Opinions sought on this homebuild.

[Dave E]

Hi all,
My last homebuild was nearly 3 years ago and was built around an AMD 64 3200
and Asus mb. It has never blue screened or let me down and has been rock
steady and very quick. I am building another system and as before I am
soliciting opinions before finally ordering the components.

Motherboard: Asus : Asus P5W DH Deluxe i975X
(http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=434311)
CPU : Intel Conroe E6600
Memory : 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2
(http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=402849)
Graphics card : MSI Radeon X1950PRO 512MB
(http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...1137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,402380000)
PSU : 620W Enermax Liberty Modular Series
(http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=284212)
Case : Antec Nine Hundred
(http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=501972)
HDD : Seagate (x2) in RAID 1 as per EZ backup
facility on the mb.
Floppy : Floppy

In addition I was surprised that Windows XP wont recognize a sata DVD drive.
Guess I'll stay with the ide version.
My aim is to have a reasonably fast, reliable system. I will not be
migrating to Vista before the end of this year or the 1st quarter of next at
the earliest. It was for this reason I chose the 1950 pro graphics card. I
could go for the 1950xt but not being dx10 compatible I wanted a reasonably
priced card before upgrading the card to dx10 Vista. There are just not
enough dx10 cards out yet to make an informed decision.
I mostly use the computer for MS Flight Sim (FS9 atm) and COD2 online.
Any thoughts you may have on my proposed setup will be gratefully received
and looked into. None of the proposed components are set in stone and good
advice is welcome.
Many thanks.
Dave.

 

[Blazing Bolt]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:53:43 GMT, "Dave E" <[email protected]>
wrote:

Looks like a good build to me, I would however go with SATA as your
mother board should come with the drivers needed for windows XP to see
the SATA Drive... Or Windows XP with SP2 slipstreamed (which you can
do yourself) Will see SATA Drives.

Sata Drives really do perform much Better IMO

 

[Dave E]

Looks like a good build to me, I would however go with SATA as your
mother board should come with the drivers needed for windows XP to see
the SATA Drive... Or Windows XP with SP2 slipstreamed (which you can
do yourself) Will see SATA Drives.

Sata Drives really do perform much Better IMO

Hi BB,
And thank you for your input.
I am going sata for HDDs, my fault not making that clear. I have already
slipstreamed an XP+SP2 cd in preparation. Haven't tried it yet though, hope
it works. I had all the correct windows messages when I burned it. Fingers
crossed.
What I can't figure is the optical drive (dvd). All my research has come up
with is that sata optical drives work fine "after" XP has installed. The
Windows installation routine apparently does not recognize optical drives on
a sata protocol. I would like to go 100% sata but this would be a show
stopper.
Have you any info on this.
Thanks for your time Blazing Bolt.
Best Wishes.
Dave.

 

[Blazing Bolt]

Oh ok, I am sorry, I must have misread your post

As far as SATA optical drives go, you really wont get much if any
performance boost from using one.

I have only ever installed one SATA optical drive for a client and it
went fine, however many people tell me that they too have had problems
getting xp to load off of one as most motherboards don't seem to
recognize them until windows is installed.

I would say stay away from them at this point and time due to that
fact and also for the fact that they just have not become the standard
yet. I have seen a lot of complaints about them in the past and only
having experience with one leaves me a little shy in the way of a
recommendation for them… Maybe someone who has more experience with
them will chime in on this discussion and shed some more light on this
subject.

 

[Dave E]

Oh ok, I am sorry, I must have misread your post

As far as SATA optical drives go, you really wont get much if any
performance boost from using one.

I have only ever installed one SATA optical drive for a client and it
went fine, however many people tell me that they too have had problems
getting xp to load off of one as most motherboards don't seem to
recognize them until windows is installed.

I would say stay away from them at this point and time due to that
fact and also for the fact that they just have not become the standard
yet. I have seen a lot of complaints about them in the past and only
having experience with one leaves me a little shy in the way of a
recommendation for them. Maybe someone who has more experience with
them will chime in on this discussion and shed some more light on this
subject.

Hi again BB,
Thank you for that. You've confirmed what my internet research has thrown
up.
I'm definitely going ide optical drive. Undoubtedly Vista will natively
recognize the sata protocol for optical drives, and with them being so cheap
I'll maybe go that way when it crops up.
One thing I don't want is a bit of latest "technology" getting in the way on
first boot of the system.
I'm ordering components tomorrow. Should be up and running by Thursday.
Touch wood. Very, very enjoyable.
Many thanks for your time and effort.
All the best.
Dave.

 

[Blazing Bolt]

Good luck on your new build.

Btw I dont think its a matter of the OS (vista or xp) being able to
see the SATA optical drives, I think it is more of a mobo issue and
until the makers of the fine motherboards we use address and embrace
optical SATA drives we may be a long way off from ever using them..lol

Glad I could help with what little info I have and good luck again. If
you run into any build issues this is the place for answers.