getuhgrip:
ahem... hrumphh. Actually I have seen more improvement than I expected, specially in upgarding hardware. Reason is I moved from an AMD K6-2 400 straight to a Duron 750, and then to my new XP 1500+.
Having said that, I would agree that incremental changes in hardware would not bring very much difference. I have felt a difference moving to DDR memory, though. This in direct comparison with a similar configuration, an XP 1500+ running on an SDRAM board. Fast, but not very fast. To check the difference, both machines were running Folding@home for the whole night. Folding is a genome research project: Very resource hungry. I got a 50% difference between the SDR and DDR machines!
About OS, I couldn't agree more with you. Actually I've noticed something wierd: Today's hardware with a slightly old (say, Win 98) OS is actually a killer combination, if tweaked right. New OSs simply are too resource-hungry.
vicevursa:
I still think you should get the best you can afford. Check out the thread tubedude started about the XP processors. A good system will keep you going for a while, a few years I think.
How much do you want to spend? The three best combos going now are the AMD Athlon XP1800+ or 1900+ with any of the Asus A7V266-E, The Soyo Dragon Plus or the Soltek SL75 DRV2 (not available in the US but I think
www.newegg.com has some). check
www.tomshardware.com for reviews of all these boards and some interesting reading while you're there. Don't look at the audio/video guide though...
Sang