Based on several of Jeff's recent articles, I decided to sell all my PCs, buy a bunch of parts, and build my own. Here's what I wound up ordering:
I wound up ordering a 24" LCD from Dell to go with it all, since they had one of the best prices around. Lastly, I got myself a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, 64-bit! The reason for 64-bit is because of the limits to addressable memory with a 32-bit operating system. 32-bit Windows wouldn't use all 4GB of RAM, and the video card memory is part of the addressable memory, so the more video memory I got, the less system RAM I would have.
After getting everything put together, I ran the Vista Experience test, and got a score of 5.4. Every category was a 5.9 except the memory, and I'm sure with a little overclocking, I could increase my score, but I don't really see the point.
As for 64-bit Windows, every application I use runs fine, and I mean everything. I'm a gamer and every game I've tried runs great. I'm getting 60 FPS consistently in World of Warcraft*, running at 1920x1200.
The total cost was around $2,500 including the operating system. If I had ordered the same configuration from a PC manufacturer, it would have cost over $1,000 more. The hardest part was getting everything together. That Ninja heatsink was extremely large, and barley fit in the case!
* Yes, I started playing World of Warcraft again, mainly because I missed playing with the guys here at Vertigo, and all those single-player games just aren't as much fun as they used to be before MMOs.