Thanks for the reply Rob
Yes, I do a bit of photoediting and some (basic) video editing for work; I also tend to work on big (200 page +) documents with images, which take their toll.
I also use the PC as a PVR which makes the graphics card work a bit - an old ATI 9800.
I can probably actually live with the speed of the current PC - the reasons I've decided to go for a new one are:
I've run out of HDD space
again - that's 240Gb before backups
- and since I'm going to have to buy a big new drive I thought'd I'd bump the system up to SATA to speed copying time. At the moment it's IDE.
Because I've only got one machine at the moment I can't risk making any serious configuration changes in case it goes pear shaped - I've had the thing 2 years and haven't reinstalled XP once (in fact, I've never installed XP at all; it came preloaded). So Registry Mechanic can do what it can, but I'm sure XP is begging me for a freshen up
With a second machine I'll be able to play around and still have a working system if I meet any problems.
I also use Grabit as my binary newsreader - very buggy, leaks memory. It'd be good to be able to stick that on the old PC and carry on working on the new one however much the first slows down.
And, probably most importantly, I really just want a new computer
I know, I'm so shallow ......
. But I do actually fancy the challenge of doing it myself. I know someone once said that if you've got £600 to spend on a challenge, learn how to fly a helicopter, but that just sounds way to scary to me