Windows XP to get a significant performance boost with SP3?
By Nilay Patel 
posted November 27th 2007 3:54AM
posted November 27th 2007 3:54AM
We're always a little wary of unconfirmed speed reports derived from beta software -- especially when no build number is given -- but a Florida shop called Devil Mountain Systems is claiming that Windows XP SP3 will offer a 10 percent speed increase over SP2, going so far as to call it a "must-have update." On the flip side of the coin, it looks like Vista SP1 won't offer much in the way of noticeable fixes, and certainly won't speed things up. Of course, it's not at all unexpected that the finely-tuned XP would run faster than the relatively new Vista, but analysts are having a field day, with Forrester's Benjamin Gray saying "Vista's biggest competition isn't Apple or Novell or Red Hat; it's Microsoft itself, it's XP." That seems a little hysterical to us, actually -- Microsoft deserves major props for continuing to improve XP even as it tries to speed up the transition to Vista, even if that means cannibalizing some sales. That said, let's try to get a little speed out of SP2, mkay?
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you here, but seriously, telling the opposite story from one article to the next in order to be sensationalizing is poor journalism.
If you read the article at the read link, Devil Mountain also claims Vista SP1 is a "performance dud" -- which, like the impressions in the previously-linked post, is their subjective opinion. Until everything is released and in hand, however, that's all we have to work on. We'll see when we see -- my impression was that the overall speed improvements listed for Vista SP1 seem rather minor. I could very well be wrong.
If you read some of the comments from readers who did 5 minutes of research on their own, you'll find this Devil Mountain gang of incompetence performed the benchmark one time on one computer. (Which really discredits this whole article, but that's another story.)
"[M]y impression was that the overall speed improvements listed for Vista SP1 seem rather minor."
Now you've come full circle. First you claim SP1 has speed increases, then you claim it doesn't, and now you're back to admitting that it does after all but poopooing it by saying "Well, okay, it does, but they're only minor improvements, so it really doesn't count."
Admitting your mistake and apologizing for this back-and-forth petty argument would be the professional thing to do at this point.
@Mark
If your panties were bunched up any tighter they would suck in light energy.
"the finely-tuned XP"
Stop it. My sides are hurting from laughing.
Anyone here actually bother to look at the benchmark in question?
I'm so glad these guys don't review hardware.
1 BENCHMARK + 1 CONFIGURATION + 1GB RAM = 1 BIASED PIECE OF "NEWS".
Checks in the mail, Engadget.
linux users don't get why xp speeds up faster when it is injected w/vista stuff
Exaclty what "Vista stuff" is being "injected" into XP via SP3?
Yeah, and here I thought Vista added MORE overhead and slowed things down... strange.
linux users dont understand why anyone would want a graphical user interface, games, or working office suites... (yes, i know, linux CAN have these but...) they just want to screw around with their configuration to see if they can install ubuntu, alpaca, or fitshaced on a mobile phone.
I have SP3 running on my laptop now for one week. I notice little difference. My shutdown seems to be a little fast but thats all i have noticed.
I'm guessing no one actually read the link through...
All the performance gains are measured by actions and scripts run in MS office suite...
Based on the article this can have as little impact as just better integration between any MS product and marginal at best for 3rd party. Or they could have made actual changes to the OS that may have some benefit to 3rd party as well, but that’s not mentioned in the read at all.
I guess they realize that even though it is all NT now, business users will skip Vista, making ALL versions of Vista "Home". So they do some real tweaks instead of making it just a "super update rollup".
My position with Vista after giving it a good 8 months is that the performance hit was unforgivable. XP on the same box was significantly faster.
Had some very minor instability due to early drivers, but no big deal, was a new machine with an intel board though, so I might have had a better experience than most. Still felt like the most bloated thing I had ever used.
The funny thing is that absolutely the only reason to upgrade to Vista would be the eventual dropping of support for XP. If apple wants to take this ball and run with it, good on them. Hell, I would push the office to Macs if there was a messaging system that worked like exchange that was all mac. Apple could scoop that one up too as Exchange 2007 is awful (I just wasted two days on it, and ended up rolling back to 2003)
I'll tell you one thing, after seeing Vista and Exchange 2007, they are going to have to really bring the "Wow" if they want me to even think about Windows Server 2008.
I installed sp3 and I havent noticed a thing. There a reg hack that will allow anyone to install sp3. What we need is a vista theme for xp. :)
Vista will be widely accepted in about two years for one very important reasons: 4GB RAM.
XP 64 is a piece of junk, has almost no drivers, and little support. Vista 64 works better than Vista 32 does, is getting all the current driver attention and at least on my machine hasn't crashed yet.
FLAWED TESTING
FLAWED TESTING
FLAWED TESTING
The benchmarks for Vista were run on a system with 1GB of RAM. Vista's minimum is 2GB of RAM to run smoothly. XP needs only 1. Say what you want about those requirements, but the testing was not done on a level playing field (giving each OS the optimal platform to run on).
Engadget needs to read the details of these things before propagating false data and adding to the echo chamber.
I don't see why anyone is making such a big stink about Vista running poorly on a system with 1gb of RAM. Obviously this was not a level playing field.
When XP came out, what was the minimum RAM requirement, like 256? and 512 "recommended"?
The minimum is the ABSOLUTE minimum that you should even try to run an OS on. The "recommended" amount is more like a real-world minimum.
I ran Vista Beta2, RC1, and RC2 on my current computer (AMD64 4000+, 1gb of ram) and it ran fine. The only annoying "feature" was UAC, and the fact that I had to manually install drivers for my Atheros-based off-brand WiFi PCI card.
I think M$ made a mistake in letting people think that Vista could be effectively and enjoyably run on an old system, or a new budget system. XP should have been continued to be offered as the OS of choice for the budget systems, and Vista be touted as the high-end system.
Apple has been able to avoid this OS ecosystem split by only briefly supporting "universal" (PowerPC + Intel x86/64) support, and now all their software (I Think...) is 64-bit.
Microsoft, however, continues to create "bloated" operating systems that have driver and device support for decade-old hardware. Even with some drop-off in support, there is a lot of code in Vista to offer legacy computability. Only by starting from scratch with their next OS will they be able to effectively improve performance significantly without requiring ridiculous hardware.
Summary:
Quit complaining about Vista sucking on your crappy computer. But if you have a new laptop with Vista and it still sucks....well I don't know, complain to Microsoft or something.
Microsoft wants to force Vista on new purchases by fazing out XP in a one year time frame... while introducing windows home server... I'm confused?
last time I checked Microsoft isn't responsible for supporting old hardware? {maybe the MS peripherals}.
Microsoft Didn't care if Vista ran good or not, you buy a copy for your old machine, found out your old machine was old, and go out and buy a new compy for Vista: Bang! they sold you twice! {with that new EULA}.
oh and still no boot manager?
As much as i love XP, these guys are on crack.
http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/xp_sp3.asp
Also how does testing Vista with 2GB of RAM vs 1GB like in XP skew the results. If anything, it shows how much better XP is.