when would I notice the most difference in speeds ?

[Scottie]

I just upgraded from a Athlon 1.1 Ghz to a XP3200+ Barton 400 Mhz FSB

so far I can only see a 1 difference is that a few games I couldn't play good before now I can like Doom 3.

What other differences should I notice ?

[thecoalman]

Depends on what your doing. You'll be able to do more tasks at once, image editing, encoding, 3-d animation or games...all of which are processor intensive.

[Cobra]

Encoding speed, definitely. Boot-up times and responsiveness should also benifit.

If you can't feel a real difference, there's something far wrong. I felt the difference when I took my XP2500 1.83Ghz up to 2.3GHz.

Cobra

[rallynavvie]

Encoding definitely. Any rendering apps as well such as Acrobat Distiller or Photoshop filters. Games tend to rely more on video card performance than anything else so maybe only a slight increase there. My friend has a 2500 Barton and a 9800XT and it absolutely smokes my 5600 Ultra-equipped Xeon workstation when gaming.