Windows Vista SP1 Gaming Performance
 

So, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is here and the results kind of speak for themselves. In some scenarios, there are performance improvements, but in others there is actually a performance drop – that’s something we weren’t expecting to see to be honest.

At the very least, we were hoping that Service Pack 1 would build upon the foundations laid by the five hotfixes that helped to fix the vast majority of performance-related problems in games – in some situations though, this sadly doesn’t appear to be the case.

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/03..._performance/1

You know why XP owners aren't talking much aboput performance boosts with SP3? Because they are not desperate to get one.

rather we got spoiled once in Windows 2000 when one of the first SP actually did improve performance.

Since then new SP in 2000 no longer boosted performance, XP SP never did it either, Vista SP don't expect too different now. Bugfixes of things which should have worked the first time around but were not finished or tested enough because the product was launched "before its time". All the interesting Vista features were removed, leaving a fancy OS with lower compatibility and a new slew of problems... pointless.