Will my computer last through college?
assuming you don't drop it or smash it up I imagine so!
last through college?
at the rate technology is going right now, you'll definitely need a new rig before you finish off college. lol i put together the rig in my comment a year ago JUST when the 3800+ X2 came out, i was happily touting around my top of the line X2 processor bragging to my friends how mine cpu/gpu was better than theirs... now my friends have a 7900GT and a conroe 6600e to compete with..
I completly disagree. what on earth has the graphics card got to do with how well he's going to be able to write reports and dissertations?
Last yes, but it will be severely obsolete.
I'd doubt that it'd even run the latest programs in 5 years.
Practically obsolete isn't exactly obsolete though is it?
I had an obsolete computer whilst I was at uni, (pentium 2 350Mhz, with 128 MB ram), when I got that machine the onboard graphics were completly shot and the USB didn't work, (it's been the subject of a lightning strike), but with a new PSU and a graphics card, (a very old PCI graphics card) it worked fine
I had XP running on it, complete with office for doing assignments, on top of that I also had Autocad, pro engineer, multi-sim (electronics circuit simulation software), PSPICE visual studio, and Matlab running on it.
after I upgraded my own computer I set that up as a server in my house, it now runs, windows 2003, with IIS and apache, Active Directory, exchange, and well as several MSSQL and MySQL databases (it's not my test server for when I'm making things).
yeah it will physically still working hopefully , i have a dell optiplex gx110 1ghz from the year 2000 here and it still runs xp perfectly well as i have upgraded the ram and the hard drive
this is exactly the point I'm making here, old gear will still work perfectly fine.
Yeah, and in before college I will probably be getting a low-end laptop and some desktop upgrades. I want to upgrade my motherboard soon to a 680i maybe so I can do some over clocking. Maybe hit a lil under 3ghz. And I will probably get more ram this summer or fall. A 2gb stick. So over time I will be upgrading. I wouldn't be doing heavy gaming either in college, probably homework. Is anyone else going into computer engineering?
starting with what you already have upgrading will be the cheapest way to go.
bear in mind what I've said above though.
the computer that you have now will more than likely be fine to run the latest versions of office and programming tools etc now and in five years as well
I wouldn't say that your machine is a high end gaming rig now, so it sure as dammit ain't going to be a high end gaming rig in five years!
but it will still be there and it will still be ticking over. working just fine letting you get your work done.