Power Supply: Wasn't there a band in the 80's called Power Supply? What happened to them, anyway? Whatever. My last machine had a PC Power & Cooling PS, a 235-watt Silencer. It's been remarkably stable and could possibly take on the AMD T-Bird if I needed it to. So, I went with another PCP&C, this time the AMD-approved Turbo-Cool 300ATX. I think I should let you know, this is a serious power supply. The combination of above said Case (Mmmm...), and stated Power Supply gives the computer the look and feel of an air-conditioner. I had to put on a sweater and fuzzy socks just to write this article. Thank you, I know you feel my pain.

Motherboard: So why did I opt for the Abit KT7-RAID? It was the RAID, man. It used to be that the only way to get a RAID was to use SCSI disks. A really funny irony in the RAID acronym is that there aren't any inexpensive SCSI disks of reputable size. Now, I've scored some really killer deals at flea markets and junk-shows for SCSI disks (Silicon Valley is full of junk), but IDE disks are nearly perfect for a RAID. Please read the disk section below for some twisted joke by the SCSI Gods I offended by switching to IDE. The KT7 and RAID versions are great boards. It's got PC133, soft FSB, soft multiplier and soft voltage settings for overclocking, 4 fan headers, 6 PCI slots (and a pointless ISA), 3-phase power delivery, and nerry an AMR slot to steal clock cycles. There are features in that BIOS that I will probably never figure out what they do! ASUS, and MSI also make excellent motherboards with soft-settings; so don't overlook those in your machine.