Please remember that Chrome is beta and it does have some security problems. I can't recommend anyone use it because of both of those points.
I'm looking forward to IE 8, primarily because I *have* to use IE, but I prefer Firefox and the add-ons like AdBlock and FlashBlock -- Opera has simular features, but they're not as well implemented and some websites aren't really designed for Opera.
But Opera's very speedy.
IE 7 has an add-on called "IE7 Pro" that has some ad/flash blocking features. I recommend that. However, even with that, IE feels slow. The tests Gandalfe links to bear that out.
The SOTW + IE8 problem may be due to the fact that they have those side banners there. They're placed in odd points for vBulletin (the forum software we both use). IE 8 and Chrome are known to display some display elements a little oddly.