Is this Intel DP965LT a good choice?

[jgy2001]

I have an empty ATX box with older HD & optical drives & diskette.
I just want to bring up the system running first at lower cost, and upgrade
it as years to come.
http://www.intel.com/products/...oard/DP965LT/index.htm

I plan to buy the Intel DP965LT motherboard (NewEgg $95). The reason I
select DP965LT is because I can upgrade to Core 2 Duo as price comes down in
the future.

I plan to get the Pentium D 915 w/o fan (Fries $50). Then get the
coolermaster.com socket LGA775 XDreamP775 fan (Fries $18). Or should I get
this Pentium D 915 with fan at $85 (Fries & NewEgg) - Is
this fan integrated, comes from Intel? or NewEgg add the fan on later?

I will get the Crucial 1GB DDR2 533 (NewEgg $39).
Fries has DDR2 1GB PC5300 Crucial for sales at $19 with rebates.
I plan to use my old PCI VGA card. DVD writer will be external.

My question is:
1. does the Intel P965 chip set needs fan cooling? I think it already has a large heat sink.
2. This mb has only one Parallel ATA. Can I connect it to one HD and one
optical drive? Is one parallel ATA IDE a problem, because I have lots of drives.
3. is my current 300 watts ATX power with 20 pins connector, sufficient for
this minimal system configuration? Or, may need 20 to 24 pins converter.

Thank you.

 

[postmortemIA]

i have Intel board... if you don't plan over clocking and you don't mind that regularly available BIOS options are not there...go for it.

as for particular questions:
1 - nope, large heatsink is enough, intel mobos are stable they know what they are doing.
2 - yes- HD + optical drive works.