XP or Vista for Graphics intensive use

I just ordered myself the new Macbook pro with 2.53 GHz. This is my first venture into owning a Mac and I’m very excited. I plan on getting to know OS X very well, but downside is that I need to run windows in boot camp for school work. I am an architecture student and use several graphics intensive programs such as 3DS Max, CAD, and other rendering / modeling programs, not to mention a few games every once in a while. My question is, for my needs, should go with XP Business or Vista Ultimate 32 bit (already have a copy of it). Any suggestions?

XP or Vista for graphics intensive use?

I just ordered myself the new Macbook pro with 2.53 GHz. This is my first venture into owning a Mac and I’m very excited. I plan on getting to know OS X very well, but downside is that I need to run windows in boot camp for school work. I am an architecture student and use several graphics intensive programs such as 3DS Max, CAD, and other rendering / modeling programs, not to mention a few games every once in a while. My question is, for my needs, should go with XP Business or Vista Ultimate 32 bit (already have a copy of it). Any suggestions?

NOTE: Merged crossposts

Vista Ultimate 32 bit which you already own should do just fine. After installing Vista via Boot Camp and loading all the necessary drivers from the Leopard DVD, check for newer Vista graphic drivers for your graphic adapter.

Just go the graphic chipset provider's web site (probably nVidia or ATI) and look for the latest Vista 32 bit graphic drivers. If they're newer than what you installed from the Leopard DVD, download and install.

Regards.

If you already have vista, use it.

If I had a choice before purchasing anything, I would use XP as it is no where near the resource hog that vista is, and almost all of windows software works on XP (note some minor games like halo 2). Eventually more will only work on Vista, but currently I would have gone with XP.

If you have a choice, go with XP. It is stable, has full driver support, uses much less resources and is faster to load, etc. If you have Vista, it will do fine in any flavor. But XP is much simpler to manage, IMO.

Cheers