Hello All,
 
I'm currently running a much beloved Dell XPS box that will be 4 years old next January.  The XPS has served me very, very well ... I love this box ... it's has the Pentium 4 EE 3.2GHz CPU, 2 Raptor 76GB drives running in a RAID 0 config, etc.
 
Question is: Are the newer boxes ... say, the 2.x GHz Core Duo CPUs, etc. really that much faster than what I'm currently running?
 
Thanks!
 

Yes, that was a socket 478. After that comes Pentium D and after that Core2Duo and Core2Quad. We are at socket 775.
It's worth upgrading. Intel is better.
AMD at the time was Socket A, then 754, 939, AM2, now AM2+.

They are faster. How much faster, that depends on what you're doing. If you do things that benefit from more cores, quads like Q6600 will really improve your life. Check this out, and change the type of benchmark to get a better idea:
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 9,369.html
 
Are you playing games? If you are, you should probably think about a new video card first.

Thanks for the replies.
 
No games, however heavy Dreamweaver, Acrobat, etc., as well as several other apps routinely open.
 
I believe this XPS has an AGPx8 ... I think ... and I upgraded the card to a GEForce 7600 GS (512MB) last year, so I think that's about as far as I can take the video in this box.
 
Hmm ... any recommendations on a good config?
 
Thanks!

How about this:
 
Antec Sonata III with 500W PSU  $125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] nata%2bIII
 
GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43, $108
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -EP43-DS3L
 
HD 3450, $31 with shipping and after rebate (cheap, quiet, HD video support; won't play Crysis, but it's fine for Solitaire)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121230
 
WD6400AAKS, 640GB, $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] WD6400AAKS
 
Q6600, $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115017
 
SH-S203B burner, $29
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151153
 
RAM:
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800, $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227267
If you run XP 32-bit you'll see only 3.5 GB of RAM or so, by the way, it's Windows's fault, not hardware.
 
Or maybe an E8400 instead of Q6600. I don't think it's very important in your case.  
I think the Q6600 is best for you because (a)you run several things at the same time (b) you're the kind of guy who upgrades a CPU every 4 years, not yearly (c) DreamWeaver can take advantage of more cores