Give Me A Configuration Opinion

[Sloehand]

I'm finally looking to buy a new computer.  Mine is about 6-7 years old and was great while it was current. 
I'm planning on something a little unique.  I'm going to sort of build a three-in-one computer: Online Gaming, Business/Personal and old OS gaming.  To do this I'm going to eschew the multiple internal hard drives, and/or the hard disk partition crap, and install a  3-into-2 backplane enclosure using two external 5 1/4 drive bays.  I will then configure the boot drive to one of the three bays and swap out hard drives loaded with the particular OS and programs that I want.  I'll use the other two bays for data backups and eventually dedicate one of them in a RAID setup. 

The general idea is, I'll buy a small, fast raptor drive and load XP or Win7 on it with AH and nothing else.  A completely clean and unencumbered Online Game machine.  Then when I want to do work or otherwise browse the dirty old Internet, I'll load a different WinXP drive with all my business/personal programs, etc. 

Finally, I have a lot of old games that I really enjoyed back when, but I've never been able to get XP to emulate Win95 or Win98 so that I could run them.  As I still have all my OS'es, I figure to load one on another drive and load that as the boot drive when I'm up for some old time gaming.

So, anyone have a spoiler for this overall idea?  Something I haven't considered.  The backplane is simple.  I currently use two external USB standalone bays for my data drive and backup drive, which is where I got the idea in the first place.  Very easy to swap drives around.

Finally, since I haven't bought a new machine in years I'm trying to catch up with all the compatible tech, etc. on the fly.  So I'm putting together a couple of possible configurations and I'd appreciate any input on better makers or models for any of the components for the roughly the same price, or if I've gone complete overboard on something that I don't need to, or if you see any compatibility issues.  Mostly, nothing is hard and fast decided yet.  Going for roughly a mid-to-upper range unit, and will be swapping in such things as my Creative X-Fi Elite soundboard.  Cost is important of course, but not critical if I can really justify it.  I want a stable, reliable screaming game machine for at least they first 3 months I own it. 

Below is my first generation Core i7 configuration.  I'm also thinking of possibly a different configuration using the new second generation Core i7-2600K cpu, but I need to find out more about it.  Seems very cost effective with high performace.

CONFIG #1
Cooler Master Storm Scout Case                                                   $90.00
Tagan ITZ800w PSU                                                                  $180.00
ASUS Rampage III Formula Mobo                                                  $285.00
Intel Core i7 950 3.06Ghz                                                            $295.00
CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)        $136.00
WD Raptor 74GB (1)                                                                    $50.00
ICY DOCK MB973SP-B 3-in-2 Backplane Enclosure                             $85.00
PNY VCGGTX570XPB GeForce GTX 570 1.28GB GDDR5 SDRAM             $335.00
LG SuperMulti DVD Drive                                                                $20.00
   
Total                                                                                     $1,476.00

[Chalenge]

I dont know why you would go to the trouble of the icy dock when a typical motherboard can do everything you want without it. All you have to do is make a short stop in the bios and set the proper HD to have boot priority.

[cattb]

Don't think you would even have to go in the Bios, my MB I use F12 ( I think or F8)on start up and takes me to boot options. I would think most MBs would have similar options.
(This may be what you meant)

[jocrp6]

Like Catt say's, you will have boot options with that asus,  that will be a nice setup! (my opinion) don't limit yourself on the dram,  atleast get 1600 fsb,  in case you want to turn some screws on it on down the road for OC'ing,  the MB will compensate dram left in auto for stock processor settings.

[TequilaChaser]

am wondering if you will be able to find MB / Utility Drivers for MB for the older Win95 / Win98 OS's since they have not been supported for such a long time

and isn't WinXP getting close to not being supported as well??? although should be no problem finding MB / MB utility drivers for this ASUS board or the newer boards

also, since you have Win7, have you checked to see how well Windows 7's  win95/win98/Win2000/winME  emulation works? is it any better than WinXP or WinVista???

how about just having winXP or windows7 and run the win95 and win98 (se)  in VM ??? would this not be close to a full install of these older OS's???

also having so many different OS's be sure to check and install them all in the correct way, .... I know I recall there is a path you have to take in the correct order like starting with the older Win95 first, then add dual boot/multi OS boot and install win98 next, then win2000 or ME or winXP ... and you have to maintain the FAT32 file structure for 98 & winXP.... I don't remember about win95 or recall if it was FAT16 or if it indeed jumped up to FAT32 as well.....

just some random thoughts on using multi boot option with so many different OS's with such a larger time span ( OS life span )

I would be interested on how it all works out for you, getting it all set up to work with all the varying OS's . I thought the OS wrote back to the CMOS/BIOS, at least some small instructions anyway...... for the particular OS or I might be thinking bout the MBR & NDLR files......

Good Luck

[cattb]

how about just having winXP or windows7 and run the win95 and win98 (se)  in VM ??? would this not be close to a full install of these older OS's

Virtualization
VMWare, if I was to install older OS for gaming or whatever. This be the way I would go .

[Chalenge]

Those of you that are using the MB boot option (ESC/F8/F12) in order to change boot options... are you using RAID mode with your disks setup as JBODs (legacy mode I think recommended by Intel) or AHCI mode? Im using a bootable controller card so it has to be the BIOS.

[cattb]

Mine is in AHCI mode.

[jocrp6]

Those of you that are using the MB boot option (ESC/F8/F12) in order to change boot options... are you using RAID mode with your disks setup as JBODs (legacy mode I think recommended by Intel) or AHCI mode? Im using a bootable controller card so it has to be the BIOS.
[/quote  ]
  I was one of the guy's haveing problem's with Windows7-64bit and Aces High game, but it ended up being a bad OC on two SSD's in a raid-0 set-up,  what a mess,  lol.  so I junked that and did'nt want my SSD's to go to waste,
Put Win7 on a WD Velocraptor and SSD,   the WD is for normal web mess,  and the SSD is used for only gameing and trackIR and a few things turned off,   no you don't have to AHCI/RAID   on start-up on Gigabyte boards, F12 give's a full boot menu from usb,cd/dvd,hd etc.ect.   under HD it list the two and just pick one, and another thing,
if your on the ghetto home-premium stripped Windows-7 like I am,  you don't get the virtual XP! and plus found out it does'nt like to game,

[Chalenge]

Yes the Boot Option menu shows the individual hard drives of the bootable card I have but even when you select a hard drive it will boot to one on the MB controller. Evga suggests that will change with the next BIOS update.

[jocrp6]

OK I gotcha,  I have XP 32bit on another comp, i'll add it to the line up and boot from it to see what happen's,  uh,oh   lol,  it's the same kind of MB,
 I'll still try it,

   It took it, I'm on the XP 32bit right now! got a few driver issues that im not gonna mess with, The MB this HD came out of has ATI vid card,  he,he took a little while to scroll down the page,
you can set HD boot priority, it's only F12 during start up that gives choices,

[jocrp6]

   Was a shock to the XP HD, gonna have to re-validate it! he,he

[Chalenge]

You may not have the emulator with Home Premium (I dont know) but you can get the virtual-pc with XP mode addon from Microsoft. Many older games that still cant work under Windows 7 will work with the virtual-pc and there is a version that comes without the XP mode.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

[Dichotomy]

Talk to Tildeath

best advice I have

[Masherbrum]

Talk to Tildeath

best advice I have

He's done