if so, can you direct me to it? because i've been consistently hearing that vista is "getting better" without actually seeing any hard numbers to compare to XP, and I want to do some hypothesising to work out what i want to do with some stuff
oh yeah, and i wasn't really sure where to put this thread, feel free to move it

^Agreed.

It would be nice to see if the Service pack for vista made any changes in speed.

Well in terms of hard numbers, I can't provide figures for everything, plus I'm not sure what figures your looking for exactly.

But I can tell you this. I've been using Vista SP1 for over a week now, and my experiences have shown that there is an increase in speed (such as responsiveness, resume from sleep, and a slightly lower memory usage). So compared to Vista prior SP1, there are performance improvements, however it's nothing grand like 30%-50% performance improvement. Simply some noticeable and appreciated speedier improvement.

Now I wouldn't go as far as saying Vista SP1 speed improvements are enough to beat out XP, let alone XP SP3. My experience with the RC version of XP SP3 has left me with the impression that XP is still running faster than Vista. However, it's nothing extreme enough to me that it would justify avoiding Vista altogether. I still stand by the recommendation of using XP for OLD hardware and Vista for NEWER hardware.

I also believe that if your going to use Vista you need to both understand and accept that it requires a larger amount of memory usage due to all the services its running and other minor performance hogs like the aero theme. I doubt Vista will ever use less memory than XP will. But once again, for NEWER hardware, I don't think the increased memory requirement that Vista has is anything TOO upsetting, just something you need to understand before hand.

For gaming, I've noticed that ATI's (I currently use an ATI card) vista drivers have generated about equal performance, and sometimes better performance (depends on the game), when compared to their XP version. I don't feel that your losing out if you game on Vista.

Just my 2 cents on the subject from my experiences.

Has No one done any benchies recently anywhere on the web???

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/s [...] i=3233&p=1

Here's another one http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1332&page=1

I was trying to find something a few days ago, most articles are from dec 07 or earlier. I decided to jump to vista anyway, plus I didn't pay a cent for it so I wasn't that worried if I didn't like it.

If they have i would imagine Bill Gates secretly defacing the website. I had Vista and XP installed at one time , every game i tried Vista always lagged behind XP on FPS. That was on XP with SP2, Vista without SP1. Maybe things have changed with vista sp1 but i doubt it.

Heres the last from the Anands review "Finally, for those Windows users still sticking with XP, they too will be getting Microsoft's long-overdue XP SP3 in the very near future. We’ll be bringing a review of that to you as soon as it goes gold later this quarter, along with a fully up to date performance comparison between Vista and XP to better illustrate what little gap remains between the two operating systems. The list of changes isn’t nearly as far-reaching as Vista SP1, but there are a couple of interesting items on the list. (Ed: It will also be nice to not install over 100 patches/updates/etc. after a clean XP SP2 install.) Stay tuned for that in the coming weeks.

" So it looks like they want to wait til SP3 arrives, then do a direct XP vs Vista comparison

Data transfer and access times from drive to drive and over gigabit have a noticeable improvement pre-sp1 to post sp1, but couldnt say vs. xp. XP has a bit less overhead than vista, but if you disable everything in vista graphical, indexing, and system restore - you're going to fly.

@bf2142-rules-ok: When did you test that?

Vista has much nicer loading times of programs IMO. Games load faster from my experience, thanks to good old superfetch.

randomizer, do you use vista 64 or 32?

Any driver issues. i know i will need to replace my TV card. but i want superfetch(i like the way it works on demo units) and 8 gigs of ram....

Heres some encouraging news for Vista users http://www.tweakguides.com/ I really really like this site

I thought I would add something here. VISTA 64 has a program called WOW64 that is a subsystem of the Windows operating system that is capable of running 32-bit applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOW64

@Nukemaster. When you see all the horror stories around the Forumz stating things like, VISTA 64 has a lot of driver issues, VISTA 64 is like Windows ME, VISTA 64 screwed my girlfriend while I was sleepy dreaming. Listen, this kind of banter is just absolute garbage. I'd be willing to bet if you install VISTA 64 you would find only the ancient hardware or software you use would not be compatible. I have used VISTA BETA 1, VISTA 32 since the week it came out and VISTA 64 for many months. I ran VISTA BETA 1 on a ATHLON 3200 2.2 with a 2 x 512 Kingston Value RAM and an ATI Radeon 9200. I was online flying around the net in no time. On VISTA 64 an ancient Brother MFC-8300 Printer with no XP drivers ever released, only WIN 98 would not work on VISTA 64...worked fine on VISTA 32. And one application I own Pinnacle Studio 9 will not work with VISTA, requires Pinnacle 11.

So when I see these techno potato heads stating VISTA 64 is a no no, I pretty much laugh and hang my head in disgust at their comments. I currently have 14 systems I have built up and running. From a Pentium III Intel 450MHz to a Pentium 4 2.5 MHz with an MX400 to a AMD FX55 with SLI 7600GTs to and AMD 4800X2 to an AMD 3700 754 to a dual boot C2D 965 e6600 to 965 Q6000 to my current X38 e8400. All these machines are running perfectly. I update them, troubleshoot them, etc. I use XP and VISTA 32 and 64. I have found the machine in my signature is by far the machine I have gotten the most pleasure out of. It is the fastest, most efficient machine I have ever built. I can copy a DVD with DVD shrink from start to finish in I suppose about 10 minutes or so. You won't have any problems with VISTA 64. For my personal use I would never build an XP machine again.

^Agreed. I would go to Vista completely when all my software is compatible or when I upgrade the incompatible software. Untill then I'll Tri Boot. (XP/Vista/Linux)

badge and Shadow703793, thanks for the input. the only thing i know i need is a new tv card(bummer) and a new nero since 6 is not vista ready. More then anything i just want to be able to address more ram and have super fetch....since it sounds useful for me....

Nero 7 works fine on VISTA 64. Look around the DVD burners on Newegglike this on and Nero 7 comes in the package.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827135156

Deepburner free also works fine on VISTA 64.

http://www.deepburner.com/?r=download

Like I mentioned, I have used VISTA since BETA 1. A couple of important tips, although simple I believe it would get you off on the right foot with VISTA:

1. Disable UAC. In Contol Panel under User Accounts. The very first thing you should is disable UAC to stop the continual pop up associated with this security feature.

2. As a new user, I highly recommend doing this especially when trying to familiarize yourself with the new VISTA OS. Use the CLASSIC MENU wherever you can. As soon as you disable UAC and restart the system, right click on the bottom desktop toolbar. Select properties, then START MENU tab and select CLASSIC VIEW. This allows the START MENU to be familiar in the way XP Start menu works. Also in Control Panel and anywhere on the system you can select 'Classic menu'. Then you can set up your machine easily painlessly withh the 'classic' menus interface. Highly recommend doing this at first Easy setup and painless crossover to VISTA!!! HTH.