System performance with pretty high specs?

[sototallycarl]

I am building a system now that will be used for primarily graphics work and the occasional gaming. My only concern is, will Ubuntu react favorably to these increased specs? It seems like it runs at the same speed and performance on most modern hardware. Either way my windows gaming will get a boost, so its a win. I was just curious how well ubuntu scales up with hardware.

I use a virtual machine to get Adobe products but once I get working in a bunch of apps (some on ubuntu, some in the windows vm) it seems to chug. So my thought process was, double the system specs and it should be able to give more to both the host and the vm to balance the load.

New machine:
quad 2.8ghz intel processor, intel 750 mobo
nvidia 8800 graphics, 512mb
8gb ram

Old machine I am used to:
duo 2.8ghz intel
ati 2600, 256mb
4gb ram

Are there performance limitations to ubuntu making it all just pointless? Will it run like it runs now?

Thanks,
Carl

[iggykoopa]

you'll probably notice a difference with the video card, and multitasking will be much better, but the majority of apps just aren't coded with multiple processors in mind so opening one app will probably seem about the same. For your intended purpose you should notice a nice difference though, since you said it was only slowing down while multi-tasking.

edit: another thing you may want to try is if you have a spare drive put the vm's disk on that. Should help reduce any problems with too much disk access.