Thoughts on upgrading

[captpackrat]

I don't know why I'm always so hesitant to upgrade.  In the past 20 years, I've only had 5 desktops, and only 2 since 1998.  I guess I spend so much time getting my machine just right, that having to reinstall and retweak everything just seems a real hastle.

Anywho, I have 3 choices in upgrading right now.

1.  Upgrade the OS, keep the current hardware.  I'd need to buy two new hard drives (because I must have RAID) so I can easily fall back to the old OS just in case.  About $300 for 2 hard drives, my SO has a spare XP license.

Pros:  Cheapest route possible.
Cons:  CPU is obsolete (Pentium 4 HT), motherboard drivers are no longer updated.  Switching back to old OS will require reinstalling old drives.

2.  Build an entirely new machine, salvaging a few parts (DVD burner) from old machine.  This will run about $1400 for an Intel Xeon quad-core system with XP, nearly $2000 if I go with Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Pro.

Pros:  DIY pride, slightly cheaper than pre-assembled, all parts are known and easy to replace.
Cons:  Warranty on individual parts usually quite short.  Construction somewhat time consuming, any mistakes cost money.

3.  Buy a Dell Precision.  No consumer-grade Inspiron crap.  This will run about $2600 for a Core 2 Quad system with Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Pro, $2200 for XP Pro with no Office.

Pros:  3 year warranty minimum, available accidental damage warranty.  Fully assembled and tested, hardware conflicts highly unlikely.
Cons:  Most expensive, Dell has crappy cases, sometimes use proprietary parts

Comments

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've bought a full, retail OS since Windows 3.0

[okageryuu.livejournal.com]

X3 Cool. If you want the list of parts I'm using, lemme know. I've updated it since I posted it on LJ. The price is still only about $1000 for a Vista Ultimate machine with a duo core processor, a moderately high end graphics card, and a pretty decent motherboard.