The relative guide to upgrading

THE RELATIVE GUIDE TO UPGRADING

With wise upgrade choices, you can get better performance from your current PC without resorting to buying a new one.

When we review PCs, we place considerable emphasis on upgrade potential. There’s a good reason for this: it can save you money in the future. Whether it’s just six months down the line or several years, you’re bound to yearn for better performance to run the latest piece of software or operating system.

You could buy a new PC, but that’s a far more expensive option than upgrading what you currently have under your desk. Plus, as we’re constantly being reminded, times are still tough, so a new PC may be an extravagance too far.

Just about every PC is user upgradeable, although some are trickier than others. With the exception of those that use laptop components (such as all-in-ones and some other micro-desktops) they all have a collection of standard parts that fit into standard slots and sockets. They’re also widely available and quick to fit.

All you need is a basic toolkit comprising a screwdriver and an anti-static wrist strap (or another way of earthing yourself), and you’ll have a faster computer in next to no time. The only hurdle in the process is working out which components are compatible with your PC, but with some basic knowledge and access to the internet, this is easy to overcome.

Click to enlarge – this table summarises all the upgrades and benchmarking we undertook for this feature – you may need to refer back to it as you read through

Here, we’re primarily concerned with performance, so we’ll concentrate on finding out how processor and memory upgrades affect performance. We’ll look at three different scenarios: a five-year old PC, a three-year old machine and one you bought just last year to see whether you’re better off adding extra RAM, or upgrading your CPU. If you want to upgrade any other components, then don’t miss our The Complete PC Upgrades Handbook 2011, which is on sale from WHSmith and Amazon.co.uk.

THE FIVE-YEAR-OLD PC

Five years is a long time in computing terms, especially if you consider Moore’s Law, which essentially says that processors will double in performance every two years. In theory, a five-year-old PC should take five times longer to complete a task, such as encoding a video or applying an effect in Photoshop, than the equivalent PC today.

Although it’s easy to look at clock speeds to try and disprove this theory – today’s processors run only a little faster than they did in 2006 in terms of GHz – don’t forget that modern chips have more cores than they did back then. A typical PC from 2006 had a single- or dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. Check the specifications of a budget PC today, and you’ll likely find a triple- or quad-core processor and 4GB of RAM, showing that Moore’s Law is just about staying true.

A typical PC system from 2006. This one has a single core Intel Celeron 430 processor

Of course, the other thing to remember is that every PC in 2006 ran Windows XP. Given that support for XP has all but ended, it makes sense to upgrade to Windows 7. Although you could do this without upgrading your hardware, you’ll probably find that 1GB of RAM just isn’t enough to keep multiple applications running smoothly.

MOTHERBOARDS AND CHIPSETS

One of the main limitations of a PC this old is the motherboard and, more specifically, the chipset and processor socket it has. If you own an Intel-based PC, it probably has an LGA775 processor. Unfortunately, older chipsets like the Intel 915PL don’t support the later dual-core Core 2 Duo and quad-core Core 2 Quad chips. The best you can upgrade to is the fastest Pentium 4 that Intel released: the 3.8GHz 670. Although it sounds fast, this single-core processor can’t match Core 2 Quad chips with three extra cores, so if you do find you have a chipset that doesn’t support Core 2 processors, you should consider buying an entirely new PC base unit.

You may be more fortunate and have an Intel 945 or 965 chipset. These support Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors, but you still need to check your motherboard manual to make sure it supports the particular model, as front side bus speeds vary. For example, the Core 2 Duo “Allendale” E4xxx chips had 800MHz FSBs, while the later “Conroe” E6xxx versions had 1,066MHz and 1,333MHz FSBs. The E7xxx models all had a 1,066MHz FSB, while the most recent E8xxx series had 1,333MHz FSBs. If your motherboard doesn’t support the processor’s FSB speed, it simply won’t work.

It’s also highly likely that you’ll need to update your motherboard’s BIOS in order to run a newer processor. Usually, there’s no need to update the BIOS as manufacturers release new versions, so you may still have the original version that the motherboard shipped with. See the box on page xxx for more information on upgrading your BIOS.

Plenty of PCs with AMD processors were sold in 2006, but as with their Intel counterparts, there were different and incompatible versions. Earlier models had motherboards with the 939-pin socket, while later PCs had the newer socket AM2. As with older Intel LGA775 motherboards, the problem if you own a PC with a Socket 939 processor is that you can’t upgrade to a noticeably faster model, and certainly not a quad-core chip. Plus, you’ll be stuck with the original DDR memory, which is expensive to buy, even in small capacities. Sometimes you have to draw a line and our advice if you have a Socket 939 motherboard is to either replace it, or buy a new base unit.

If you have a motherboard with a Socket AM2, however, it’s a different story. For a start, you’ll have DDR2 RAM, which is faster and cheaper than DDR. Chances are that you have 1GB installed, split between two 512MB modules, and two spare slots. This means it’s easy to add more RAM without having to throw away your existing memory.

There’s also a good chance you’ll be able to upgrade to a faster processor. You may have a single-core processor such as the Athlon 64 3500+, running at 2.2GHz. Depending on your motherboard, you may be able to update the BIOS and install one of AMD’s latest Phenom II processors. However, if you’re on a tighter budget, there are still significant performance gains to be had by upgrading to a relatively inexpensive Athlon II chip.

WHAT TO BUY

It’s all very well seeing the performance gains in the graphs, but which upgrade is the best value? We picked only the best-value processors as potential upgrade options, but older processors can be hard to find in the shops. Your best bet is to search online retailers such as www.scan.co.uk as they tend to carry a much wider range. Bear in mind that prices are very volatile, so if you see another processor that’s similar to what we’ve tested with (say a Core 2 Quad Q8300 instead of a Q8200) at a lower price, then go for that instead. Likewise, memory prices fluctuate almost daily, so don’t be surprised if the prices we mention here are different from those you see online.

Starting with RAM, a 2GB kit comprising two 1GB PC2-6400 modules costs £16 including VAT. Alternatively, you can buy a single 2GB module for £11. If you already have a 1GB module and want to add another, make sure you check the exact speed and try and match it. Currently, a 1GB PC2-6400 module costs just around £9, which is clearly poorer value than the above, though at these prices it’s not a big deal.

However, while our test PC felt a little more responsive once we’d upgraded it to 2GB, the benchmarks show that there were virtually no gains in application performance. Clearly, there’s a much bigger gain if you upgrade your processor. A Core 2 Quad Q8200 (or Q8300) costs around £100, and could make your PC up to three times faster (this was certainly the case when upgrading from our Celeron 430).

If your motherboard doesn’t support the Q8200’s 1,333MHz FSB, another option could be the Core 2 Duo E7500. This has a slower 1,066MHz FSB and costs around £85 yet was almost as fast as the Q8200 in our tests. It was noticeably slower at encoding video, though, where the Q8200’s extra two cores showed their muscle. Conversely, the E7500 was faster in our image editing test (which isn’t optimised for multiple cores) thanks to its faster clock speed – 2.93GHz against the Q8200’s 2.33GHz.

If you’re upgrading an AMD-based PC, very similar rules apply. Our PC with an Athlon 64 3500+ and 1GB of RAM showed no noticeable improvement in our benchmarks after adding an extra 1GB of RAM. However, when we upgraded the processor to a Phenom II X4 965, the overall score shot up from 28 to 101. This isn’t a big surprise, of course, and the 965 costs a lot more than 1GB of RAM: £87 including VAT from Pixmania.

If you’d rather save money and upgrade to a modern dual-core processor, the Athlon II X2 250 is an excellent choice. It boosted our PC’s score to 86 (along with an extra 1GB of RAM), yet costs only £42. If you took this route, your PC would be roughly three times faster for a total price of just £67. Bargain.

THE THREE-YEAR OLD PC

If you bought a PC in 2008 and spent around £700, you may have a quad-core processor and 4GB of RAM. Depending on the exact processor, it could still be fast enough for your needs today. If you’ve noticed your PC becoming sluggish, it may be the result of too many services starting with Windows. A quick bit of spring cleaning in MSconfig to disable all the unnecessary startup programs could be all you need to restore order.

However, if you spent less money or have only a dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM (or less), you might benefit from an upgrade in both departments. Intel-based PCs from the time aren’t upgradeable to the latest Core i3, i5 or i7 processors, but you could still install a Core 2 Quad Q8200 as long as your motherboard supports its 1,333MHz FSB.

A three-year old PC, it looks fine, but a CPU upgrade could make it much faster

As AMD had dropped the ball in 2008, the vast majority of PCs were sold with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. AMD’s chips were comparatively slower than the equivalent-priced Intel CPU and, for this reason, we have assumed that virtually no-one will have a two-year old AMD-based PC and we haven’t included any benchmark results for one.

If you did buy one, you’ll almost certainly have a motherboard with an AM2+ socket. This means you should be able to upgrade to the latest AMD chips, such as the Phenom II X4 965. As we’ve already said, check your motherboard manual, and the manufacturer’s website for BIOS updates. In general AM2+ motherboards will happily accept the latest AM3 processors. Both the Athlon II X2 250 (£42) and the Phenom II X4 965 (£87) are great choices.

WHAT TO BUY

Once again, we see that upgrading memory makes little difference. Adding an extra 2GB does little to improve benchmark scores. In fact, it’s worth pointing out that most two-year old PCs had a 32-bit version of Windows and 32-bit Windows can address only around 3.2GB of memory. This means you’re effectively adding just over 1GB of memory, but paying for 2GB. However, given the low premium of 2GB modules over 1GB ones, you might as well buy a larger module if your board will take it.

The other option is to replace your processor. The best-value choice for a quad-core CPU, as we’ve said, is the Core 2 Quad Q8200. Your motherboard should support this chip, but check your motherboard manual and the manufacturer’s website for any BIOS updates that add support before shelling out £105 for it. Of course, as you can see from the graphs, the Q8200 isn’t much faster than a Core 2 Duo E7400, which many PCs would have come with in 2008.

The E7400 is actually faster than the Q8200 in single-threaded applications (such as our image editing benchmark), so it’s only worth upgrading if you’re planning to use software that you already know will use all four cores. Our video encoding test, for example, saw a 22 per cent speed boost when we upgraded. Conversely, the image editing test was around 16 per cent slower.

Naturally, if your PC has a slower processor than the E7400, you’ll see a bigger increase. If not, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion that we did: it isn’t worth spending over £100 for such a little overall performance gain. Unfortunately, in this situation, you’re better off buying a new PC base unit.

THE ONE-YEAR OLD PC

It might sound odd suggesting that you upgrade such a new PC, but there are plenty of people who’ve bought a budget PC last year with the intention to add more memory or install a faster processor when funds allowed. As many PCs came with Windows 7 64-bit, there are more gains to be had from upgrading memory since the 64-bit version can use all the memory you give it.

We’ve only considered budget PCs here, as there shouldn’t be any need to upgrade a relatively new mid-range or high-end PC just yet. We’ll start with Intel-based PCs. We’ve chosen a PC with a Core i3 530 processor and 2GB of RAM. Chances are, your PC already has 4GB of RAM, but we’ve done the benchmarking to show you how much extra speed you gain by adding another 2GB. Don’t forget that virtually all new PCs – and all Core i processors – use DDR3 memory, not DDR2.

A one-year old PC, shouldn’t need much work to get it up to modern standards

It was only high-spec PCs that had LGA1366 sockets, but newer PCs (especially those made in 2010) have LGA1156 sockets. As there are Pentium and Celeron chips available in the LGA1156 format, it’s possible that you could upgrade all the way from those to a Core i7 800-series chip. However, these are very expensive – the i7-860 for example costs well over £200 at the moment.

One interesting fact about the new Celeron, Pentium, and some Core i5 and i7 chips, is that they have integrated graphics. These can only be used with motherboards that have an H55, H57 or Q57 chipset – the graphics chip won’t work in a P55 motherboard. Gaming performance is poor, but it can handle playback of HD video, even 1080p.

If you recently bought an AMD-based PC, you’ll probably have a motherboard with a Socket AM3. This is the latest version, and all AM3 processors should work, regardless of chipset. Here, we’ve picked a typical budget PC with an Athlon II X4 620 with 2GB of RAM. If you have a Phenom II X2 processor, you may be able to unlock the two extra ‘hidden’ cores, but you’ll need to search for the option to do this in the BIOS – and it may not be available on your particular motherboard. There are no guarantees that the hidden cores will be operable, or stable, but it’s certainly worth trying as a free upgrade to a quad-core processor.

WHAT TO BUY

As we’ve said, it’s important to match the speed of your existing memory if you’re buying extra RAM. This should be obvious from the labels on the memory modules inside your PC. You should see something like PC3-8500, or DDR3-1066 (these are two ways of expressing the same DDR3 speed – 1,066MHz). If possible, try to buy the exact make and model. Currently, prices of DDR3 RAM are similar to DDR2, so expect to pay around £7 for a 2GB DDR3-1066 module, or £18 for a matched pair of 2GB sticks.

As our results show, adding an extra 2GB to a 64-bit Windows 7 PC is more of a benefit than our similar test on our two-year-old PC with a 32-bit version of Vista. Multitasking in particular shows the biggest improvement, with an average of a 10 per cent increase. For £7, this is very worthwhile.
Upgrading from a Core i3 530 to a Core i5 750 will give you roughly 30 per cent more performance, but this is relatively expensive at £145. Unless you’re going to be editing HD video or some other equally demanding task, there’s little point in making this upgrade as the Core i3 is powerful enough for just about any other task.

For the AMD PC, upgrading from 2GB to 4GB boosts performance by around 6 per cent, while upgrading simply to a Phenom II X4 965 makes that figure closer to 25 per cent. Upgrade both, and you’re looking at a 30 per cent improvement in power for just £94. If your PC already has 4GB of RAM, upgrading to the 965 will cost £87 and still make your almost 30 per cent faster.

FINAL COUNTDOWN

We’ve discovered that, somewhat surprisingly, extra memory doesn’t do very much to improve performance – assuming your PC already has 1GB of RAM. We’ve also shown that there’s a larger gain from adding memory if you have a 64-bit operating system.

The unsurprising result is that upgrading your processor is likely to make a much more noticeable difference to your PC’s performance. While this is a much more expensive option, it’s still considerably cheaper than buying a completely new base unit, or entire PC. You should now be equipped with the knowledge you need to choose the best upgrade for your PC, and see that you needn’t always resort to getting rid of the machine under your desk.

On the next page are a couple of appendices about overheating and updating your BIOS

STANDING THE HEAT

If you’re planning to upgrade your processor, you’ll need to make sure your PC’s cooling equipment can deal with the extra heat. Faster processors tend to run hotter, although this is countered by ever-decreasing manufacturing processes (expressed in microns), which help to keep power consumption (and heat) down.

It’s still important to keep your new kit cool, though, even if you’re only upgrading the memory. Most PC cases have mountings for two or more fans, and unless your PC already has the maximum number fitted, adding an extra one is an inexpensive way to boost your computer’s cooling effectiveness. Many motherboards have spare three-pin fan headers, but it’s worth checking yours to see if there are fans plugged into every single one. If that’s the case, buy a fan with a four-pin Molex adapter that can connect to a spare plug on your power supply, or in-line with a hard disk or optical drive power connector if there are no free plugs.

The advantage of plugging a fan into your motherboard is that its speed can be controlled by the BIOS according to temperature. This way, they remain quiet when the PC is cool. If you’re playing a game or running other demanding applications, heat quickly builds up and the fan speeds can be increased accordingly.

Upgrading your PC might require you add an extra fan to the case

Some fans come with an in-line resistor or a three-way switch that reduces the voltage from the Molex plug. This is a rudimentary way to kill noise, but there’s no easy way to step up the voltage when you want a higher spin speed. A better option is a fan controller, such as Akasa’s Fan Control Pro (around £30), which slots into a free 5 1/4in bay on the front of your PC and lets you control the speed of four fans.

The most common fan size is 80mm, and prices start from around £3. The Zalman ZM-F1 Plus is a good choice, being both quiet and efficient at moving air. Similarly, the Zalman ZM-F3 LED is great value if you want a 120mm fan, as it costs as little as £4.

UPGRADING YOUR BIOS

Your computer’s BIOS is responsible for managing and controlling all the hardware in your computer. Manufacturers occasionally release new BIOS versions to fix bugs in older revisions, make your computer more stable, or add new features, such as support for newer processors and faster memory. These updates aren’t hard to install (or ‘flash’ as the upgrade process is commonly known).
There are three ways to update the BIOS: a built-in tool, using Windows, and a DOS boot disk. The first requires you to press a key during the boot process to access the update utility. You then plug in your storage device (a floppy disk or maybe USB flash drive) which contains the new BIOS file, and then select the file to perform the update.

Windows is perhaps the easiest method as you can use a graphical interface (potentially even an automatic one) to install the new BIOS. This is also the most dangerous, as if something goes wrong, you could be left with a corrupt BIOS which renders your PC useless. Finally, you could create a bootable disk or drive which loads a basic version of DOS. You can then use the traditional command prompt to run a flash utility to perform the update.

A BIOS update is needed for many CPU upgrades

Before you start, you need to download the latest BIOS for your motherboard from the manufacturer’s website, preferably its UK site. Make sure you know the exact model (even the revision number) of your motherboard to ensure you get the correct BIOS file. Typically the file (with a .bin extension) will be in a Zip file along with a .exe flash utility. You’ll have to extract the contents to a folder on your hard disk, or directly to a boot disk.

Most upgrade utilities allow you to backup the current BIOS file, and you should do this just in case you need to restore it. After the upgrade, you should remove any disks or USB drives and reboot. Normally you’ll see an error message that says the BIOS settings have been reset. Press F1 or the key as directed to enter the BIOS and make sure the settings are correct. Many BIOSes allow you to back up the settings, so you should do this before upgrading, and then you can load your old settings quickly from the backup.