I'm starting to think about building a new computer. From the days it launched, I only heard awful things about Vista. It seems that's the way everyone is going now.

I'm curious how the folks that have used it, feel about Vista now that a service pack has been released. Still tons of problems? Still sucks down system resources?

Thanks in advance for the opinions.

Stick makes your system feel like molasses. I have a decent spec laptop (4GB memory, 7200rpm drive, good graphics chip, 2GHz dual processor) and it feels like a dog all the time w/ Vista. Unfortunately, I need it for work, so I've left it on instead of blowing it away and installing Linux or XP on it :-P

You might want to try installing it first and see how you like it, because you can't upgrade XP to Vista (they recommend blowing it away and reinstalling)...

Stick makes your system feel like molasses. I have a decent spec laptop (4GB memory, 7200rpm drive, good graphics chip, 2GHz dual processor) and it feels like a dog all the time w/ Vista. Unfortunately, I need it for work, so I've left it on instead of blowing it away and installing Linux or XP on it :-P

You might want to try installing it first and see how you like it, because you can't upgrade XP to Vista (they recommend blowing it away and reinstalling)...

Mine is a dog too - not as fast as your rig but my cheapy laptop with 1.8hz dual, 2GB DDR2, and 5400rpm drives doggy at times. I haven't gotten around to it yet but I'm going to turn off some "features" and add a tweak or ten to speed it up...

I'm play a bit of FPS games. Demanding graphics and CPU. I'm thinking I might just put XP on it because I know it plays nice and manages resources decently... well as decently as a Windows OS can manage resources.

I want 200fps to be easily attainable.

Also, for work, I often have up to 6-8 applications open with multiple instances of each. So I'll be going heavy on fast RAM.

The more I think about it. The more Vista scares me.