My, my aren't we lucky to be graced by so many enlightened souls.
I am literally dazzled by your profound insight and yet amazed to witness Redmond Fanboys. - I thought if you were so into tinkering under the hood you'd be running some custom Linux kernel...
Still, to be serious for a mo, I've always found productivity to be more important than a competition to see who can p**s the highest !
Bear in mind that this was a question about the merits of xp x86 vs win7 x64 and DX9 vs DX10. Something which other visitors to the forum might find of use.
The stuff arrives tomorrow so the win7 hell ( I mean 'learning curve') can begin.
Cheers