new mobo, etc

[bubba1855]

i want to upgrade my diy if it makes sense…i worked with pchelpforum 7 years ago to build my desktop and it worked out fine…i think it might be time to upgrade. I have a desktop with an intel 9450 chip, 4 gig of memory and a 1T western digital harddrive. i use an Asus p5ql pro motherboard. I am only using 200g on my hhd. I do not do gaming. I ‘clone’ my HHD about 4 times a year to be sure that if I have a hard drive crash I can just swap out hard drives. I’m currently running windows 10…I run CCleaner and malwarebites on a regular basis.
My questions are as follows:

1. if I increase my memory to 16g, the max for the mobo, will my pc do better?
2. if i change to a 500g SSD will that increase speed? I know it will.
3. should I change out my mobo and cpu? That’s the real question.
4. I’m 73 years old…don’t think I’m going to be ‘surfing’ too many more years.
   All comments and recommendations gratefully received.
   have a good day,
   Bubba (not really)

[veeg]

Hello

Hopefully some of our members will chime in soon.

@Bruce @Evan Omo

[Bruce]

g’day Bubba and welcome to the forums.

first up, you have a good 25 years of surfing left in you, so upgrading will not be a waste.

sounds to me like the old girl is still going strong, and that you are interested in giving it a ‘new lease on life’.
with that in mind, I think the memory increase and SSD upgrade will give you the best bang for buck.
sadly though, now is the worst time to buy memory, prices have roughly doubled and tripled in some cases due to memory manufactures gearing production to NAND products (smartphones), the release of Ryzen promoting PC sales and the crypto mining boom.

also consider, yes, more memory equates to improved speed but really only if you use memory hogging software like 3D modelling, video editing, high-end games etc. 4GB on Win10 is fine but 8GB will be better, I’d think your needs wouldn’t warrant any more than that.

but a SSD, now that will be a game changer, the speed boost simply has to be seen to be believed.
this is where I’d suggest spending your time and money.
and since you are already cloning your system, migrating to a SSD will be as straight forward as it could get.
however, with the age of your PC and its accumulated software, it may be an opportune time to do a fresh install of your system on the new SSD.
you’ll clear out the Registry of junk, only install the software you currently use, plus Windows will optimise services and maintenance when it detects its being installed onto a SSD.
but each to his own…

[bubba1855]

Bruce,
thank you for your reply. FYI, a friend of mine recently purchased a Dell laptop with a SSD. I couldn’t believe how fast it was. I’m sold on
SSD. It appears that the current prices of 512gig SSD’s are resonable…about $120. I can deal with that. As far as memory is concerned, I checked out the prices for my motherboard and for 8gig more of DDR2-667 SDRAM unbuffered it’s not that much.
My Windows 10 is a Windows 8 upgrade so I don’t have the media to reinstall. Plus, I’m not sure I have all of the media for the other apps that
I have on my PC. I do run CCleaner and malware bits regularly.
My real concern was if I should replace my mobo and intel processor. I guess, for my needs, what I have is ‘ok’.
Thanks again…
I think I’ll just put in more memory and the SSD.
Have a good day,
Bubba

[phillpower2]

Should we mark your thread as being answered bubba1855?

[bubba1855]

Should we mark your thread as being answered bubba1855?

yes…you can close this one out.
Bubba

[Bruce]

Good luck with the upgrade and please let us know how you get on.

[phillpower2]

Thanks both (y)