Well the latest Vista Beta of SP1 was made available its starting to perform much better. In fact don't take my word for it take a look at Mike's blog.
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikewalker/archive/2007/11/13/vista-sp1-first-impressions.aspx
There are some new items in the build:
- Secure Sockets Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) allows for easier setup of VPN connections due to the way it works with firewalls, NAT devices etc....
- Bitlocker Drive Encryption has been enhanced to support encrypting additional volumes besides the current limitation on the C: volume. It will also support three factor authentication (i.e. TPM + Pin + Dongle)
- Disk Defragmenter has also been improved to give administrators additional control over what and when volumes get defragmented with the scheduler
- Support for Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) booting on x64 based machines
- Support for the ExFAT file format used in flash memory
- Support for SD-Advanced DMA
- Improved network diagnostics
- Performance improvements
