Comments on my proposed build using the P965 Platinum

Question

My current PC is over three years old and I'm itching to upgrade.  I'm starting off with Windows XP but will move to Vista eventually.
This is what I've come up with so far and I'd welcome any comments:
MSI P965 Platinum
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz
2 x  Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 2048MB CL5 Kit w/two matched CM2X1024A-6400 (4GB in total)
HIS Radeon X1950PRO 256MB GDDR3, IcQ3
Hiper PSU ATX 580W Black, Type-M
Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB SATA2
LG DVD±RW burner, GSA-H42NRBB
I'm not a game player but want to be able to run all the Vista eye candy when I eventually upgrade.  I do thrash my machine a fair bit with downloaded stuff that needs parity checking, decompressing and converting if necessary.  I also tend to have loads of applications running at the same time.  I'm not interested in overclocking.
I also have the following questions:
1. I understand that Windows XP won't recognise the full 4 GB of RAM, will Vista? 
2. Is it worth having 4GB RAM under Windows XP in preference to 2GB?
3. Can I get by installing without a floppy drive as my DVD Drive isn't a SATA one and I'll need the additional drivers.  Can a windows install recognise drivers on other media such as a memory card in a card reader attached via USB or a USB pen drive?
4. Will my power supply be adequate?  I will be adding hard drives as time goes on and possibly another optical drive. 
5. What advantage is there to running the SATA drives under AHCI and if necessary will I be able to pull the drive out and access it in another PC with a different BIOS?
I've not built a machine for ages, so I'm well out of practice and spending ages on research.  I'll be grateful for any help you can give me.
Thanks
Teresa

Answer 1

I do development and such. Run one or two VM's at a time. A lot of apps running at same time.
I went with the P6N Platinum.   The chipset seems pretty good.
I went with the E6600 and same RAM, although I went with 4 gigs due to the VM's running.
After reading some reviews and such, I would recommend going with the Saphire 512 version of the X1950 Pro, which I did.  I'm running Vista Business and the Aero interface is good and my index from Vista, for what its worth, is about 5.9 with the 3-D stuff.
I'm not familiar with the PSU.   While I've worked with a couple other major PSU companies, I have NEVER been burned by PC Power & Cooling's products.  A little more expensive, but they have been rock solid.  I've been able to hang onto their PSU's over the years until the wattage becomes too much of an issue, to which I buy whatever covers it.   
I tend to never use anything other than Pioneer or Plextor on the optical stuff.  For video work and my experience in the duplication area, both companies products have far exceeded the performance, longevity and fewest coasters for the small difference in price difference.
XP X64 will see the full 4 gigs.   X32 editions will not.  I would suggest going to X64 Vista when you make that move, however you'll have to do a clean install.   Drivers can be a bit of a tough thing, but I need rock solid performance and that gives me that.
2 Gigs is really pretty good.  With XP, it will see the extra space and take around 500-600 megs to improve performance. With Vista, its about double that.  Running a lot of apps or doing some memory intensive apps, such as graphic suites, etc, you will not regret 4 gigs. That will lighten the load on disk paging.
I didn't install a floppy.  I had to dig around and found some utilities for format a USB key and boot to a DOS.  So I use that, setting the bootup on the board to use the memory key as the initial bootup device.  From there I've been able to do RAM testing as well as flash bios.
I'm running around a 520W PSU.  But its a solid 520.  But with the high performance card and 4 SATA HD's and the optical, I will probably upgrade up to the 750W PC Power and Cooling.  That's what is recommended by their selector for the board anyways.  For now, I have not found any problems in the PSU end.
Lance