Finalizing the build...couple questions.

[Triple_7]

Things are coming together much faster then planned thanks to a couple of good deals and lower prices then expected.  But still left with a few final things to order before this thing can fire for the first time.

First of all...this MOTHERBOARD is officially on its way and should be here by the end of the week, it left New Jersey this afternoon.  The RAM will be ordered probably within a couple weeks.

Processor is scheduled to be released on the 22nd.  Will be going after the Intel Core Duo E6850 3.0 Ghz.  So will still be a little bit before that comes in.

Real question at the moment is what operating system will work.  At the moment I am planning to use XP.  But will it support DX10 is the real issue.  Probably around Christmas I will be looking into a 768mb or higher PCI-E DX10 card.  No sense in using XP if it will not support DX10.  Really don't want Vista though...just seems to fancy and overrated.  I'm going for performance...not a fancy 3D desktop :-/  And XP is cheaper and will suit my needs much better.  So with the future setup of this system XP would defiantly be the way I want to go if it will work.

Another question deals with the RAM...never dealt with Dual Channel before...is there some special setup for it or is it just like any other sticks...snap and go :-?

And most importantly...with the current parts listed below...minus the processor and motherboard listed above, is there anything missing???

TigerDirect:
Case.........................ULT31824
120mm Case Fans......S35-1090
160 GB Hardrive.........THD-1600JB
Heat Sink...................T925-2034
2 GB DC DDR2 RAM....ULT31908

Graphics card is taken care of till I can afford the better one.  DVD/CD-ROM is as well.  Power supply is also taken care of for now.  Will wait till I hear the quality of the on board sound is before considering a sound card.  Other then that I don't think theres anything missing...but correct me if I'm wrong.

Eventually there will be a fancy new 22 inch wide screen LCD to go with it, new mouse, keyboard, joystick, rudder peddles, throttle....the list never ends  

Really pushing to have myself back in the air in time to make it out of LHR and return to FWA to begin the long journey to Taiwan to mark the one year anniversary of that wonderful trip.  But only have till the 30th...so maybe be able to at least make the return trip on the actual date

[Gunny04]

a 22 inch widescreen seems a bit too big, a 19 inch wide is as high up as I'd go, anything after and you seriously start murdering all frame rates you could get, even on the best video cards. You could live with XP probably for a couple of months but I'd go with Vista 64 bit like I have (I run Vista 64 Ultimate and XP side by side) I run Vista with 1gb of ram and all my games run fine, havent fired up FSX in a while though and I don't plan to. I use XP ONLY for my media center burning needs, Other than that Vista is the way to go, Only complaint I have is Adobe flash isn't working with vista yet, but it will eventually. Will XP support DX10? Nope, As far as I know and have heard it will not support it, I haven't been keeping up to date on technology so I may be a little behind on things. My specs are in my sig except I am running 2X512 OCZ 2-2-2-5 Ram now instead of two gigs of really slow stuff and I can run Vista ultimate fine, So don't be worried about it, and if you need to burn a lotta stuff, you can always dual boot XP and Vista, Just remember to install XP first then vista after or it wont work right!

Gunny

[GunnerMan]

I wouldnt be to worried about 22", yes it will hurt your framerates a bit running on the highest resolution but it's not gonna murder them. Wehn you go over 25" is when your really need to worrie about it beeing an issue I think. I use Vista 64 and it as an OS is MUCH faster than winxp is. You can turn off all of the fancy stuff or leave it on, most of it all shuts down when you play a game, so it dosent matter much. At this point I think it is a foolish move to BUY Xp, like Gunny said it wont support DX10 and Vista is much more organized, has better coding, and more features you can have. Why buy Xp now, and then when your new dx10 game comes out such as Crysis, FSX Dx10 patch, or Alan Wake you can not play it untill you buy Vista, either upgrade or reformat and port all your files? You can set the desktop to be fast or look good in Vista, no matter how much people talk bad about Vista and how they will stick with XP are really going to hate life when these new games and programs emerge.

[Triple_7]

Well...looking through the 4 choices of Vista...think Home Basic will do just fine.  Its the cheapest, and doesn't include all the extra junk I don't need and don't even want.  

So will Home basic still support the high end DX10 cards etc?  I don't feel like blowing $380 on the Ultimate version or even the $220 Home Premium version when I could care less about the fancy extras they added to it.  All I want is the operating system that can support DX10...nothing more.  I ain't going for looks, just plain simple.  All I need is my FS, Photoshop, and the My Documents folder.  Don't really use the computer for much else other then internet.  Just photography, editing, and flight.

Also...whats the difference between the main retail and the OEM.  And is THIS version 64 bit or 32?  I noticed theres a 64 bit OEM for half the price.

[GunnerMan]

Hmm im not sure what that is, my guess is 32. Home basic will still support dx10 etc, it's just like buyin WinXp home. Well OEM all you get is the CD, cd key, and a package. No nice little box or anything. Buy the OEM, retail is just the same...with a nice box.

[ctjoyce]

Hmm im not sure what that is, my guess is 32. Home basic will still support dx10 etc, it's just like buyin WinXp home. Well OEM all you get is the CD, cd key, and a package. No nice little box or anything. Buy the OEM, retail is just the same...with a nice box.

Actually its not, the EULA is very different for the two. A retail box is good to license up to 3 systems, and allows you unlimited hardware changes / reactivations. OEM is only good for one system, though you get unlimited hardware changes (IE changing your mobo / processor) you only get 25 reactivations.

So for most of us, its perfectly fine, but its just something to think about.

[GunnerMan]

Hehehe