XP SP2 vs. Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1: Gaming benchmark

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDNet.com executed the tests using the AMD Phenom 9700, Radeon 3850 graphics card, 2GB of RAM and ATi Catalyst drivers 8.2.

The three games which performed better on Vista than on XP SP2 were Call of Duty 4, F.E.A.R. and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Vista gave The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion the best performance boost compared to XP SP2, working out at an average of 9 frames per second faster on Vista RTM and 13 frames per second faster on Vista SP1.

Seven out of ten of the games tested produced frame rate averages which were lower under Vista than XP SP2, however, a closer look at the numbers shows that when Vista is slower than XP SP2, the actual frame rate differences are only in the single digits.

Here are the results: average frame rates for each game on each platform

CoD4
XP SP2: 56 fps | Vista RTM: 58 fps | Vista SP1: 62 fps

Fear
XP SP2: 70 fps | Vista RTM: 71 fps | Vista SP1: 71 fps

Oblivion
XP SP2: 56 fps | Vista RTM: 67 fps | Vista SP1: 69 fps

Bioshock (DX9)
XP SP2: 50 fps | Vista RTM: 46 fps | Vista SP1: 47 fps

CoH
XP SP2: 30 fps | Vista RTM: 28 fps | Vista SP1: 28 fps

Crysis
XP SP2: 27 fps | Vista RTM: 24 fps | Vista SP1: 23 fps

Doom3
XP SP2: 157 fps | Vista RTM: 138 fps | Vista SP1: 142 fps

SC
XP SP2: 47 fps | Vista RTM: 44 fps | Vista SP1: 44 fps

UT3
XP SP2: 68 fps | Vista RTM: 64 fps | Vista SP1: 65 fps

WiC
XP SP2: 24 fps | Vista RTM: 22 fps | Vista SP1: 22 fps