I think WinXP does a pretty good job considering all the millions of third party hardware that can be attached to it. Apple and other Mac-centered companies, have the advantage of knowing exactly what sort of processor, motherboard, graphics card etc. you have on your system. Windows has no such luxury, so you have to be a little understanding.
Where I think Windows falls down completely is in its interface organisation. There are too many long, illogical steps to do simple tasks, and I get sick and tired of it screaming at me 24/7...
"Your computer is at risk"
"hardware detected"
"your hardware is installed and ready to use"
"Network device unplugged"
"Automatic update is turned off"
"something else you didn't need to know"
SHUT UP! I just wanna do my work.
The other major downfall is in its aesthetic look. When you're creating something delicate and beautiful in Photoshop, a big bright green and blue bar running down the bottom and around windows is really distracting.
Those are my major pet peeves. Sorry to rant like that.
What I actually wanted to say was this:
and when your finally able to dual boot a OSX or XP setup, there really won't be mac games.
I would have thought that with the Intel chip it would be easier for companies to port games to the mac, and therefore there would be more games available? I really have no idea how it all works, so perhaps I'm way off. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I would wait until the Intel models come out.
I donno, it will be at least 2 years before it gets to a point where dual booting is stable. That's a long time to wait. I think buy a mac now to last you around 2-3 years, and keep using your PC for games.