I don't like how a rig will be outdated within like 2 years, 3 - 4 at most.

Just 4 years ago I blew $1000 on a P4 2.6Ghz configuration with a ATI Radeon 9200 which has like 3 shaders, and like half a gig of RAM.

Now look at today.. that system can't play any games and has troubles loading the programs of today. Firefox and MSN still work.. so I'm thankful for that. But I can't video convert and stuff with today's programs without massive lag!

And then...

I don't like how a rig will be outdated within like 2 years, 3 - 4 at most.

Just 4 years ago I blew $1000 on a P4 2.6Ghz configuration with a ATI Radeon 9200 which has like 3 shaders, and like half a gig of RAM.

Now look at today.. that system can't play any games and has troubles loading the programs of today. Firefox and MSN still work.. so I'm thankful for that. But I can't video convert and stuff with today's programs without massive lag!

And then...

Sometimes I think it's a better idea to spend money on upgrades that give you a difference you can actually FEEL.

Benchmarks sure give bigger numbers and enlarge the e-penis, but in the end, is this going to give you any real-world noticeable difference?

For example, E8400 vs 8600. E8600 will OC probably an extra 0.3 - 0.4Ghz or so if you're lucky, but is this going to give you a noticeable difference? Are you going to lag at 4.2ghz but not lag at 4.5Ghz? Why not spend...