Gateway Parts - Whats the most common computer parts to upgrade for gaming?

Whats the most common computer parts to upgrade for gaming?

I bought my dell XPS 700 2 years ago for 2,500 and i called geek squad and they said its probably worth about 400, geez. Anyways i was wondering instead of getting a new computer whats the best things to upgrade on my computer that will keep me up with the gaming world? Say my friend has windows vista, would i be able to take their vista install disk and install it on my computer?

Public Comments

You could install Vista, but this would be illegal due to licensing. I'm not telling you not to do it, but I'm not telling you to do it either. It's gray area. The most common components are RAM, Hard Drive speed and capacity, and graphics adapters.
Max out your memory, and think about a faster processor if you can afford it. Also, cooling.....keep that processor cool! The OS is not going to help speed you up on games. Also a better video card.....sorry, forgot about that one.
If you have a PCI-E slot instead of AGP, then you can most easily upgrade your video card for the largest increase in performance. Next to that I would add some RAM, as I would not run Vista without 3-4GB of ram for the best experience. Also, if your friend's disk came with his computer then it might not work. Alot of times, these are restore disks and are not meant for a fresh install on a computer other than what it came with. The only reason I'd upgrade to Vista would be to get the most out of Directx 10, as some of the newer games such as Farcry 2 look better with this and get higher frame rates than Directx 9.
Upgrade your RAM and Video Card. As for the video card: the more expensive, the better (unfortunately). Do not install Vista unless you really have to.
the most important thing in a gaming computer is by far the video card. if your cpu is a single core or a dual core less than 2.5 GHz u will need to upgrade that as well. i'd recommend 2-4 GB or ram (speed doesn't really matter for ram) no u cant use ur friends vista disk, you have to register it online and it will already be registered. I'd suggest vista if you can afford it because it has directx 10 which helps a ton.