I don't know how old all the pieces are, some might have come from my old 256 MHz computer (but more likely from my old 556 MHz comp). When something becomes insanely out of date (or if it brakes), I get a new one. But never anything top of the line.
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1. Junk that P.O.S.
2. Accquire $500.
3. Head on over to Best Buy and buy one of their mid-range eMachines, they're quite decent, I've worked on one myself. The newer ones have PCI-E, come with a flat panel monitor, and generally use Athon-64 CPUs. Don't get a warranty on that crap though, you'll be voiding it in step four.
4. Save some more money, slap a new videocard in it and upgrade the RAM to 2GB, you now have a gaming rig.
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I don't have $500 and if I did than that would end up in my college fund.
I think you are using memory and diskdrives interchangably.
do you have 16 gig's of disk space or 16gigs of random access memory?
how are you using photoshop without a video card? for that matter, how are you getting images on the screen without a video card? (I'm not talking high end, mega bucks video card, just any)
Sorry, but I think part of the problem is terminology and what you are actually working with.
I still think that a larger hard drive is the way to go. photoshop files can get large depending on how extensively you use the program.
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Sorry I actually have 18 GB of memory (I accidently just looked at the used space) and I have 512 MB of RAM. I forgot how to find all of my system specs. So if you can tell, than i'll post them.