I honestly dont have a clue what most of those "Benchmark" programs are, but I get FPS's of about 30 average on MOH, and 50fps on Battlefield which are the only games I play. With 512 megs of SDRAM at 34 bucks, MOH loads fast as does Battle and I get no lag with my 1.5 DSL connection.

Here's the thing, SDRAM is hardly obsolete. If you can afford it and you really think it's gonna improve your specs that much, go for it. I can afford it but cannot justify buying it since I have no problems on my system.

The only "driver" headache I have ever had from swapping a hard drive, is with software that REQUIRES a cd for installation (scanner and digi cam being the culprits), and if he has those hes fine. Maybe you should post your horror stories so we can see where you're having the problems.

a AMD XP1600 with 512 SDRAM, 100gig 2mb HD, and an ASUS mobo is hardly half assed and obsolete in my opinion, but some people want the best of the best, irregardless if its NECCESARY.