I just built a similar system for myself last month, so some of this may help-

You should have no problems ripping with a DVD as opposed to a cdrom. Honestly, I seem to have less problems since I started using a DVD. I may be imagining things, though.

The faster the drive, the faster it should be able to do audio extraction (in theory). I'm not familiar with the pioneer, but I just picked up a 16x Toshiba that so far has done really well for me.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Maxtor, but after a very long discussion with one of my coworkers, followed by a bit of web research, I decided on a 45GB IBM Deskstar. Apparently, they have better throughput, and the price difference was like $5.

I tend to stick with ASUS or Microstar mainboards, so I can't really help with the Abit, nor can I help with the overclocking, since I have no experience there, either.



Bill B.
Mk.2 SN 080000183 - 38 GB / Green