In 2002, I bought a Dell Dimension 8200 (about $3600 then, at a computer market in Beijing) which was about the fastest, hottest running consumer PC then available from standard production. I was editing encoding digital video, a task then way out of reach of most single processor PCs. This model came in a really good full tower case, same box that was housing the $12,000 multiprocessor Windows workstations used by our reservoir engineers (my desk had a SPARCStation).
To make the memory keep up with the processor, this model used RDRAM, at the time the standard RAM technology for RISC workstations and multiprocessor servers, way ahead of the fastest SDRAM then available.
Home in the US three years later, I looked into upgrading it for flight simulation. To take it from 512MB to 1 GB cost $500 for two more RDRAM modules, and the best graphics card I could get for the AGP slot was about two steps above entry level PCIe cards, barely improving on what I had. I really wanted to take it to 2 GB, but that meant replacing the two 256M modules with four 512M modules at a cost of $2000. I'm not guessing what 2GB might cost today, but I suspect one would have trouble finding it at any price (like obsolete pioneer circuit breakers, but that's another story).
Solution was a Dell XPS box with Core i7, 8 GB DDR memory, 1.5 TB drive, enthusiast level 3D HD graphics, for less than the price of upgrading the Dimension 8200 to 2GB and adding another 500 GB drive (max supported by the chipset). The XPS came in a really cheap mid-tower case, but it was a 16X improvement in throughput for video encoding. Upgrading the old one would have gained no more than 20% for the video work.
However, the XPS has died, the Dimension 8200 is still slogging along ten years later on the smaller tasks I give it, and I was able to replace the XPS with an entry model iMac for $1200, and again improve throughput on my photo and video work.
Sometimes just replacing the thing is the cheapest way of imprving its performance, although I must admit the improvements in Windows PC technology 2008 to now are nothing like the gains made 2004 to 2008, or 1992 to 2000.
OK, this is crazy. The RDRAM modules for the early Dimension 8000 machines is still available, and now dirt cheap. 2GB for less than $50. The demand is apparently now very small, and the supply has probably been inflated by taking all of those early 21st century servers off line and scavenging the parts. Pentium 4 CPUs are probably real cheap too :)
