hey, anyone have any utilities that they use to prep their gaming? I use enditall that shutsdown all unwanted tasks to free up some resources, seems to work pretty good, i just wish it was able ...

Nah, I pretty much just let it ride. Maybe I'll shut down some server or two, but typically it doesn't make much of a difference.

you must have a decent rig p4 1.2GHZ with 512MB here

1gig of RAM is essential! buy another 512mb for $39: http://www.slickdeals.net/#p6034

do you think a 1.4 to 2.2GHZ upgrade for 100 bucks is noticable?

Probably. Depends on other factors as well, but it should give you a decent boost. What video card do you have?