I have bad news for you. If you intend to use Win2000 and Mandrake you will need more RAM to keep them working at a decent pace. I use both (80% Mandrake/ 20% Win2000) and my concern nowadays is RAM, I use 256 but when you have a fully equipped win2000 that value is very low... I would bet more on mem than in cpu speed, but that's your choice I am just advising based on my experience. Even Mandrake can require a lot of mem but that depends (on both OS) of which kind of soft you will use. Good Luck with your new PC.

I think it's better a slow 1200 Duron and 512Mb of Ram...

Question: Have you ever considered the time your CPU remains idle?