I was on for a short time last night and the hardware improvements are amazing. I am not overclocking anything although I do have the new Zalman monster copper heatsink (the 9900) and it dwarfs my older 9500 heatsink (which is destined for an older P4). Processor temps were holding in the 40-50c range and there wasn't any stuttering or any funny business going on. Running the graphics settings up to balanced had minimal effect on fps.

I tried with hyperthreading enabled, and all instances over all cores, with good results except that the main will shift all its load to the last core. This is behavior I saw with the Q6600 also except that the last processor core was always maxed out on the Q6600. I tried to make the main only use the first 4 threads and the behavior stayed the same, the last core/thread assigned got all the load. I then disabled hyperthreading and released the main to use all cores again but the behavior remains. At least with hyperthreading disabled the overall load balance isn't too lopsided. Keeping a relative balance across all cores should help with processor life as I am sure a hight Delta T between cores can't be healthy in the long run.

Addressing the ram issue, I have 6gb installed and only had 4.5 gb commit in task manager with all 6 instances running. The slaves were turned down on everything and the main had solo type settings for sound/video/etc. I am using the Windows 7 beta and I will install the RC when it becomes available next week. Hopefully M$oft will allow RC direct upgrades to final release this time /crosses fingers.

Still having problems with the HTPC. My tuner cards (Hauppauge HVR-1600's) have Vista drivers and are recognized but my ATSC (ota digital) tuner refuses to function. The analog tuner works but I don't need that. I want my tv back!!!! ;(