O.K., use guys have got me into looking at building my own instead of just grabbing one off the shelf.
The spec's for the M/B I'm considering, the Abit IS7, say that it has:

1. an onboard RealTek ALC 650 6 channel AC97 CODEC
2. an onboard 10/100/1000 LAN Controler

I inerpret these as not needing separate sound or NIC cards. Right?

And:

3. an onboard Serial ATA RAID (RAID 0/RAID 1)

The reason I want 2 h/d's is because I want to setup a dual-boot with 2 partitions on each h/d with an O/S in the first partition of each h/d (C:& E: on h/d #1; D:& F: on h/d #2). I have no need to mirror (RAID 1), but do like the idea of reading and writing in paralell(RAID 0), if the multiple partitions will not interfere. Can anyone enlighten me about this?

4. Can IDE Ultra ATA h/d's be used in conjunction with the Serial ATA h/d's?

Then:

5. It has an AGP connector that supports 8X/4X interface (0.8v/1.5v).

My clunky old nVIDIA TNT2 M64 4X AGP should work with it. Right?

6. As I look through the user's manual, the section about setting up the BIOS gets a bit scary. I'm used to the relatively simple Dell BIOS setup, no problems with it. Much I don't understand in the IS7's BIOS setup. Can I come back with idiotic detailed questions about how to do the setup when I get to it if I need to?

Thx
S V

To answer you questions as directly as possible

#1----Yes to audio
#2----Yes to Lan
#3----This can be done, but Im not really sure how you would set up the boot partition to make it work the way your describing the setup.
#4----Yes---this is where I would set up the dual booting and only on 1 IDE HDD, but thats me.
#5----Yes it will work just fine, seeing your investing a lot of $$$$$$$$ on serial drives etc: why sell yourself short by using an "old clunker" get a real Video Card.
#6----Yes by all means---a suggestion-- read that motherboard manual cover to cover, take your time and you will find out your question will be few.

Good Luck
Paul

Grumper answered most of the questions.

My understanding of raid0 is that data is spread over both drives, so that I/O is twice as fast (each drive has to only write or read half the data):

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html

This kind of raid requires that you have two HD's of equivalent size. When one drive fails you lose everything.

Raid 1 is a mirroring system where the same data is written to both drives. So if a drive fails no data is lost.

With either raid system you cannot have one operating system on one drive and another OS on the other drive.

Like Grumper I also favor a single IDE drive considering the low price and good reliability of those drives. Also this would be much simpler for a first project than a raid system.

With three partitions on the same drive you can have 2 different OS's with their respective programs on two partitions (16GB each), and space for all your data on the third partition.

I would also consider the Abit NF7-M motherboard for $96 (NewEgg) which has onboard sound and LAN and also includes onboard video (geforce4-MX440). It would be a simple system to set up for your first project, yet has all the power you need.

Combine it with 256MB DDR PC3200 memory ($45), an Athlon XP2500+ Barton CPU-retail ($90) and an 80 GB Western Digital HD for $61 or less, a DVD-CD/RW combo drive ($45) and a case ($70). And you have a pretty nice rig for $400 that will run circles around your friends' Pentium4 systems.

IDE hard drives are still ok IMO for storage drives and cheap/older PC's, but if you're going for a whole new core, get a SATA drive. They're not much more expensive (if at all) and they're far less likely to be outdated by next year.

And I agree - don't mess with RAID for your first build. Basically I follow the rule that if you don't understand something, you don't need it! :p

Your clunky old TNT2 should work, but it's so old there are no guarantees! :rolleyes: I'm thinking you won't need anything more than onboard video, but that's up to you.

The BIOS options? Most can be left as they are. If you have a serious problem setting up your new PC, then you go spelunking in your BIOS. Otherwise, leave it alone if it scares you.

gwallen4 brings up a good point with the AMD recommendations. In your other thread, you were looking at getting a 3GHz P4 system together, but is that because it's what you want or just that's the only thing Dell offers? ;) AMD is, overall, just as good as Intel. And AMD has 64-bit CPU's, too!

Quote gwallen4:
This kind of raid requires that you have two HD's of equivalent size. When one drive fails you lose everything.
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Ooohh. Don't need that. I agree. RAID is not for me.

I presently have a dual-boot on 2 IDE Ultra ATA h/d's. I'm convinced it's the best way to do it. The only problem I have is that I'm running out of storage space again.

I don't play music, games, video or movies on this machine. So, upgrading to a fancier video card, to my thinking, is a waste. I don't see where I need to as long as the one I have will work in the up-dated machine. I am a tight-a$$. I don't spend money on things I think I don't need. Although, I do like the idea of the onboard VGA. But, if I go with the IS7-M I'll lose the fire-wire connection. I need it for my film scanner. Decisions, decisions.

I like the idea of the SATA h/d's over Ultra ATA's. The only problem is that while rummaging around for power consumption info, I saw that the SATA specs are about to go through an up-grade in the near future. That means The ones I get for the new machine will be out-dated almost as soon as I put them in. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

You've all given me a lot to think about in your answers, much to ponder and many decisions to be made.

Thx all.
S V

Solo:

NewEgg just put the Abit NF7-S V2 MB on sale for $98. That board has onboard LAN, sound and firewire connections, and also has SATA and raid. It lacks onboard video.

Despite the fact that your TNT card will work, I would strongly recommend that you upgrade that component as well. A faster video card will increase the performance of the whole system, whether or not you play games or DVD's. You could probably get a geForce FX5200 for about $50-60. While it's not great for games, it will certainly run your applications faster than a TNT card.

Quote gwallen4:
Despite the fact that your TNT card will work, I would strongly recommend that you upgrade that component as well. A faster video card will increase the performance of the whole system, whether or not you play games or DVD's. You could probably get a geForce FX5200 for about $50-60. While it's not great for games, it will certainly run your applications faster than a TNT card.
-------------

Point taken! That's good enough reason for me to upgrade the VGA card. The Get Force FX5200 was part of the Dell pkg I was looking at.

I'll take a look at that Abit MB too.

Quote saphalline:
The BIOS options? Most can be left as they are. If you have a serious problem setting up your new PC, then you go spelunking in your BIOS. Otherwise, leave it alone if it scares you.
---------

Truthfully, my calling it scary was an error. I just found a lot of settings that were totaly unfamiliar to me as I went through the manual. There's no doubt in my mind that I can get it figured out, especially with help from you folks here.
THx
S V