Windows XP SP3 is fast, Vista SP1 not so much

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Beta

Windows XP SP3 is fast, Vista SP1 not so much

by Brad Linder Nov 26th 2007

You may not be able to download Windows XP Service Pack 3 yet without resorting to risky registry hacks, but software developers at Devil Mountain Software took a beta of the upcoming service pack for a spin, and they like what they saw.

In a nutshell, Devil Mountain reports that they saw a 10 percent performance boost over Windows XP SP2. Microsoft has said SP3's primary purpose is to provide enhanced security and bug fixes. So the speed boost is a bit of an unexpected cherry on top.

Devil Mountain has also been putting Windows Vista SP1 through the paces, and while the software update does improve hardware compatibility and reliability, users running SP1 will not notice any performance boost.

On the bright side, the Vista update doesn't seem to slow Vista down any. But Devil Mountain reports that Vista is about 2 times slower than XP according to the company's benchmarking tests.

Tags: sp3, vista-sp1, windows-vista, windows-xp, windows-xp-sp3, xp-sp3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rawker said 6:36PM on 11-26-2007

They dont say what type of vista they are running, or if they are running areo glass, or any of the features that vista has that xp is without. If you want to judge speed this way run dos, and see you will see everything run faster.I personally love vista, i have it configured to work great, and it is way more stable than xp. You just got to turn off the crap you dont need, like indexing, the aero glass and sidebar, all these do is suck up resources.

Peter said 10:38PM on 11-26-2007

If you take away the indexing (and desktop search), Areo glass and all its effects and the sidebar, what's the point of running Vista? All you've got there is XP with IE7 and UAC.

There is no doubt that Vista is going to run slower than XP on an equivalent system, but as hardware performance increases the difference will be less and less.

Mark said 6:43PM on 11-26-2007

Would you guys at least check the reliability of your sources? Some random site says that Vista's about twice as slow as XP... Guess what? Anandtech diagrees. And they cold number to back that up: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=18
So does Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page4.html . I smell FUD.

Brad Linder said 6:51PM on 11-26-2007

I've been using Windows Vista for about six months on my laptop. This weekend I went and threw XP on a separate partition, and it's amazing how much faster everything runs. I haven't done any benchmarking yet, but I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say that if you don't have a blazing fast system, XP does seem to outperform Vista on most day to day tasks. If you've got a dedicated video card, 4GB of RAM, and so forth.

Oh yeah, and that Tom's Hardware article you linked to concludes that Vista is slower than XP. Did you read to the end of the article?

Mark said 7:07PM on 11-26-2007

I don't have a blazing fast system - Core 2 Duo e6300, no overclock, 2 gigs 667 mhz ram, ATi Radeon x300 SE video card, and XP will outperform Vista (by like 5%) in benchmarks, recoding, most OpenGL games and some directX games.
What I take issue with is that the article states that Vista was about 2 times slower than XP. The worst that Vista fared was -32% (specview results were heavily decreased because of compatibility issues with Vista that have since been fixed). On average the decrease was under 5% and very very very few programs ran more than 10% slower. Any of these are a far cry from twice as slow.

Abid said 9:31AM on 11-27-2007

pls down load

Web 2.0 Sucks said 9:45AM on 11-27-2007

1 BENCHMARK + 1 CONFIGURATION + 1GB RAM = 1 BIASED PIECE OF "NEWS".

and since when does a service pack make things *faster*? Is that kinda like putting a flame sticker on a civic for extra horsepower? Too bad windows isn't open source as I'd really like to know how 10 to pull percent more CPU clock cycles completely out of my ass.

Todd Henkel said 8:40PM on 11-27-2007

Explain why I need to upgrade to XP... or Vista?

Running W2K on my family PC's. Only thing I see is that I don't have all the latest "fun" features. Or latest DRM.

I had XP Home but am no longer using it. Only thing I miss is the visual login identities for the 6 people in my family. But with W2K Pro I get so much more than XP Home. And again Vista in any of the many flavors.

What I am missing here?

james 42 said 9:31PM on 11-27-2007

You're missing two things:
1. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer
2. GUI designed by PlaySchool

Um, yeah, that's about it.

Oh, and Product Activation, though I guess you could consider that DRM.

Emceay said 7:31PM on 11-29-2007

Aren't some games Vista only? Y'know.. the one's that are out on 360 anyway?

Todd Henkel said 8:54PM on 11-29-2007

Games won't be enough to make me update to Vista. Maybe if my kid's complain enough in a few years when they can't get the latest hit to run in the house though! That's the same reason I haven't pushed Linux into anything but one box that I play with once in a while.

So you have me there. Eventually game manufacturers will drop W2K and I will be forced by the kids...

Frank said 9:44PM on 12-26-2007

If it ain't broke don't fix it. XP was fine and office 03 (BFD -- meant my office 97 disks were obsolete). Vista now forces me into Office 2007 (cynical MS), when 03 was doing fine. Now I ask for XP on my new machines and Best Buy tells me they can't do it because of architechture, etc. So I mail ordered another HP with XP because one of my projects requires me to interface using XP and the USG system does not allow Vista.
Add to that the BS screens I have to close when starting up VISTA. No, I don't need help with this feature, no I don't want that, I just want to go to Word or do some on-line trading. Sorry gang, but Vista is a viirtual curse that came with one of my new computers.
Bill Gates, I want my XP! I don't want to relearn menus, toolbars, or other OS features. XP was fine -- it's enough to make me say "Apple."

Luis Javier said 10:42AM on 1-06-2008

como bajo a mi computadora el windows xp service pack 3

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