I was trying to create a build much like you state. Not the best of the best but one step below the best, as well as maintaining the ability to upgrade certain parts (CPU, etc.) as needed in the coming years.
It's funny, and I was going to mention this is my original post, but it was already way too long. I used to always think I'd upgrade CPUs in the future. In reality, except for one desktop (K6/II 350 to K6/II+ 550) and one laptop (about the same bump and era in time), I never end up doing it. By the time that becomes necessary, I always end up wanting to upgrade the CPU ... and the motherboard ... and the memory ... and. The upgrade cycles are just so short now. 18 months to two years is the longest my "one back" gaming machines last.
The way I see it is I am playing games for the grafix. The MMOs I play we are usually runnin ventrilo or teamspeak so I have the sound turned down low or off all together. I may end up picking up a sound card in the future, but it wasn't a need as I can and have been content with the the onboard sound card.
Funny you should mention that, too.
The reason I
loved that external box was using Ventrilo and Teamspeak when playing WoW. It has a option that when you plug in the headphones (from my headset), it automatically disables the surround sound speakers. So when those raids started, I was ready to go in seconds. Also great for when those raids went into late night. Boy, do I miss that. I may get the Audigy with the breakout box that installs internally in a 5.25" bay just to get that back (and the better sound).
I had thought about [RAID 0 or 1]. Then I was actually thinking of using one hd for the OS and OS related applications and using the other hd for my gaming and other files. I was going to check into the stability of RAID 0 or 1 and see whether it was recommended to use that or wait for 2 more hd's and setup a RAID 5. Any thoughts about this?
I'm a RAID 1 (mirroring) sl*t (rhymes with hut) puppy. I used to back up faithfully .. to tape even .. scheduled and everything. Then disks got bigger than 50 GB and it was going to take all night and multiple ($100) 50 GB tapes. I gave up. Now, I just mirror my disks. So far, that's saved me twice. In both cases, the drive that died was less than six months old. As far as stability, I've not had any issues in a long, long time. Really, the only trick was getting the drivers installed during the initial OS install. I was going to post a bit about the different types of RAID, but I'm sure that's been done to death here elsewhere.
As for the disk, would it not be possible to load the required files on a thumb drive and use the thumb drive as a floppy drive? I know I have used this for many situations where some computers at work did not have floppy drives and the only thing we had was a thumb drive. I would be willing to bet that we could get around he floppy disk using that method.
I'll keep in mind the fact that I should use the older RAID drivers.
I'm not sure, but maybe. When you are installing XP directly from the CD, it doesn't seem to know about USB devices (but it does know about USB keyboards and mice, so maybe). The dialog that tells you to press F6 (as I recall) to install 3rd party drivers, later only gives the option of installing them from the floppy drive. A USB floppy or data key acting like a floppy might work. This is before XP is still in the character-based portion of the install. If you try it and it works let us know.
Actually, I did not know that the retail came with it's own heatsink and fan. But, even armed with this knowledge I think I'll use the Arctic Cooling with Arctic Silver 5 just because I have read that it is a very good CPU cooler. I was planning on doing the OCing to 3.2 ish once I figure out how to do that (yes I'll be reading more in this forum about how to do that).
That's still a good idea. The Arctic Cooling fan sounds like it's probably a quiet one, too. The retail fan on this CPU is not particularly loud as some have been. I've had some that were just shy of the dB level F14's thrusting up for takeoff.
I will say though that I'm not really a big fan [pun intended] of the way the LGA775 form factor fans go on the motherboard. Back in the day, I used to dread putting on the heatsink/fan where the screwdriver might slip off the push-down tab and ruin a perfectly good motherboard. Then they just kept getting better, easier, and practically impossible to mess up. Just a couple arms to push down and lock into place. Nice and snug and with my bare hands. With the four pin setup of the LGA775 form, there's a bit of a need to be a contortionist to get all four pins pushed through the motherboard and locked into place (at least with the retail heatsink - maybe the 3rd party ones are better). I kept having one pop up while pushing down another. Even after getting all four in place and locked, I wasn't completely confident I'd gotten them all. They just don't have that locked-and-not-going-anywhere feel of the previous heatsinks. I'd love to know why Intel didn't continue with their previous designs.
I appreciate you taking the time to mention a few things that I may have or may not have known regarding my upcoming build. It gave me a few things to keep in mind while I learn more about this building hobby I have now.
No Problem. That's what we do here.
