Expert: Bobbert - 2/8/2011

Question
Hi! I am buying a PC this week. I need to know what is better, a $45 Pentium 3 or a $350 Pentium 4?

The purpose of the PC is for classified ads posting and games and some videos as well. Do you think it would be wiser to buy the $45 Pentium 3? Cause I also want to save money and I thought, maybe I could just upgrade it later to Pentium 4. But I also don't know if that would be possible and how much it would cost me. Please help me. Thank you very much

Answer
Speaking in terms of technology, no you could never upgrade the Pentium 3 based system to a Pentium 4. In terms of hardware need though, depending on what you're doing with games and videos, the Pentium 3 system may or may not work for you - the savings is substantial, and $350 is generally overpriced for a Pentium 4 system (at least in the US and Canada). Unless you're doing very complex video work or want very complex games (in which case I would need to know substantially more about either of these systems in terms of other hardware specifications, beyond just the central processor branding), there should be no issues between the two. Finally, if you can find more specific information about their hardware, I can give you far more information (for example, which Pentium 3 and which Pentium 4 are we talking about, if they're very close in speedrating the Pentium 3 will actually be faster, for example).

-bob