hope i helped