This month the doctor tackles XP vs. Windows 7, Upgrading from LGA1366 and PhysX on AMD Pondering a $500 Upgrade My laptop is an Asus G74SX-TH71. It has a GeForce GTX 560M with 4GB of RAM, a 2GHz Core i7 CPU, and 12GB of RAM. It has two 500GB hard drives in it, one for OS and games and the other for videos. I was wondering if I should upgrade my laptop to a desktop. I have about 500 dollars and I’m looking for a good budget gaming computer with a monitor. Can you suggest a computer or a way to upgrade my laptop, maybe an SSD? - Mridul Sarkar The Doctor Responds: Mridul, you’re not going to get a desktop and monitor for $500 that’s better than your year-old gaming laptop. If you want to speed up your laptop a bit, you could get an SSD, like a Samsung 830 Series, for your OS and games. That will dramatically increase startup speed and load times. You can get a 512GB version for just over $500. Alternately, you could spend some money on an external monitor; you can get a decent 24-inch IPS panel for under $300 these days. Or you can save that $500 toward a new desktop later on, when you have more money for a more powerful rig. XP or Windows 7? I am going to be building a new rig in the next month or so and wanted to know what, if any, performance hit I will incur or features I might miss by using Windows XP. I still prefer Windows XP over Windows 7 and re-read your articles from 2009 on the pros and cons of each. I use Windows 7 at work and on my lapto
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