Lance is one gratified human being.  :)  This list is fantastic,
and my personal thanks to everyone who took the time to
reply, both on and off the list.  What a nice group of people!

One virtually unanimous consensus:

**Thumbs down on the OverDrive Processor.**
I was leaning the same way, so it's now off the table.

Overclocking has been mentioned, but the more I read about
it, the more complicated it seems to be.  The most I've done
under the hood is pop in some simms and throw in a SCSI
card, and a couple of SCSI devices.  Mr. Goodwrench I'm not.  :)
I'd like some more input on this option from the list.  (Opinions
on, say, getting a K6-233 and goosing it to 250 with a bus
goosed to 83mhz versus just shelling out more dough.)

Regarding my video apps . . . I'm running Photoshop 4.0 (which
does have MMX capability) and Bryce 2 in Windows, plus The
Gimp in Linux.  My monitor is a Gateway Vivitron 17", which no
one will confuse with high-end gear, but it's really pretty decent.
But with the card I have now (ATI GX Mach64 - 2 megs), I can't
manage more than 16bpp at 1024x768.  But as has been
pointed out, I won't be doing 120mhz refreshes with this monitor.
Unfortunately, it's brand new.  :)  The old one died with
6 months left on the warranty, and Gateway kept trying to
pawn off *really* poor-quality rebuilds on me.  They were sooo
bad, I finally went to the top, and they were good enough to
send me a brand new monitor, not a rebuild.  This one's pretty
good.  Okay until it wears out, I think.

Let's see . . . oh, yes!  John Chin mentioned an insert or a
Dremel to get the ATX ports aligned.  Didn't know about the
ability to do this, and this was one of my problems.  Please
tell me more about this!  I've never heard of a Dremel.
I'd really like to keep this tower for one very silly reason:
It looks nice!  :))  I've seen some of the newer designs, and
frankly, they don't look like what I think a computer looks like.

More than one person has mentioned waiting.  And it's true,
prices fall.  But it never *isn't* true, right?  :)  Is what is going
to happen in the next 3 months or so really going to make
the wait worth while?  I don't know, so I humbly seek opinion
on this.  I do know that I now face renders in Bryce 2 that
take three or four hours and longer to accomplish.  That's a
long 3-6 months, unless there's a big prize at the end of
the tunnel.

Okay, to narrow it down . . . the OverDrive is off the table,
and the choices are now either go ahead with at least
a mid-level PII right now (overclock?), or sit pat for about
3 months.

Have at me!  :))

And thanks again, everyone.

Lance Cummings