Trying to build my first computer... tell me if this sounds outrageous. I have 2 IDE hard drives, 2 NVidia 8600GT's (PCI-E), and an 802.11b/g wireless card (PCI). Is there a motherboard somewhere in this world that supports PCI, PCI-E, and IDE hard drives, or am I totally kidding myself? -- Faaaaaaaantastic. --

I think most--if not all--new motherboards support PCI, PCIe, and PATA. Encoded: 24 Laserdiscs (480p AVC @ 2.0Mbps, Dolby 2.0 @ 224Kbps) 130 DVDs (480p AVC @ 2.5Mbps, DTS 5.1 @ 768Kbps) 47 Blu-Ray (1080p AVC @ 12.5Mbps, DTS 5.1 @ 1.5Mbps) 32 HD-DVD (same as BR

http://www.expresspcparts.com.au/It...

If you will also be migrating any ATAPI optical drives you would need 2 IDE controllers, which is now hard to find. Below is a list of Intel based boards that have two IDE controllers for 4 IDE drives and 4 SATA ports. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... The second link is to AMD based boards that have 2 IDE controllers for 4 drives and 4 0r more SATA ports. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...

Do you already have the two 8600GT's? SLi is pretty much a waste of money. There are probably a dozen single cards that would outperform your pair. Have a look at this chart...I picked a few of the most popular single cards, including a single 8600GT & put them up against 2x 8600GT SLi: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/... Pretty disappointing to see the 2x 8600GT SLi only beats a single 8600GT by less than 1 FPS, huh? Different games show different results though. You didn't state whether you'll be running an AMD or Intel CPU? If you need two IDE channels, there are still a boards that support it along with SLi, but your choices will be somewhat slim. You may be better off getting an IDE controller card. Here's two AMD boards that will work: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... There's quite a few more to choose from if you're going with an Intel CPU, here's two: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... I'm not saying these are the boards to get, I'm just giving some examples. "And that's the fishing line, because Sharkboy said so!"