Curious if anyone has server 2012 RTM yet as I don't believe REFS will be available to the desktop versions (quite a shame as the speed differences are kinda big.. at least on my rig and because everything just works with windows)

Now I have little experience with zfs and btrfs but I have used and setup btrfs and the speed is very close if not the same as refs just without the instability same can be said with zfs for LINUX.

I tried the beta versions but I usually wait to give a final verdict on the finished product and my verdict is if you have windows 7 I would upgrade as you can disable metro and get your win7 desktop back, microsoft is pushing metro but they have said they would never remove the main desktop(according to an email I received as I asked a similar question directly to microsoft)

There is several speed improvements even if you get the desktop version, with server it's like butter.

Now I'm not a windows guy well anymore but I do have to say windows 8 and refs is very snappy with my hardware, it's even snappier than my Optimized Funtoo setup with zfs.. And I'm not joking about this.

Steam is coming to Linux but even with the beta this month I don't think it's ready and probably won't for the next year or so or even up to windows 9. Porting can take a long time, and valve is doing great but just do not expect every game to be ported as some were and will most likely stay with windows. Just hope assassins creed get's ported.