Lets not over exaggerate
For a start, you wouldnt swap out your Q6600. The only thing that could best a Q6600 at the minute would be a Xeon or i7. Neither would you swap out your ram unless it was a set of old sticks. On the windows part - You ring them up, on a toll free number and ask them to reset your product key - thats what, 10 minutes work? And its free?
A PCI Soundcard. Necessary? Not really. But, if you insist.
So lets add that all up - a new motherboard? $115. RAM? $50. Soundcard, if you must - $100.
So so far we have been set back $265. Add a decent mid level graphics card to that? $100 for a 4850. So $365.
To back up all old data, build and have a computer fully running takes me roughly 5 hours. If im "recommending to a friend" or building for a friend, Id honestly charge them, lets say, £50, so $80 from start to finish. Mates rates lets say.
So so far this person, lets call him jimmy, has spent $445 and can now play 90% of todays games, and has a future proof system, isnt crippled by limited selection on upgrading (Come on, your making a petition to get another AGP card released for christs sakes!) and doesnt have to worry about any more upgrades until, lets say, i5 hits the etailers.
Oh, and this about the harddrives being recycled? Add a 500GB seagate barracuda to that then, bump the overall build cost to $505. Hardly the $1000 you seem to have plucked from the sky, and that gets you a system thats up to date.
Oh, and just to enforce all of this - you can get a 4850 for $99, however an AGP 3850 costs $145. Thats THE best AGP card you can buy, and its outperformed by a cheaper, more power efficient and cooler 4850, and the 4850 is classed as a mid / low mainstream card
You can keep you AGP system in the end, but honestly, Id rather bite the bullet and spend $500 (NOT $1000
) on upgrading in every sense. Better choice when upgrading, better chipset variations on the motherboards, cheaper, etc etc.
Oh, just for the record:
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