vBulletin v3.6.x vs v3.7.x vs v3.8.x?

[buileminh]

Hi,
I am making a forums that do not need albums and social groups features. I just want to build normal forum-based website. My target is serving as many member as possible at the lowest server load. As you have experienced, which version of vBulletin uses least system resource? What about the security? I am thinking of v3.6.12....
If vBulletin v3.8/v3.7 use less system resource than the earliers in case member albums and social groups are disable, how to disable them?
Don't care about system requirements because I am using PHP5 and MySQL5.
Thank you very much!

[Infopro]

3.8 is the officially supported newest release. You should stay up to date with that as I'm sure the earlier versions will be deprecated soon enough. Disabling features is not a problem at all. You can strip it down to the bare minimum quite easy with a few clicks.

[buileminh]

Do these features have much impact on server load/system performance:
- Friends
- Visitor Messaging
- Visitor tracking

[Lynne]

I just upgraded from 3.6.8 to 3.8.0 and see no difference in the server loads at all. I do have albums off, but that is the only main new feature that I am not using.

[buileminh]

What's your forums statistic?

[Lynne]

Mine? 80,000 users (about 25,000 active), 200-300 on at a time, a bit over one million posts.

[buileminh]

Do you have vBSEO/vBExperienced installed? Are you on a Shared Hosting or a Dedicated Server?

[Lynne]

No vbseo or vbexperienced. The site runs on two servers - one webserver, one mysql. I also have a tracker on it.

[mac-warez]

Tracker as in torrent tracker?

[Lynne]

Yes. I run a site to download live concerts. Many bands allow taping and encourage the sharing of their music and they may be shared on my site. People always talk about trackers as if they are for illegal activity, but not all of them are.

[Dismounted]

What about the security?
vBulletin 3.8 will be the most secure as it is still being actively updated. 3.6 will be declared End-of-Life on the release of vBulletin 4.0. 3.8 will still be maintained (i.e. security updates) for some time to come.