>Ed, You've convinced me to upgrade my system by buying a new motherboard, processor chip, memory, and pci graphics card. Would you mind giving me your thoughts regarding which chip to buy?
>
>mhz for mhz, the Cyris 233 seems to be the best buy, but I'm not sure how it rates compared to the AMD. Here are the prices:
>
>AMD
>K6 200 $80
>K6 233 $95
>K6 266 $110
>K6 300 $135
>

I'd go with one of the AMD processors; I'm in no way a fan of the Cyrix chips, and most of the Intel Pentium class processors are overpriced IMO for what they give in performance. The K6/200 or /233 are widely available and widely supported, so I'd lean in that direction if I were looking at a Socket 7 board.

>Cyris MR
>PR 233 $82
>PR 266 $105
>PR 300 $135
>
>Intel
>233 MMX $175
>200 Standard $145
>Pentium II 266 $265

The Pentium II and Celeron processors require a different and more expensive motherboard.

>
>Also, are there any problems with the $100 motherboards? Any chip set to stay away from or buy?
>

I've had good results with the SuperMicro motherboards; I haven't put in a Socket 7 board in months, tho. The last one I worked on used the MMS motherboard, and the K6/233, and worked out quite well. If I were going to buy a Socket 7 based system, I'd want the Intel 430HX or TX chipset, or the Via MVP3 chipset. Pentium II systems should be based on the 440LX, BX ore GX chipset, depending on whether you need the 100MHz front-side bus, and support for 2 or more processors under NT. The LX chipset uses the 66MHz front-side bus, limiting you to Pentium II or Celerons up to the 333MHz mark. The BX and GX chipsets support the 100MHz front-side bus; the GX is relatively new, capable of supporting some huge memory configurations (2GB range) and also can support Slot 2 processors if the motherboard will accept one.

Ed