Gamespot have returned to benchmarking Vista now that the service pack has been released. The conclusion states:

Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 is a step in the right direction. Gaming performance increased in comparison to a fresh installation of Windows Vista. Windows XP SP2 provides better overall performance, and remains the place to go for dual-GPU solutions. Windows Vista is not quite the ideal gaming platform yet, but the new OS is getting close to dethroning Windows XP.

To read the full article go here:
Windows Vista SP1 Gaming Performance Report - Features at GameSpot

On a more personal note I've found that Nvidias latest betas (174.74) are very fast and have got to be the best drivers I've used to date.

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AMD X2 6400+ 3.2GHz BLACK EDITION::GA-M51 M/B::3GB DDR2 6400RAM::GEFORCE 8800GTS320/625/900MHz DRIVER '174.74' BETA::160 RAID 0 SATA2::SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY/'DANIELS' DRIVERS::LITE-ON DVD RW/PIONEER DVD::HIPER 530W MODULAR::THERMALTAKE ARMOUR Jr CASE::RAZER COPPERHEAD MOUSE::VISTA HOME PREMIUM SP1

Hi Kemical

Just got round to looking at the article.
Am I right in thinking that ATI cards seems to perform better than Nividia in these gaming performance tests??????????.

Hi Superbill,

I checked the values closely and the cards used and I can see why you would think that. One card was missing though, the Nvidia 9800 X2, which is similar to the Radeon HD 3870 X2. Even so it's still a close thing with Nvidia just coming out on top. If the 9800 X2 had been included then it would have looked more in Nvidias favour as this card is a ripper.. I like ATI and wish they could release something akin to nvidia but at the moment this is not the case.(although we are talking a very few frames per second between them) Also it's not just how powerful card releases are, driver support is almost as important and again I feel ATI are not as strong as nvidia in this area.

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AMD X2 6400+ 3.2GHz BLACK EDITION::GA-M51 M/B::3GB DDR2 6400RAM::GEFORCE 8800GTS320/625/900MHz DRIVER '174.74' BETA::160 RAID 0 SATA2::SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY/'DANIELS' DRIVERS::LITE-ON DVD RW/PIONEER DVD::HIPER 530W MODULAR::THERMALTAKE ARMOUR Jr CASE::RAZER COPPERHEAD MOUSE::VISTA HOME PREMIUM SP1

I'm wanting a new VC but haven't decided what I wanted yet...Not in a big hurry

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FATBOY

MY Baby....
RAIDMAX Smilodon Dirk-Tooth case
PC Power & Cooling TC1200
ABIT AW9D-MAX W/GC-03 ETA 05/16/2008
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 @ 3.2Ghz
VIGOR GAMING CLT-M2I 92mm
CORSAIR Dominator 4GB
ATI X1950XTX + ATI X1950CF
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800
400Gb, 320Gb SATA Seagte Barracudas
i-rocks e-SATA W/500Gb Seagate
1 Sony/NEC 7191S & 1 Sony/NEC 7190A
Acer AL2216WBD
Logitech G15 Gamer & Mx518
Vista 64bit SP1/ XP Pro SP3 32bit

oh i dont know about dethroning anytime soon especially when microsoft keeps doing dodgey things like delibretly holding back on that directx feature in basic pulling down graphic performance oh if i had a brick