thanks for the info. I go for something similar to the spec I listed.

Totally agree with buying a spec thats a few months old & not the absolute latest. When I brought my 133 about 5yrs ago was possible to get 266's at about 2.5 times the overall system price. Within 6 months the 266 were sam prices as the what I paid for the 133. Was often tempted to spend a tiny part of the huge saving I made & upgrade it ot 266 but never ever did. My 133 has lasted 5yrs so far, so would have the 266.

The prices fall so quickly. Am tempted to buy a decent motherboard & only equip it with a lowly duron then plug in a fast athlon in few months time. However it's only about £30 difference even now between a 900 or 1100 duron & a 1800XP Athlon so may as well get the 1800 now. Of course once you currently go up to 1900, 2000 or 2200 prices rapidly jumps up. But in a few months there will only be a fiver difference.

Son gets the old PC (he's 9yrs). Most of the educational / entertainment software (edutainment I think they call it) only needs 486 or at most pentium 266 processor speeds so no problems there (my old 133 seems to handle the 266 requirement programs ok).

As for playing games on a PC, if you want good games & no hassles, lockups, contstant hardware upgrades, buy a playstation. I've advised manyy friends rather than buying state of art games pc @ £1000+ to buy a cheap old spec pc @ £300& a playstation 2 at £170. Winner every time on performance & overall much cheaper to buy, saving over £500 which buys a hell of a lot of games or software.