To Upgrade or Not

[Hogans_Alley]

I have a 1.2GHz Athlon processor on an Iwill FSB 266 motherboard. RAM is 512M, OS is WIN98SE, Video is NVidia GForce4 Ti4200 (64M). On a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the top) where does my PC stand comparatively? As the saying goes in the aviation industry, there are only two types of aircraft - the experimental and the obsolete. Guess this applies to the PCs also. If I upgrade to a 2.4GHz, how long before that goes the way of the dinasaurs. Will it make any noticeable difference if I just upgrade my video to, say a GForce FX5200.

Hogans Alley

[Paz]

 My opinion is this: If you can afford a new machine, it's time to upgrade your system, I would grade your current machine a 4-5 in comparison to todays technology, considering that the newest processors are running at 3.0+Ghz and there are 256Mhz video cards on the market.
 Prices on new machines in the 2.4Ghz range are quite reasonable if you do a little searching, you should be able to find a good setup for well under $1000, and honestly for a 2.4Ghz, depending on what else is included in the package, I would guess more in the $500-$700 range.
 I would think a 2.4Ghz with 512Mb RAM and a 128 Mb video card would serve you quite well for a couple of years.
 I just upgraded to a 2.66Ghz this year and expect to stick with this machine until late 2004 or early 2005, unless I see a really good deal before then.

[congo]

If you have a 266mhz fsb mainboard, then hopefully you are running PC2100 RAM in it.

If you are, then an upgrade to an Athlon XP2400 is gonna make your system FLY!