As they've said above... if you have the right hardware, the performance difference between vista and xp for gaming will be slim to none. However, x32 is better for RAM configurations of 4gb and under and x64 for over 4gb. Nice article for you here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/15/vista_workshop/

Hopefully when you get your 4g of ram you don't run into this error. Not everyone does but it's always good to be prepared:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777/en-us

More RAM, More speed. This article should answer your question: http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/15/vista_workshop/

It's 12 pages but it pictures for benchmarks and other info so don't worry.

Oh... didn't take cool n' quiet into consideration. Every board I've seen the option with has it off by default. His processor has 512kb L2 cache though, not 1mb.

You may also want to change your power settings to performance since you're on vista. Clean your drivers completely like he said: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

Maybe I should have compared earlier but... his 3dm06 score doesn't exactly look bad for his setup. If it was a great deal higher, I'd be scaared for my system (Similar set up with AMD and older 8800gts) - http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3dm06fr9.jpg

(ram is 4gb dual channel and sli ready, pc6400 @ 4-4-4-12 2T)

Yea I'm an AMD fanboy too, even though they ain't doin so great right now but... Yea whoever said gaming is gpu based, they need a slap.