Got a new 6 core CPU this weekend...
 

Wheeeeeeeee, it is a tad faster than my old AMD dual core for sure. The old system board and CPU were about 4 years old and while I needed to put in a replacement hard drive I figured...."what the hell, while I am in there...." so a new AMD X6 1055T, ASUS motherboard, 8GB or RAM and an additional hard drive (5 now) for less than $400 for all. Same little shop I have dealt with since they opened in 1995 or so here in Chula Vista.

Anyways, my old 32 bit version of Windows was faster, the real shock came when I setup a dual boot for XP 64bit and so far all the old software is running just fine it seems. Screens paint a lot faster and since I am not a hard core gamer I can't judge it on games. BUT, one core does take up all the background processes once the cores are unlocked so I am pretty happy.

Run Windows7 x64 and see how it performs. I'm very impressed with the 64bit version of Windows 7 and I haven't had any problems with it at all.

SSDs are coming down in price if you really want some zip.