Jimbo

So your "upgrade" gets you a smaller on-die cache for faster bus speed? I'd keep the rig you've got, unless you have complaints with it. The Core2 is also 64-bit, if you decide to upgrade to Vista at some point (though upgrading to 64-bit requires a fresh install, not an upgrade). Also, if you're running Vista and a lot of memory-intensive apps, I'd recommend as much RAM as you can grab (just because I like having it; note that 32-bit can only use 3.5GB or so). For comparison, my rig is a Core2 2.2GHz (4MB L2) with 4 GB of RAM, 64-bit Vista.

L2 cache is basically the CPU's last resort before it has to read from memory. Having more saves you from reading from memory as often, though a good memory controller can help reduce the difference.

And I don't see why you couldn't install VS2008 and start using .NET 3.0 and 3.5 immediately. They should install and run on XP just fine...

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