Snagged a Late '08 15" MBP. Should I install Snow Leopard, Mavericks or El Capitan?

[Leek]

It's a very nice early unibody. 4GB RAM, 7200RPM HDD. Rest of the specs here:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-2.4-aluminum-15-late-2008-unibody-specs.html

Question is what should I install on it?

• Snow Leopard—very old but my favorite OS X. The OS I run on my other, even newer Macs. The one that this machine was practically designed to run.
• Mavericks—the most polished of lion turds. A middle ground. Could occasionally help me run a few apps Snow Leopard doesn't support.
• El Capitan—the most current. Undeniably the best at interfacing with newer iOS devices if nothing else. But also an "allegedly" faster version of a 7 year newer OS known for a fact to be a resource pig. And frankly f**king ugly.

Any insight?

 

[Moneoa]

Mine runs El Capitan nicely. I don't have lag but I also have 8 gigs of ram

 

[Leek]

Mine runs El Capitan nicely. I don't have lag but I also have 8 gigs of ram

It's an '08 machine?

 

[Moneoa]

Late 08 early 09. The first unibody model that came out. I'm not running steam games on full graphics or anything but I've yet to see it choke on my setup. 2.66 Intel with 8 gigs of ram and a 350 gig hdd

 

[dogslobber]

Late 08 early 09. The first unibody model that came out. I'm not running steam games on full graphics or anything but I've yet to see it choke on my setup. 2.66 Intel with 8 gigs of ram and a 350 gig hdd

Put an SSD and El Cap on that and it should be quite potent.