What operating system to use with a new rig?

[Les]

I pretty much agree with the other comments made here. I did get the impression though your potential computer builder was referring to the on-board graphics of the new Intel Sandy Bridge CPU's. If so, they might be better than the on-board graphics you can get built into motherboards, but yes, you'd still want a dedicated graphics/video card if putting together a decent gaming system. The thing is, you might still end up getting one of those new Sandy Bridge CPU's (as they are pretty good), but only using it as a CPU, and not using it's in-built graphics processing ability.

As you said (?), if you put up a tentative list of what you're thinking of getting, after seeing how playable CloDo really is, I'm sure you'll get some feedback. No guaranteeing it'll make your decision-making any easier though.