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Quoth Chuck Guzis, in part: For me, at least, the push to upgrade usually comes from either wanting a new media-handling capability (DVD burning, f'rinstance) or from finding a new game that has some requirement my old system won't meet. If it weren't for those two incentives to upgrade, I'd probably continue to use an old 386 machine - like Strong Bad. * I suspect a lot of people upgrade for the same reasons, and there may be a vicious circle of development working: chip designers create faster chips, programmers make neater toys using the new capabilities, people get excited over the toys and buy them, it becomes the standard, the OS bloats a little more, there becomes a push to create faster chips to run the resulting bloatware faster, return to start. There's probably a lot of people, too, who upgrade to the Biggest And Fastest simply because it _is_ the Biggest And Fastest and they have to have it. I was guilty of that attitude myself at an earlier point in my life, and almost bought a NeXT when it was brand-spanking-new just because I was so impressed at the time with the hardware. (Yes, I am embarassed to admit this <g>, though I am still fond of the 68040.) Luckily I was able to give myself a fairly hefty reality check of what the hell I was going to _use_ it for, and talked myself out of it. ** But most people in that get-the-very-fastest-whether-they-need-it-or-not category probably _don't_ talk themselves out of it, which explains things like how the "Cross Fire Gaming Computer" can possibly even exist. *** (Though maybe this is a poor example. "Gold Channel Gamer RAM"?!) -O.- * - http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail94.html ** - http://flyingmoose.org/me/hamlet.htm *** - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260015469715