I wasn't comparing to a P4 or Celeron... It just confirms why I spent all the money on the last system upgrade

Yes I am

If you go on too newegg.com or tigerdirect.com you will find what you are looking for prices you will have to check. You too find out what chip set it is like 775 etc. the website should tell you or just google it like emachine bla bla specs
Peronally it is not really worth it you should just buy or build a new one!!!

If you read the original posters remarks, he said that buying a new PC is NOT in his budget and has about $200 to spend.

If you're referring to me, it's not really worth it for me to spend more money on a new system only for me to surf the web and play downloaded movies. In the past 2 months, I have already spent over $1200 on an Xbox 360 Elite, controllers (for me and my girlfriend), games and a nice Gamepod 1.5 gaming chair. I never could see the point of playing games on a computer (except 20 years ago when I had a C-64 and later an Amiga) so I don't really have a need for all that speed. I only need it to telecommute in the morning before work, download movies occasionally and surf the web in between. Sure, it's nice to have the best that's out there, but not everyone needs a computer to play FPS games.

Out of curiosity, I went ahead and bought the P4 3.0Ghz Prescott and upgraded the RAM to 2GB. Off the bat, the system is noticeably faster and was $100 well spent. Actually, it came out to around $129 with express delivery and a thing of Arctic Cooling MX-2, a little more than what I paid for the Dimension, minus shipping. In hindsight, I should have just spent around $200 for a system that already had the Prescott chip, but I wasn't thinking like that when I made the purchase.

What I noticed:

• Startup (Boot) is around 20 to 25 seconds
• Firefox opens in about 1 second, as opposed to around 3 to 5 seconds
• PC Tools Spyware Doctor's scan runs much quicker
• Opening applications are instantaneous - no lag whatsoever
• Copying files and multitasking
• Applications close really fast now (like disconnecting VPN)

As I compiled the list above I was testing various functions and I must say, overall, I'm happy with the upgrade. It's nice to have a PC that performs like this as opposed to the PC's I've been using over the last decade.

I ran Novabench before and after installing the CPU and RAM. Although the number is low, the PC does perform much better than when it had the Celeron processor; It scored a 161. I ran the test prior to the upgrade and scored a 110 with the Celeron and 1GB of RAM (I removed the 256mb).

BTW, this is the CPU I bought: http://www.ewiz.com/category.php?categry=2
and this is the RAM: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=D32PB1GDE

awsome !!!
congrats sounds good.
now remember the harddrive is the slowest piece of hardware on the cpu, so if you replace it with a say 72 rpm hdd you will also see a big difference!!
if you get a chance check out the website called tweakxp.com and goto performance tweak they have alot of great stuff you can try too tweak xp!!!
and again goodluck!!

ohyea!!

when you upgrade ram make sure each mem stick is the same size like 1 gig and 1 gig because the motherboard will be able allocate the work load better and faster and you will also see a difference in speed!!

Good idea using MX-2 with that Prescott. It'll keep it from running uncomfortably hot. All in all, a major upgrade from the crappy Celeron CPU methinks. It's great you took the time to post back with results, so anyone looking for some help with the same issue can see what you got, and how it affected your PC's performance.

Yeah, that's what I did. I have two 1GB PC3200 memory sticks.

The system is good to go for me right now and works incredibly fast with Photoshop and some of my other design tools. I might upgrade the HDD soon, but I need to return a Maxtor One Touch 4 I bought a couple weeks ago first. Damn thing crapped out on me and isn't recognized by my PC or my laptop. According to the reviews on NewEgg, I'm not the only one. I bought the 500GB One Touch 4 for $89, so once I get my money back, I'll pick up a comparable HDD in IDE format, considering I can't use SATA on this PC.

Also, I'm considering getting the PowerColor ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro 256MB DVI/HDCP PCI Video Card but I'm thinking there won't be much more of a visible improvement over my current GeForce FX 5200. If I can have a guarantee that I'll see a significant speed increase in my application by changing the video card from what I have now, then I'll jump on it, but I have a gut feeling that I'd be wasting more money if I did that right now, paying retail for a 256mb card.

Thanks. It wasn't a very difficult upgrade, either. Took only a couple minutes to take off the heatsink and install the new chip and RAM. BTW, I'm using the OEM heatsink that comes with the PC. It has a cover and a fan to expel the hot air - does a pretty good job at it, too! That air coming out from the back was pretty warm. I was pretty skeptical if this stock heatsink and fan would be able to keep the CPU cool, but it is doing a good job.

I did want to ask a question about CPU heat, but I believe I found my answer through Google. I installed SpeedFan and my system is running at 42 to 45 degrees Celsius (around 107 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit). I had wondered if that was too hot until I found a few posts from people through Google search that read like, "My CPU is running at 70 degrees Celsius...." and at that point I determined my PC was ok. I ran the system for over 6 hours straight and it never got over 113 degrees (45 Celsius) and my living room was at a staggering 88 degrees Fahrenheit (due to it being 108 outside earlier). I did read something about the P4 CPU's that they can reduce their speed automatically if it starts to overheat, so that's a good thing, IMO.

Anyhow, even though I believe I found my answer, I was wondering what would be an acceptable CPU temperature?

Thanks for the website tip!

An acceptable CPU temp would be anything below 50C IMO.
And do consider editing your previous posts instead of having three separate ones in a row cluttering up the thread.

What?! You don't have to be a jerk about how a person posts on this forum. I wouldn't have replied 3 separate time have I not received 3 separate posts! And considering that this "board" doesn't even allow you to delete a message, your statement is somewhat impossible.

Wow. I'm out of here. That's exactly the type of response I was telling someone earlier in this thread when they said I should start my own separate thread - instead of posting on someone else's that pertained to the same thing!

That was unwarranted. I just asked you to edit a post if you needed to add more info to it, nothing more. I wasn't pertaining too all your posts, just a general statement. You could have quoted and replied to all three people separately in one long post, and that is what a mod will probably do by merging your posts into a single long one.
Oh, and you're welcome, *******.

Yeah, and you got some nerve telling me how to edit when you posted over 4,000+ messages in less than 3 years. Your reply was nothing more than a "good job" reply which is meaningless, IMO. It had nothing to do with original post, so please, save your opinions on how one should edit their posts for yourself.

I don't know where this started or why, nor do I want to start a war. But I back Rage_3K_Moiz and TMagic650... two of the more gentlemenly and informed. In all his time on this forum, he has only been helpful. And an edit of posts actually gets one a better response, and happier results, so I am sure his suggestion was from the best of motives and helpfulness.
It does one no good to have only 23 posts, and attack a respected member with over 4100, when he was merely suggesting a way to improve your responses. His suggestions are in the guides, so you might want to take a look at them as a way to improve this forum.
Sorry to have taken the time, is this is considered interferrence.