Ok, I think it's windows 7+ because I just checked on my Windows 2003 server browser, and the animated gifs look normal speed. So, I expect the new version of vBulletin will fix this. just a timing issue maybe? or something else weird.. lol.
Just rebuilt/repaired and optimized the database and all files, turned off all addons (arcade, etc) and nothing changed it) ah well. A fix to look forward to in the new version!