Hello folks,
Hopefully some one willl be able to give me some formative and time saving information about the the best way to set up a dual boot system on a Gigabyte P55-UD6 Mobo.
I have recently upgraded to the above MOBO and am self building my own system. Apart from my head exploding with having to determine which SATA connection to use on the this MOBO, combined with the RAID / IDE / AHCI options, which very much confused me!! Not difficult i know...
I have the following MOBO and installed components.. (currently using an older WD RAPTOR 75 & 150 combo in XP32 pro mode.. but wish to upgrade to a dual boot W7 & XP 32 system.
G-P55-UD6 Mobo Revision 1.0 Bios F8 - all other drivers are latest install via Gigabyte webiste = 5 Apr 10
i5 = 750
Corsair H50 Watercooled CPU (idles at 34C - mean average x4 cores temp)
4GB Corsair CMX4GX3M2A 1600C9 (2 x 2GB)
Saphire ATI 5870 Vapor X-OC
Siverstone Temjin Case
Enermax Ininity 650W PSU
Dell 2707FWP LCD
I have the following SSD & HDD drives that have not been installed yet, but I wish to install as follows... ?
1 x 30GB OCZ SSD = Win7 (64) System drive - (AHCI Mode)
1 x 320GB Samsung (322HJ) HDD = XP32 Pro - patitioned as a sytem and XP games HDD = (SATA (IDE?) Mode)
(Could connect via eSATA).
2 x 1TB Samsung F3 Spinpoint HDD (HD103SJ) = GAMES-Win7 ( RAID 0 Mode)
1 x 1TB Samsung F3 Spinpoint HDD (HD103SJ) = DATA (AHCI Mode)
1 x DVD RW Pioneer DVD-212 = (SATA (IDE?) Mode)
1 x DVD HD/Blu Ray LG GGC-H20L = (SATA (IDE?) Mode)
Does this set up seem achievable?
How easy is it to set up a dual boot OS, do i need specialised software?
How easy would it be to set up the drives?
Which SATA connections / set up sequence for the drives will give me the best performance?
How idiot proof is the RAID / AHCI driver set up (as there are both Intel & Micron AHCI / RAID drivers ?).
If I boot into OS XP32, would all the W7 drives still be active, (dont want to waste power and generate extra heat)?
I would mainly be using the W7 OS and drive combination (but have some (XP only) strategy games on the legacy XP boot drive).
Is it possible to have the XP boot drive as an external drive, to connect via eSATA if required?
Not sure if the above set up would be too complex for the bios etc... any advice would be most welcome. I'm pretty competent as self builds etc, but havent attempted a multi / multi drive set up like this before.
Ref: the Quick Boost utility, it indicates that the twin turbo can boost upto 4Ghz, but so far it reaches 3.8Ghz when tried.
Scores 24,200 = 3dMark 06 (latest version)
Is it possible to easily tweak Quick Boost to reach 4Ghz, I assume there is the headroom for this, otherwise Quick boost wouldnt indicate a 4Ghz target overclock?
I would only use it for games, so dont need to overclock at 4Ghz permanently.
Any advice would be gratefully recieved.
