Should I upgrade a weapon/armour before prestigeing it?

When I can 'prestige' a weapon, it says:

"This will destroy your existing [pants] and greatly increase the cost of future upgrades"

Does this mean I should upgrade them as much as possible beforehand, or do the upgrades not carry over?


When you prestige, you will lose all the upgrades.

Before: enter image description here

After: enter image description here