SQL 2000 vs 2005 vs 2008 vs 2008 R2 vs 2012?

which one is better?

i used to use sql2k sp4, i loved it because of the low ram usage.

Original files were designed for SQL 2000, but be aware during that time nobody had ever heard of 64bit CPUs and 4GB RAM was insanely expensive. Every version will run the silkroad database; older versions use less resources, newer version are optimized to make use of morden hardware (SSDs) and have some new technology (clustering, encryption, etc...)

2012 management studio's intellisense is gay, that's all.

2012 SP1

i preffer Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (SP2) - 10.50.4000.0 (X64) Enterprise Edition (64-bit)

here u can see why i use Enterprise and not Express:

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2012, when it come to SQL you better get last one, but on Windows 2008.