A few questions

T

thealien

New Member
My old quad core motherboard died and I have been unable to find a suitable replacement motherboard allowing me to reuse the CPU. I have decided to upgrade but have a few questions.

I use the PC as a home theater PC and do some video editing, I do not play any games.

I have 2 optical drives (one is blu ray) and had 4 2tb hard drives due to the video editing and I have all my own DVDs on hard drives (one full 2tb and working on a second). Because of those requirements I needed a MB with 6+ SATA ports.

I have decided to go with a Gigabyte GA Z87X-UD4H motherboard with an I5 4670K CPU. The combo is $299 at Microcenter. Only going to have 8gb memory for now, just not in the budget for more at the moment.

I am not sure I understand but 2 of the SATA ports and 2 eSATA ports are controlled by one of 2 controllers. I read something about the controller giving preference to either the SATA or eSATA. if using both will this cause an issue? (I have a couple od eSATA backup drives) and wanted to use the 2 SATA ports for the optical drives leaving the other 6 for hard drives?

I have also read that the Gigabyte fan controllers do not allow a lot of fan speed control? Since I am using this as a HTPC I need quiet operation. Any quiet and efficient fan recommendations that wont break the bank? Available at Microcenter is a plus.

I am also considering a solid state drive for the OS. Where I don't need space for games it would primarily be for 7Ultimate and maybe Power DVD, NERO? What size should I be looking at? Mainly looking for a little speed and reliability out of an SSD.

240 GB SSD

OR 120 GB SSD

Thanks
Mark
 
From what I can tell, with the Marvell controller you have to use either the esata or the inside sata, not at the same time. A 120 would do you fine, but if you can find a good 240 for a good price go for it.
 
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