Help me with my tough descisions

[Commited]

My Existing PC:
Pentium II 200Mhz MMX (overclocked to 233)
196Mb Ram Simm
4mb graphics Card
My upgrade to make:
AMD Duron 800Mhz
128Mb SDram P133MHZ
QDI ATX Motherboard KINETIZ7T
ATX MIDI Tower Case ATX4010-6
300 Watt Power Supply 300VAPSU
TITAN Heatsink and Fan 579672H
S3 Trio 3D 8MB Video Card - AGP Interface

Should I get an AMD Athlon 700 instead? (its slightly more expensive)
Should I go with the ABIT KT7 Raid instead? (This is quite a bit more and i have to downgrade to 100Mkz ram)

I have a standard compaq motherboard. Do you think I should get a new socket 7 motherboard(if so which one), an AMD K6-2 550 and keep the ram?

I have enough spare bits to make the upgrade into a whole PC, therefore I will have 2 PC's.

I am not that familiar to overclockin as i got my 200 up to 233 by doin
nothin but flickin a switch on the motherboarc

How much could I overclock this Duron? Could I get it up to 1000 fairly
easily?
Would 128 SDRAM be faster than my old 196Mb Simms?
Anyone ever bought a QDI motherboard before?
8mb graphics card - is that enough for a low budget student?
I want to network these two together - is it worth buying a hub, or just connect the 2 together?

I built the PC above myself, and i am quite knowledgable about all off this
stuff. This will be the last upgrade I will do for a while as i am a
student. This is costin me a good bit, so I dont want it to go wrong.

I would appreciate all of your feedback. Please help a poor student who is splashin out!!!

Thanks,
Mark.

P.S all suggestions for products have to be available in Europe!

 

[brendan]

I think You are going to have to 'bite the bullet and splash out a little more than you might like.
Building and upgrading a machine depends a lot on what you want to use it for. If, being a student you just need to use it for your coursework. You could get away with just upgrading your mobo and cpu.
But on the other hand if you want a machine to be an entertainment system as well it will involve a little more input from you.

If you are looking at just a simple mobo / cpu upgrade and utilising the magority of your current componants, you should be able to do this for around £200.

On the other hand if you where after a more up to date upgrade and one that could be expanded you can expect to spend between £500 and £650 if you use your existing monitor.

I have just put together an athlon machine for £650, as follows.

Epox 8kta3+ mobo
Athlon 1 gig cpu
Pc 133 mhz 128mb
32mb 128 mhz graphics
30 gig HHD
Midi tower case 300w
Case fans & cpu fan
dvd rom
floppy drive
etc

I am sorry I cant be more constructive but if you are more specific to your needs I may be able to help some more.

regards, Brendan

 

[Commited]

This is what i am currently putting together form overclockingstore.com:
Globalwin GW-802 Midi Tower ATX No PSU
Unbranded GeForce 2 MX OEM=20
256 mb PC133 DIMM
ABIT KT7A Socket A Motherboard
AMD Duron Socket A 800Mhz unlocked
TaiSol TaiSol CGK742092 Socket A Cooler
Macron 300Watt ATX PSU
Arctic Silver Compound II


This comes to £417, and that is all i can afford.
Any suggestions or thoughts?
All i need is abit of reassurance that this is good, because its alot of money for me, a poor student!
I know it would be easy for the duron to rocket to 1000 but how easy would it be to go past that?
Have you ever bought from the overclockingstore?
Know of any other cheap english (or irish!) internet stores?