Black Friday shopping list...Help

[arson]

Okay, everyone here has been great. So after many weeks of research I am finally going to buy the parts. Newegg is having some un-passable deals right now, forcing me to buy!

Tell me what you think! My major concerns right now, and still undecided, are about after-market cooling and choice of OS. This will be a gaming machine to play games such as...

Call of Duty 4
Crysis
Supreme Commander Expac
Assassin's Creed
C&C 3
Battlefield 2

Here are the parts.
CASE 79.00
COOLER MASTER RC Black http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137

HARDDRIVE 169.00
RAPTOR 10KRPM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136012

MOBO 129.00
GIGABYTE P35 DS3R http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128050

CPU 279.00
Intel Q6600 Quad Core http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

RAM 90.00
OCZ Reaper 2GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227231

PSU 89.00
OCZ StealthXStream 600W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341010

MONITOR 309.00
Samsung 226BW 22in http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001096

FAN x3 45.00
Scythe S-Flex http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185004

HEATSINK 65.00
Thermalright Ultra 120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109140

TOTAL @ Newegg: 1259.00 //// 1124.00 after Mail In Rebates

GPU 309.00 @ TigerDirect
XFX 8800GT http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3427121&CatId=1826

Not sure if I need the after market cooling, but it would be nice. I already have XP but not sure if I should go ahead and get Vista so I can take advantage of DX10? If I do get Vista, do I need to purchase 2BG more ram just for the OS? Totaling 4GB?

And does everything else look in order for a decent machine for what I want to do? Also, my goal is to stay around 1500.00 budget.

Thanks!

 

[aadamszc]

Everything looks great.

I can't really advise you on your OS choice, but I, myself, went for Vista64bit. You wouldn't necessarily need 4GB, but 2GB is about the minimum for a vista system.

I haven't ever done aftermarket cooling, but you really shouldn't need to do it unless you are planning for more than a mild OC.

 

[joewho]

There are better deals on RAM at Newegg.

 

[jedimasterben]

I would go for 4Gb (at least) of RAM and Vista 64-bit.

Supreme Commander will REALLY love you for having that much RAM. Also, you'll need to add the LARGE ADDRESS AWARE header into the program to let it have full RAM usage.

See this thread for more info about the header: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=2382