I don't need madening speed on this computer, just a little kick in the ass.

I find that in general use I don't really notice differences in speed smaller than about a factor of three. (Of course, if you're doing longrunning things like compiling KDE or encoding video, you'll notice any improvement.)

A gamer might see things differently, too. I remember a PCW magazine from about 1994 that was reviewing power user systems, asking themselves "Who is a power user?". The answer they came up with was "Someone who plays games". This was a novel insight at the time, and it's taken for granted these days...

Peter