If you’re a subscriber, check out the Vista: Not Slow article in the News & Trends section of the latest issue of PC World.

In summary, the article concludes:

• Overall, Vista is 5-25% slower. It’s especially bad with integrated graphics, so get yourself a separate graphics card.
• Having a dual-core processor helps Vista catch up or even pass Windows XP for multitasked programs, because Vista is optimized for multitasking.
• Aero doesn’t slow things down. Yey.
• You should have at least 1GB of RAM. True, though Vista does fine with less memory, in my experience. Upgrading to 2GB improved Photoshop performance 5-20% but didn’t help with most tasks. In my experience, for desktop use when running many applications (like I do), 2GB is a MUST.
• Everything is slower on 64-bit Vista than 32-bit Vista. Their tests showed 64-bit as 0-25% slower, probably averaging around 10% slower. Should I say I told you so?
• ReadyBoost slightly hurt performance. They admit that the test scenarios might not be well suited to it. My tests showed ReadyBoost can help A LOT, or not at all, depending on your hardware.

My summary:

• If you have a single-core processor with integrated graphics and less than 1GB of RAM, Vista will be a little more sluggish than Windows XP, at least with current drivers.
• If you have a dual-core processor and a separate graphics card, you probably won’t notice any performance difference.
• Wait six months and test Vista performance again. I bet Vista will win once driver developers optimize their code a little better.

PC World tested several computers, including:

• 1.8-GHz Sempron 3400+ desktop PC from Dell with integrated GeForce 6150 LE graphics
• 3-GHz Pentium 4 desktop from ABS using an ATI Radeon 9600 ProE card
• 2.2-GHz Athlon 64 X24200+ PC from Polywell equipped with a GeForce 7600GS card
• Micro Express system with a 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 and Radeon X1600 graphics
• HP laptop with 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 Processor and GeForce Go 7600 graphics