It really depends. I don't know how your able to notice a 1-5% difference in performance but I will tell you that on the three computers I now have it running on I have noticed an improvement.
Maybe it's because I am an MCSE/MCSA and I have a leg up on configurations or something else but it does run faster for me. In reality it all depends on the box you’re running it on, but the one thing I like the most is I am now able to use the 4GB of ram installed, versus XP only being able to utilize 2GB. That in itself is pretty important for the multiple, memory intensive applications I run.
To give you an idea, here are the systems I run that have a better overall performance running Vista Ultimate:
System 1:
.Intel Dual Core 3.2Ghz Processor
.4GB Ram @ 667Mhz DDR2
.4 500GB SATA 10k RPM drives
.2 NVidia 7900GTX TOP cards (512MB VRam) in SLI config.
System 2:
.2 Intel Dual Core Xeon Processors/SuperMicro motherboard
.6GB ECC RAM
.2 146GB 15k rpm SCSI Drives
.2 73GB 15k rpm SCSI Drives
.1 NVidia 7900GTX 512MB VRam
* Obviously the systems I run are higher performance machines and anything will run well on them, but Vista Ultimate improved system performance per benchmark software.
Now, I have an AMD Compaq laptop that is about 2 years old, and since installing Vista Ultimate, I have noticed a little degradation in performance. Reason is it only has 512MB Ram and a 64MB Video card. In this situation it is obvious there will be less performance.
