Smartest upgrade for my PC?

I'm looking to upgrade my PC for the upcoming year. Not a complete overhaul just something to last and keep me up to speed while playing current games.

I have a P4 3.0 Gig HT cpy clock, 1 gig ram and ATI Radeon x1600 PRO series 512 meg. What would the smartest upgrade be for me with my specs?

Judging by the listed specs, I don't see much you could do without an overhaul. Your videocard is ok, and RAM could be more, but I would not put any more money into that without upping that CPU. Which leads me to...

It appears you are running Socket 478, a 3.4 is the highest you could put in there, which is pricier than the 500/600 series P4. To get a faster CPU you are going to need a new MotherBoard. Then I will assume your RAM is DDR and not DDR2, so you will be needing new RAM with that. If your video is PCI Express you wont have to search for a MB that still has and AGP port or upgrade the videocard. I think you have topped out what you can do with that setup. I was in the same situation with my P4 2.53.

Or buy a good cooler and OC the heck out of it.

Agre with FinalDrive but would tend to go with more ram and a decent graphics card.
Read this piece comparing gpu and cpu's and youll notice what gives you the best buy
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] d=672&p=14

Not quite correct. Most applications still only benefit from a single core. Sure new games are being released that utilise dual core, and most 3D apps will benefit from a dual core, but most people will not need the power of dual core for some time. The only reason I upped to dual core is because the processor was on special and I knew it would be of greater benefit than my older 3000+ due to the fact that I am a gamer and was looking forward to the latest games coming out.

Also, I would not recommend buying cheap. Spend medium. In other words, get parts which are latest but on special. Leaves you plenty of room to upgrade in future. Ie I purchased a AM2 mb when I last upg a while back and spent more on video and MB but less on CPU and ram. I am able to upg to AM3 procs and GTX video as well. Mind you I need to upg my video still. Its my only bottleneck.