I am the proud owner of a five year old computer and I have two simple questions:

1: the stats of my computer are as follows;

1GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500

Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.93GHz

22GB memory (might be 20)

How hilariously out of date is my computer?

2: If I were to update this thing, is it possible to move applications I currently have to my new computer, without doing something stupid?

And don't worry, you can laugh at me. I won't be offended.

 

And by the way... Is a PCI express chip compatable with a regular PCI port?

Well lemme go two routes with you and you can decide.

 

1st route:

  You could upgrade your current rig to a higher standing, this would of course be limited by various factors and you'll never really be able to reach into high end computing land.  Which because you never really intimated what you do with your system might not even be a problem.  Your computer isn't totally out of date, I regularly work on clients computers that are much slower then yours, and they are totally satisfied with them.  Heck I can name several users that see your system as a full step up. 

So witht hat in mind I am gonna draw some conclusions based on what you gave me.
-Upgrade the CPU to the performance class instead of budget class CPU of your socket type.
-Look into a faster AGP graphics card, there are several available using recent chipsets.
-I am one to always advocate more hard drive space.  Keep the 22GB as a boot drive and add a slave drive for storage, thus freeing your system drive.
-Another GB of ram will make any system happy. (a generalization but meh)

2nd route:
  Scrap it all, and build a new rig altogether.  Basically relegate that rig to sale for capital, or second line duties.  While its doing that, build another rig and be happy with the new found power and opportunities it gives you. 

 

In answer to your second to last question; yes you can move your data to another rig using alot of different software suites, or manually if your willing to search it out and find the data.  I regualrily keep a backup of important data, that backup is typicly restored into fresh installs so as to save me time.  Such as profiles for firefox, and thunderbird, ect.  I have found one caveat being alot of software demands installation on new computers, and thus cannot be moved by employing a 'copy and paste' aproach.  Sometimes this can be circumvented, others it is simply easier to reinstall it, and likely more advantagious, as it could allow for software optimizations that take place during install.

Finally:  No a PCI add in card will not fit ina  PCIe slot.  at least thats what I think you mean by your question.  Here I will show you what I mean (look at these pictures and it will be come clear).  As you can see they do not pinout the same way.

(direct link: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/PCI_und_PCIe_Slots.jpg/800px-PCI_und_PCIe_Slots.jpg)

I'm in the process of upgrading my moms computer. She has 1/4 gig of ram, onboard graphics, AMD Sempron 1.6GHz, 80GB harddrive. So yours isn't so bad. I found some cheap used parts. I got a ATi 9800 for $25 and 2GB of Ram for $35. Not the fastest parts but good for her. And don't worry no one here is going to laugh at you here. We all started somewhere. Let us know what you do with your PC and your budget and we will help you find the best path to upgrade.

bob_on_the_cob:

don't worry no one here is going to laugh at you here. We all started somewhere. Let us know what you do with your PC and your budget and we will help you find the best path to upgrade.

 

Exactly, my first computer was an IBM 8086 (ok so it was my mom's but I was the one who actually learned/knew how to use it).

My first from the ground up build was a Pentium 90 out of one of a family friends parts box.  I biult it up, broke it and fixed it.. got hooked never looked back. 

 

 

Taking all of this into concideration, I might as well just get a new(er) computer.

 

I found two likley canidates, both off of amazon.com.

One is a "HP Pavilion A6200N Desktop PC (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5000+, 2GB RAM, 360 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)" for $730.

The other is a "HP Pavilion Media Center M8200N Desktop PC (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 6000+, 3 GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)" for $600.

In all honesty, the second one looks like a better deal, but I'm not really a computer genious, so I wouldn't know which one would be a better idea to get.

 

 

 

 

 The second one in that list is most definitely a better deal -- also since it is a media center it may come with a TV tuner card (meaning you can hook it up to your cable and have it record TV/movies if you like) amognst other "media' features.

Are you looking specifically for an HP? Or did they both just happen to be good deals you stumbled across....

Anyway if you provide us with a budget you may we could possibly help ya out on finding more deals to help with your decision (I am assuming you want a ready-made, good-to-go-from-the-box PC right?)

ice91785:

(I am assuming you want a ready-made, good-to-go-from-the-box PC right?)

 If not and you wanna venture into building your own, you can get plenty of help here. It's easy IMO and you can get more for your $$$ going that route.

 

 

What do you do with your computer? If you play games make sure it has a graphics card. Most store bought PCs don't.