GA-68XP-UD3P New build Do's Don'ts Tips and Tricks?

[ls1geezer]

My parts will be here any day now. I only build myself a new system every couple of years so I try to take my time. My system will consist of
GA-68XP-UD3P Mboard
Intel I7 2600K + Cool Master 212 Plus
16gb G.Skill Ripjaws X F3 DDR3 1600 Ram
XFX HD6970 2gb Video card
Crucial M4 64gb Sata III SSD
2 X Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB Sata II hdd
Corsair 750AX 750 Watt PSU 
Corsair 600T Mid-Size Case
Windows 7

So any do's or don'ts or any kind of suggestions about this particular board would be very much appreciated .
Or if you could steer me towards any good how to instructions which I normally find are better that the instructions the manufactures supply.
Thank you for your time.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyute Forum.

You should find this build as easy as any other that you have done. The basic principles are just the same.

The main difference being that you will be working with SATA rather than PATA drives. These are even easier to configure as there is no Master/Slave with them. The SSD should be put on the first connector SATA1_0. The controller for these ports are best configured as AHCI for better performance. Make sure that you disable the swapfile and defragmenting on that drive.

I take it that you are installing the 64 bit version of Windows7 as you don't say. Probably best to disconnect the magnetic drive whilst doing the Windows install.

The rest of the build should be straightforward enough.

[ls1geezer]

Thank you for your reply. Yes I am going to install Windows 7 64bit and on that note I have another question. When it comes to installing windows and it asks do I wish to format do I indicate yes? I don't wish to partition I wish to keep all 64gb intact the drive.

[Dark Mantis]

Thank you for your reply. Yes I am going to install Windows 7 64bit and on that note I have another question. When it comes to installing windows and it asks do I wish to format do I indicate yes? I don't wish to partition I wish to keep all 64gb intact the drive.

I think by your question that you are getting confused between the way the operating system works and the size of it. When 64bit is referred to it is how the operating system addresses the hardware, it has nothing to do with the size of it. Windows will actually take up somewhere in the region of 40-50GB on the hard drive depending on what version you are installing.

In answer to your question, yes you want to format the drive first.