Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2 performance

You probably know that Microsoft has SP1 in the works for Vista and what many people are hoping for is improved performance. My understanding from the testing that Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet has done is SP1 has improved performance in Vista SP1 but when compared to XP SP2 well XP is still the winner. XP was the winner in 11 of 15 tests and 2 other tests where a tie with Vista SP1 only winning 2 of the 15 tests. So here are my recommendations -

1. If you have an older PC (2.5 Ghz or slower with less than 1GB memory) running Windows XP don't even think about upgrading to Vista.
   
2. If your going to Vista get SP1.
   
3. If you have a newer PC or are buying a new PC get a minimum of 1GB of memory 2GB is preferable for Vista.
4. If your big on running games on your system make sure you get current video card drivers there where significant issues with early versions on Vista.
5. If your buying a new PC buy it before June and get Windows XP (after June Windows XP will no longer be available unless Microsoft changes there mind).
6. Wait for Vista SP2 maybe by then Vista performance will be on par with XP.

Following are links to the ZDNet articles and benchmarks on Vista and XP performance. Also here is a detailed article from Mark Russinovich at Microsoft giving background on how Vista SP1 file copy performance was improved.

Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2 - Benchmarked by ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes -- Over the past few days I posted two sets of benchmarks comparing Windows Vista RTM with Vista SP1. These posts generated a lot of feedback, and from reading this feedback it's clear that what many people are really interested in is not the performance differences between Vista RTM and Vista SP1, but between Vista SP1 and XP SP2. How does Windows Vista SP1 compare to Windows XP SP2? Read on ...

Vista SP1 - The promised performance gains are there by ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes -- People are very anxious to know whether Windows Vista SP1 brings with it any noticeable performance gains when carrying out day to day tasks. My preliminary results seem to indicate that SP1 offers measurable benefits when carrying out a variety of tasks.