You know, when I feel like playing a console game (pretty much older ones like Super Mario Brother 3 and such) I plug in my handy-dandy gamepad that I got for free after rebate and flip the output to my TV. For HD gaming, why bother with a console at all with its measly 480p 16:9 or 4:3 when I can go with a 1200p 4:3 with far more computing and graphics power?
I do plan on booting from it – I’m not so much worried about performance on the disks (although I am somewhat senestive to it) as I am capacity and reliability. Also, purchasing a 40 GB PATA drive and booting from THAT would seem to give me quite a larger hit to performance (with OS and swap on it) than it would to keep my data on the RAID 1 array which is primarily for programs anyway – I’m installing 1 TB onto a server with GoC connections to it for data.
I do like the Antec TruePower and own and use two of them right now, but I am concerned about noise so the self-adjusting fans of the other models is more appealing, as is a fanless PSU (if any of them are any good). Of course, cost is less of a concern to me on components like the PSU and such than it will be for most people, I’ve saved money for a while for this thing and now have enough to execute up to where most people would call it quites far before. Heck, I could even afford an Excream Edition P4, although I do have SOME limits (and want decent price/performance at a very minimum …).
NEC writers I will be checking out in a few minutes, but NEC has a reputation for quality so they’ll go onto my short list (esp with dual layer writers – somewhat important for me).
