Mixing old software with new and old hardware with new can be problematic. Dell, Gateway and HP make fine computers for under $1k that would satisfy nearly everyone.

BTW, I was browsing through Fry's last week and saw 500Gig hard drives (7200rpm) for $89. Crazy. And unnecessary unless you're storing movies or you use your computer as a multimediae pc. I've built my last 3 computers, and the 3Mhz, 2Mb RAM 1 Terabyte unit with dual 20" monitors I built 3 years ago is still all I need.

Sooo, my vote is for new.

 

I fill about 5 terabytes a year, and thats just with photos i personally take.

 

With that tiny little camera?!

 

I remember when a 40Mb hard drive was "so big, we won't ever fill it up".

Hard drives are like houses -- you always fill them up just a little more than they comfortably hold, no matter how big they are.

 

My first hard drive was 10 Mb.
and I upgraded to that from dual 5.25. floppies.

First job out of school as designing disk controllers.
We had 150 Mb drives in our lab as big as a washing machine, called 'em washtubs for some reason.

 

I remember working for IBM in the mid-80's when our fastest PC was 40Mhz. The engineers at Boca were supposed to have overclocked a few chips to 100Mhz, but that was just crazy-fast. 5 1/2" floppies looked silly when the Mac came out, and IBM's chip architecture did as well when the "clones" ended up doubling the speed of IBM's best systems. It's kinda hard to put a market spin on those numbers, even with Big Blue's good name...

 

Those are great upgrading tips. What do you do with the old computer if you upgrade. Keeping working computers out of the landfill is worth something. Just my 2 cents.

 

Computers are full of precious metals. I'm pretty sure you can find someplace near you that will pay you for your old computer. Not a lot, but that's much better than just throwing it away.

 

Definitely recycle, especially if you have an old CRT display.

BTW, I saw three different systems at Office Depot for under $800 today. The top model ($799) had a quad cord 2.6Mzh processor with 4Gigs RAM and a 640Mg 7200rpm hard drive. For that kinda dough and new software, it's hard to upgrade. They also had a mini system the size of a phone book for $549. I was intrigued.

 

My county has a recycling program a couple times a year where you can take stuff like computers. Check locally to see if you have one. Also, some peeps donate their old ones to educational causes.