It never ceases to amaze me the 'opinions' that some people have regarding systems. (see above). Anyway, faced w/ your situation, I would definitely go w/ the k6-2 550, using good paste, good hs/fan and a little luck, you might get 600 outta it (using the 2x to remap to 6x). I'm hoping to get a little more use outta my ss7 boards, looking to see if any of the k6-2+ chips leak onto the market like I hope. Running one of those at 600 looks to be very equitable for a 'dead' architecture, and allow me to save up for a high end T-bird setup later on.