Time to start shopping for another PC and I'm seeing Vista machines packed with 160gb hard drives and many XP machines with 80gb HDs. Is that because Vista takes up the lion's share of an 80gb hard drive?

For the first time in a PC purchase, I'm leaning towards the old OS XP machines, even though they actually seem to be commanding a slight premium over Vista stablemates.

I'm noticing that the higher end machines are toasting themselves faster too. It seems that the heat is starting to shorten the lifespan of a heavy use machine from 2 years or 3 years to 1 year and X months. Anyone have any real world experience with reliability on dual core processors? Anyone have any positive AMD experiences? Anyone think the Athlon X2 is better than an Intel duo-core?

Just thought I'd harvest some opinions before I plunge ahead into the current PC definition of planned obsolescence.

I'm afraid the "new PC" thrill, for me anyways, is finally wearing off. I can't get myself excited enough to even research the stuff properly anymore. Remember when a new PC meant a whole new world of software, capabilities and an exponential increase in time saved?

Where is the PC Holy Grail in 2007?

;-)