I get fairly great performance from Vista with my current specs. 3dmark aint nothing to snuff at for a gauge to performance under os loads and hardware. Dont completely base a decision off of what you've heard. It depends on what you'll get. Specs: Q6600 OC'd @ 3.2ghz FSB 1425mhz, 2gb ram @ 950mhz, Raid 0 7200rpm WD's, eVGA 8800gtx OC'd @ 615mhz.
I dunno, having been using the latest incarnation of Live Photo Gallery (which is slightly different from the one originally bundled with Vista) I don't think iPhoto is all that far ahead. It's still the superior application yes, but features such as automatic photo-stitching and built-in Flickr uploading make LPG just as useful to me as iPhoto is. Edit: It might also be worth noting that the iLife suite costs $79 to upgrade (per year), and although the software is probably worth that, the Vista equivalents are at least constantly free.
