Wondering about upgrading...

First of all, if you have an 8200, it uses RDRAM, not SDRAM.  You can only install RDRAM unless you change the motherboard, as the slots on your motherboard only support RDRAM.  RDRAM must be installed in matched pairs.  You don't say which processor you have, so it is difficult to say which faster CPU you can install.  There is lots of information on the Dimension - Upgrade Hardware forum and the following website:

http://www.spongebobsupgradesite.com/

where you can learn all about upgrading the 8200.

Steve

From what I read , anything over 512mb of ram is overkill. I went from 256mb to 512mb and noticed hardly any difference in speed. Most games only need 126mb to run, some 256mb to run good. 1gb? I don't know of anything that needs that. It don't make the system run faster.

I think the processor speed has to be doubled to notice a quickness in speed. Only going by what I read over the years.

Everyone has different memory requirments depending on the programs that they run and how they use the system. Using the Task Manager you can see how much RAM you are currently using. For instance, on the system I'm using at the moment, it reports back 284MB used on a system with 512MB. This means that if I had only 256MB I would get a performance hit as there would have to be swapping. I have gone as high as 400MB (Task Manager will also report peak usage). For this reason on my latest system purchase I got 1GB RAM to allow for future, larger programs. I'd suggest that if you never hit the amount of RAM you have there is little reason to upgrade, however if you regularly do, get more RAM now!