Advice on budget motherboard/processor please?

[MalcolmCleaton]

Dear hardware gurus,

I am planning to purchase a new case, motherboard, CPU and some memory, and then add to it my existing Voodoo3 2000 (PCI) graphics card and necessary bits and pieces, in order to build a budget gaming solution.

I don't need the earth here; just something which will be a little better than my current Cyrix M2 P166 and play Black & White at a reasonable level of detail at more than one frame per second.

I'm thinking Athlon 700/800/900ish with 128Mb RAM. And that brings me to my questions:

Where's a good place to buy components like this in the UK?
What's a good speed Athlon to go for for a budget solution?
What kind of motherboard should I buy? I'm completely motherboard ignorant.
How much extra would I have to pay to make the system (and its RAM) DDR? Is it worth it?
Should I head towards the future and get a new ATX case, or should I try to get a new motherboard to fit my existing AT case? Is it even still possible to get modern motherboards in AT form factor?

Cheers,

 

[Motero]

Read this: here

 

[Pollux101]

yeah you can get AT form factor if you want to spend more money...
also price wise i suggest either a Duron 800 or Celeron 733...
both are very overclockable, also buy a good sound card and get lots a ram

 

[10101a]

IMO, you need to get away from the AT case and go ATX. I don't think you want to build off of a platform that is several generations old already. Make sure the case has at least a 250watt AMD approved power supply.

In regards to motherboards, a lot of people have developed brand loyalty (or brand hatred) based on their experience. Read Anands reviews, and some of the long threads on this site, and you will probably end up with an Abit, Asus, Epox, Iwill, or MSI board. You'll find people who swear by and swear at all of them.

The AMD Durons are so cheap is is unbelievable. Maybe get a 700Mhz Duron now, and know your new motherboard will support a faster Athlon later. (Next year, the 1.2Ghz Athlons will probably be $40)

Forget DDR RAM for a budget system. PC133 RAM will do just fine.

Gaming is all about realism, which means high resolution, high FPS, and lots of textures. There are a lot of gamers here (I'm not one) that can give you better advice than me, but I would think that a new video card (like a GeForce 2 Pro GTS w/32MB RAM for about $130US, or an MX version for about $80-$90) would make a bigger difference to a gamer than any other component in your new system. If budget does not permit it right now, any modern motherboard will allow you to use your Voodoo3 in an available PCI slot, and you could swap it out later for a faster AGP base GeForce2 card later.