at the exact, complete wrong moment i lost my internet credit-card (classic dan behaviour) so had to rely on paying cash in to another account and using paypal! I did, however, go for my orig choice- mainly due to a 3 yr warranty to cover such a fast machine. Minty's offer was impeccable tho and I was very close to buying.

For an OS I have, with some trepadation, gone for Vista 64 as ppl tell me problems are being ironed out and things are headed that way for gaming (what with machines being shipped the OS now and games having additional features)... plus I didnt see the point in 4gb ram if vista32 would only use 3... Ive heard Vista64 runs Bioshock and Crysis and I have this machine for legacy content.
Please someone tell me if I have made a monstrous error with the OS- then ill prob have to buy 32 as well (P.S. I want DX10 so Vista it shall be)

Well, I was looking on some forums about Crysis and apparently, as far as the demo is concerned, you dont need vista to run the dx10 stuff, just a card.
They found a work-around in the config file which gave them the light beams, motion blur, soft shadows, the lot. And they were getting better performance on XP too.

Proof:http://kotaku.com/gaming/crysis/crysis-dx10-stuff-so-works-in-xp-316543.php

As for the OS, personally, I would have a dual boot with XP, just to be on the safe side.

Threre are still DX10 exclusive features in Crysis which cannnot be enabled under DX9. However, the difference in visual quality between the 2 is very little. For more details with screenshots etc. go to the excellent tweakguide here: http://www.tweakguides.com/Crysis_1.html

I am aware the differences (atm) are minimal- but in some games (like age of conan) the diffenrence is quite extraordinary...

it will only b a matter of time till DX10 is necessary ( i remember dx7-8 8-9 etc) and i wanted a rig that would still be usable then

I have vista 32 and its been great

yeah i have vista 32 but that simply because my computers nearly 6 years old (still runs alot of the games but gradually getting outdated)

I have vista 32. had a few probs with it at first its getting better though. You know what microsoft are like!

oo er ive gone all 64.......