XP or Vista
 

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)...

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.