The Seven Smartest PC Upgrades for Under $200

That old 486 sitting in your garage seems like it could run forever, but it won't run Windows 98. The Pentium-133 your company bought two years ago is already showing symptoms of a midlife crisis--especially when you load Office 97. The most popular applications guarantee to improve your productivity, provided they don't bring your PC to its knees first.

You know you need a new computer. Who doesn't? But maybe you'd rather burn that cash on a trip to Paris instead of on a PII-450. By selectively upgrading parts of your PC, you can wring a little more life out of your PC--and still save for a stroll down the Champs Elysées.

Upgrading has its limits, however. In an era when you can buy a new Pentium II for less than $1000, you shouldn't spend much more than $200 to soup up an older system. Does it make sense to spring for more memory, or should you cash in your chips on a new CPU? Would you be better served by a swifter video card or a speedy 56-kbps modem? How about a bigger hard drive? A DVD-ROM player? A USB port?

Our guide to upgrading your computer will help you decide where to focus your efforts and your dollars--or whether to forgo upgrading altogether. We provide an overview of key system enhancements--memory, CPUs, storage devices, graphics cards, modems, and more. Check out our handy decision trees to figure out the best solution for your situation, then peruse the tables to get a handle on the technical challenge that awaits. Can't face the terror of a hard disk upgrade? We even spell out what a professional installation will cost.

Whether you want to run the latest version of Microsoft Office, move up to Windows NT, or just play Quake II, we'll help you decide which parts of your PC to upgrade and which ones to leave alone. As for the money you'll save, well, you'll have to decide how to spend that yourself.