The notebook came preinstalled with Vista. I had no issues for the first while but then the system seemed to have an overall drop in performance. To rule out the OS I installed XP on another partition and the results are below. What do you think?

Dell Inspiron 1720
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0Ghz
RAM: 2GB DDR2 667
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT

Windows XP
-1440X900-
3DMark - 5350
GT1 - 23.3
GT2 - 16.9
GT3 - 24.8
CPUMark - 7812
CPU Test 1 - 4.7
CPU Test 2 - 5.8

-1024X768-
3DMark - 6554
GT1 - 28.6
GT2 - 20.8
GT3 - 30.2
CPUMark - 6761
CPU Test 1 - 3.3
CPU Test 2 - 5.9

World of Warcraft
FPS1 (Low) - 58
FPS2 (High) - 60+

Unreal Tournament 3
FPS1 (Low) - 18
FPS2 (High) - 30

Windows Vista
-1440X900-
3DMark - 5090
GT1 - 23
GT2 - 15.6
GT3 - 23.5
CPUMark - 10122
CPU Test 1 - 6.3
CPU Test 2 - 7.2

-1024X768-
3DMark - 6217
GT1 - 28
GT2 - 19.1
GT3 - 28.7
CPUMark - 10166
CPU Test 1 - 6.3
CPU Test 2 - 7.3

World of Warcraft
FPS1 (Low) - 56
FPS2 (High) -60+

Unreal Tournament 3*
FPS1 (Low) - 0
FPS2 (High) - 22
*(In Vista this game Constantly drops to 0 FPS, totaly unplayable)

I prefer performance monitor and special apps from systernals to tell what is wrong. You start with a clean install of OS and your problem application and run a baseline. Then you monitor it over time to see what is going wrong.

You can't compare XP to Vista. There are too many other issues.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

"You can't compare XP to Vista."

Yup!

Gaming comparison between the two OS' has already been beaten to death.

Dont compare. XP is better and fast.
MS changed a lot of things known for several years, changed it name. to easibilty for user!!!!!!!! hahahaha.... Aero is a bad joke.
Be XP.

From Mars...
GusSiglo21

just what i thought. vista has a higher overhead. what i would like to know is if you could cut down vista and gut all the useless tat m$ has decided to burden it with. stuff like the constant indexing of its hard drive. get it to roughly the same level of function then test it and see if then runs faster.

also is that xp 32bit or 64bit beacuse if thats 32 then vista is bogging the system down like a tonne of lead

long live XP

all text needs typos. There there for the reader to find,to distract them from the total lack of content.
google it! wasnt the answer to the question i asked so dont be dense and give me that repl

No Body is forcing anyone to use all the features of Vista. Just turn off the features U don't like and then see if ur getting the expected output or not. I have done the same and have and have no complain against Vista.