| > Even in 2002 the machine he has would have probably | > had about a 1 Ghz CPU and maybe 500 MB RAM. That's | > more than enough for most uses. | | Ridiculous. I recently retired a secondary 1 Ghz XP machine | with 1 GB of RAM and it's performance was pathetic compared | to any current basic PC. It's pathetic compared to the 3 year | old PC I'm using as my main PC. |
There is a caveat: It won't be fast if you don't run it clean. XP starts out with dozens of unnecessary services running by default. Then installed software often loads at boot without asking. If you run anti-virus you're adding a huge load with doubtful benefit. When you install hardware it will often load unnecessary startup programs. All of that can drag down any system. On numerous occasions I've had friends ask for help because their computer is running in slow motion. It's not XP that's the problem. And it's not old hardware. Once the software "barnacles" are cleaned off those machines run fine.
| > | > But XP is zippy on old hardware, and does just fine with 256 | > MB RAM for most uses.) | | It's also being EOL'd by MSFT. Why would anyone who wants | more speed invest more money in a 12 year old PC, running XP, | with a dying disk?
The OP may not want to. I was trying to describe his options. If he really wants to stay with what he's using his best option is to replace the hard disk. If he's happy moving to Win8 then he can do that for as little as $300. It's up to him. To my mind, replacing the hard disk is certainly a viable option. It's the part most likely to wear out.
XP EOL could certainly be an issue. If you just want to buy a box and have it work then it makes the most sense to simply buy new PCs when the old one seems inadequate. But if you don't mind spending some time, there's no reason they can't be maintained. And XP EOL really means very little. I run XP with SP3 but don't -- and wouldn't -- ever allow AutoUpdate to run, installing a constant drip-feed of barely tested changes... But that gets into security issues, which is a whole other kettle of fish.
I recently built myself a new box. I have XP on it. I built it with cheap parts from TigerDirect. I always buy older models of motherboard and CPU because the technology far outstripped the need years ago. I see no sense paying hundreds for the latest CPU when a model for $65 is still incredibly fast. I put 4 GB RAM into my new box, but only because that was the cheapest option. Win32 can only use a bit over 3 GB, and 2 GB would have been more adequate.
I do some photo editing, some web design work, and I write Windows software. (I make most of my income as a carpenter/contractor, but also have a sideline writing shareware, freeware utilities and components for use with scripting.) I've got a dual CPU, super-duper Dell in the other room that was given to me. It has Win7 on it. I don't like Win7. I prefer XP. Win7 is a bloated, spyware mess to my mind. It's salvageable, but barely. Win8 is worse. I use the Win7 box for testing software. Both the Win7 dual CPU box and my new XP box, with "mediocre" AMD A6 2-core, respond instantly. I keep them clean. If you find you need a high-power machine for speed to do things less intensive than video editing then you probably have a lot of crap weighing down the system... And you've probably been reading too many mainstream media articles written by tech journalists who depend on hardware and software companies for ad dollars. The world of tech survives on a dizzying pace of forced obsolescence, so if you go by what the media tells you you'll end up replacing gadgets as fast as you buy them.