New PC...

Not for me, but the SCSon.   He received a new computer game for Christmas and quickly found his PC wouldn't run it as it needed 2x the RAM he had installed.  Quick research showed the DDR2 RAM he uses has fallen from favor and is getting more expensive.  Another 4GB would cost about $150.

Further research showed his processor & Mobo were really old so it really wasn't worth upgrading.

So instead we jacked up the Hard Drive & Case and slid a new CPU + MoBo + RAM underneath.  Fry's had a deal for an AMD FX6600 + MSI 970-G43 MoBo for $109 (After rebates & discounts).  Another $70 brought 16GB RAM.  That meant we could upgrade him several hardware generations for barely more than the cost of the additional RAM into the old system.  That's the way this business works.  Sometimes you just have to jettison the old.

That and about 6 hours of reloading /upgrading to Win10 64bit and mucho frustration, he is now upgraded.  At one point he came to me for help.  I had to beg off "I'm sorry - you are the leading expert in this family on this topic.  You upgraded my netbook and mom's laptop.  You have the experience.  I cannot help."  (besides I was reloading and not enjoying the interruption)  He understood but wasn't very happy about it.  30 mins later he was frustrated to the point of walking away.  Another 30 later, he was successful.  Hopefully the "don't give up" lesson is reinforced.

BTW, the timing here is good as he has the time to apply on the problem, and the motivation to succeed.

And from my experience, 6 hours is about on par to bring up a new system by the time the hardware is installed, drivers installed, OS installed and brought up to date with updates, adding a virus scanner, etc.

And my turn in the barrel is coming..  I run most everything on a Linux box built from leftovers in the junk box.  There is an Win7 machine adjacent for stuff that just runs on Windows (AMD Phenom 8450 triple core, 2.10 GHz).  It too is becoming dated even running Win7.  But I don't really want to upgrade to Win10 until updated hardware is in place.

I'm not very happy that every family needs a resident IT "guy".  But we seem to be there.  And I'm ecstatic the SCSon is stepping up!