Well posting this from my new PC!! Firstly the new hard disk I ordered was DOA! so thats gone back so have just installed XP 32bit for time being, but even so it really flies. About 5 seconds to launch photoshop 7 is ok with me. I do a lot of Flash stuff and it just runs Flash MX pro without any problems. This was the main reason for upgrading my pc as my old Duron 1.3 was really having a hard time on big flash projects. My graphics card now runs at 8X and all in all very very happy. I have cool and quiet running and to be honest like you say can not see any benefit in it - but just enjoying the playing about phase with my new toy!! I will install the xp 64 bit trial when i get the replacement HD and will post back then on how that goes. Thanks for all your input guys! really appreciated. For anyone wondering if to go 64 bit my answer is yes, even if you run xp 32bit you will see a huge improvement in processing power and general umph!! Specs are: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle, MSI K8TM-ILSR - mainboard, Nvidia GeForce FX5200 Graphics, 512 Meg RAM. SATA 80GB hard disk (DOA replacement due soon) so old hard disk 30Gig 133 IDE. So you can see cost was an issue but well chuffed with the computing power I have now for a very reasonable upgrade cost.