Vista sp1 vs XP sp3

When I am not playing with SQL Server, I play PC games, such as Gears of War and Flight Simulator X, although this happens on my home gaming rig and not the office laptop. My personal PC runs 64 bit Vista, but have I shot my PC in the foot by running my games on Vista instead of XP?

Apparently it makes no difference according to this article from Extreme Tech.  They tested both OS's against industry benchmarks and specific games like Crysis:

To quote the article:

"If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers."

Of course the bigger question is how much longer PC gaming can exist compared to XBox and PS3 which have high definition graphics and cost less than a high end graphics card needed to play modern high end games, but if you're like me you can use Vista for business and home and not lose productivity or performance.

Technorati Tags: Vista sp1,XP sp3,PC Gaming