Like most PCs I have a 8x DVD-RW (24x CD-RW) SATA. For hard drive I use 7200rpm SATA. I know both disc and steam download requires steam but do you need the disc to run Skyrim if you buy it from the stores, and what's the speed difference? Is the hard drive or DVD drive faster?

The CD is not required to play the game, all the CD does is tell the computer that you have a legit copy. Most games these days don't do any more anyway. All the CD contains is the data that is copied over to your PC on installation.

Yep,you dont even need to remove the dvd from the holder,just input the code into steam and let steam do the rest.I find that with steamworks games its usually the fastest way.

That's not true, that's what the serial is for.
As you say:
This is true.

You don't need the dvd to play the game, it's only there for installation if you don't want to download te game, that's all.

You don't need the DVD to run the game - you need Steam to run the game.

The DVD installs the game only - you can't even LAUNCH the game without entering the CD-Key into Steam.

I suppose it should be said for everyone to understand.

The only difference between the CD copy and the Steam Download is that with Steam you don't have to go the shop, and with the CD copy you get the best of both worlds. Once it's added to your steam account, you can download it through steam if you happen to get a new computer and lose the disc or something. Ultimately the CD is superior because once you have played it once, you get all the benefits of having purchased it through Steam.

Sorry I don't mean to carry this thread on as the questions already been answered, but...

I was just saying that older games were like this, and still kinda are, when you buy a CD you are buying a license to play the game. So having the serial lets you install it, and having the CD in the drive shows the game data that you still own the right to play it and haven't sold it on.

Obviously this doesn't count for Steam games as it's all in some odd cloud network these days, f**king clouds.

Yeah and just for the record your HDD is much faster than a cd drive. That's why console games are starting to have install options cause of the performance gain like faster load times and faster texture pop-in.

The only thing I worry about is data corruption via steam downloads. I imagine that data integrity is more reliable via DVD than bit by bit download.

Complete opposite, data on a DVD is less reliable as you have probably gathered when you get a scratch on it and it completely stops loading when you put in the drive.

With the internet, the instillation isn't complete until all data has arrived, no matter what order the bits come in.

I've never had a corrupted download from Steam. Modern routers are very good at checking packets to make sure they are accurate.

Plus steam has a verify data tool, does a checksum and redownloads anything that doesn't check out.

Don't worry about that, I have more than 500Gb of Steam-games and never had an issue.
Also Steam has a nifty 'verify integrity'-option to check your game for any issues

Steam has an option to verify the integrity of the download, so if any files get corrupted or are missing it can re-download those individual files.