Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 21:17 UTC, submitted by Research Staff
Benchmarks "After a disappointing showing by Windows Vista SP1, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (v.3244) delivers a measurable performance boost to this aging desktop OS. Testing with OfficeBench showed a ~10% performance boost vs. the same configuration running under Windows XP with Service Pack 2."
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wow..
by helf (2.8) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 21:42 UTC
helf
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2005-07-06
Fans: 11

I actually was not expecting this at all. Can't wait till it goes gold. I don't plan on upgrading to Vista (can't on most of my machines, yay! ;) ) since XP works well enough.

XP support must be extended
by dmrio (2.24) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 21:45 UTC
dmrio
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2005-08-26
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Now no one that haven't upgraded yet will upgrade.

RE: XP support must be extended
by MollyC (3.36) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 23:44 UTC in reply to "XP support must be extended"
MollyC Member since:
2006-07-04
Fans: 36

XP's "mainstream support" is scheduled to end 4/14/2009, and its "extended support" is scheduled to end 4/08/2014.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&C2=1173&x=...

The definitions of "mainstream" and "extended" support are given here:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/

If I read that correctly, "extended" support services aren't free except for security updates. Even so, 7+ year mainstream support and 12+ year extended support for a particular OS would is very long (maybe the longest in history for a desktop OS).

As for XP SP3, I'd read that it was simply the accumulation of all of the previously released security updates and bug fixes that had have been available via Windows Update. Am I to assume from this article that this was that false?

Edited 2007-11-23 23:45

RE[2]: XP support must be extended
by kaiwai (2.32) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 03:41 UTC in reply to "RE: XP support must be extended"
kaiwai Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 19

As for XP SP3, I'd read that it was simply the accumulation of all of the previously released security updates and bug fixes that had have been available via Windows Update. Am I to assume from this article that this was that false?


Service packs are more than just accumulated fixes, it also includes 'premium fixes' which enterprise customers pay for. Lets say I have a problem, its very unique, I ring up and under my super-duper support plan which costs an arm and a leg, Microsoft will get a guy to resolve it - then issue a patch for it.

Sun has the same thing; its like saying the quartly update is merely a 'culmination of updates' when in reality, it is a culmination of public updates, premium customer upates and upgrades of some components.

Back on topic, I think the issue that is raise; how come, in a 5 year old operating system, they can still squeeze out performance improvements when compared to Windows Vista which you'd think, should have heaps of room to improve the speed.

When 10.5.1 came out, boot times decreased, some things felt snappier. I loaded up Fedora 8 and compared to Fedora 7, it was snappier on the same hardware. Windows XP SP3 has now been 'benchmarked' to being snappier. Why is Windows Vista the 'odd one out'?

RE[3]: XP support must be extended
by MollyC (3.36) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 04:13 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: XP support must be extended"
MollyC Member since:
2006-07-04
Fans: 36

"When 10.5.1 came out, boot times decreased, some things felt snappier. I loaded up Fedora 8 and compared to Fedora 7, it was snappier on the same hardware. Windows XP SP3 has now been 'benchmarked' to being snappier. Why is Windows Vista the 'odd one out'?"

It sounds like you have an answer in mind. Care to tell us?

I think the answer is that Vista has a much higher percentage of new code than is the case in the examples you gave. Now, the change from XP to Vista is not nearly as drastic as the change from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, but even so, it should be noted that the latter transition did result in an OS that was much slower relative to its predecessor than Vista is relative to its predecessor. The reason OSX 10.0 was so slow was that all of that new code hadn't been optimized yet. The OSX releases since have added features, but also tweaked the existing code, so optimizations have been added over the years, which why it gets faster over time (yet Apple doesn't allow 10.5 to be installed on lower-end PPC macs, so it's questionable whether 10.5 is "fast" on such computers, and I do know that many did find 10.4 to be slower than 10.3).

Same for XP SP3 (according to what you've posted), SP3 contains performance increases that have been added over the years (for enterprise customers), which might result in XP SP3 being faster than XP SP2 and before.

Vista's been out less than a year, so it hasn't had time for lots of optimizations to be added to the code base. Yet its Windows Updates have already made it faster than it was when it was released. Let Vista get a chance to add performance enhancements over the next few years like OSX and XP have had.

So that's my answer - Vista has lots of new code that hasn't had years and years to be optimized yet.


Now, I realize that the answer offered by many Microsoft bashers is either that DRM is run all over the place (our own PlatformAgnostic, who now works at Microsoft on the Windows Kernel Test Team says that's bull), or simply that Microsoft programmers are incompetent (which I find laughable; their programmers come from the same universities as does Apple, Red Hat, etc).

But I am curious as to what reason you would offer as to "Why is Windows Vista the 'odd one out'?" I gather from the tone of your post that you have an answer in mind.

Edited 2007-11-24 04:28

RE[4]: XP support must be extended
by Luposian (1.36) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 06:25 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: XP support must be extended"
Luposian Member since:
2005-07-27
Fans: 4

"So that's my answer - Vista has lots of new code that hasn't had years and years to be optimized yet."

It's just been *5 years* in the making, that's all... *HARDLY* enough time to actually OPTIMIZE anything, before shipping it to Microsoft's adoring public!

Seriously, you'd think with ALL the money Bill Gates/Microsoft has, they could put out a decent sequel to XP, not only in LESS time than 5 yrs., but also something that runs BETTER than XP, not worse!

Apparently the only thing Microsoft is good at is copying looks, not performance. :-)

Apple knows what they're doing and where they're going. Is it any wonder why Microsoft's motto was:

"Where do you want to go today?"

Because they never knew where THEY were going, so they were hoping someone else did and they'd simply hitch a free ride!

Obviously, they can't even do THAT right! :-)

RE[4]: XP support must be extended
by SlackerJack (5.12) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 12:09 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: XP support must be extended"
SlackerJack Member since:
2005-11-12
Fans: 3

Your use of "So that's my answer - Vista has lots of new code that hasn't had years and years to be optimized yet.
" is wrong. If you install XP without Service packs and updates it's at it's fastest and the only thing that has got better is security and less bugs.

Microsoft dont give a crap about users but they love their business buddies to make office apps faster in Service Packs. Vista needed new code badly regardless and this is what you get when you dont update your OS so frequently. On OS X they dont need to overhaul the OS like Vista because it was not left to rot in the first place.

Very nice :)
by WereCatf (3.92) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 21:53 UTC
WereCatf
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2006-02-15
Fans: 7

I am mostly a Linux geek but I still do use Win XP for gaming. Still, I'm glad for all those users who use Win XP as their main OS. It's always good news for everyone if Win XP gets better. As for Vista.. Well, I can't say I personally know anyone who'd think Vista is better than XP ;)

RE: Very nice :)
by google_ninja (2.48) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 23:26 UTC in reply to "Very nice :)"
google_ninja Member since:
2006-02-05
Fans: 13

Vista is the first version of windows I don't find to be a raging pile.

But thats just me, and I'm willing to admit I got a non-standard experience.

Shooting themselves in the foot?
by virman (12) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 21:54 UTC
virman
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2007-11-23
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One can't help but wonder if it benefits Microsoft to give consumers yet another reason to stick with XP?

RE: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by Almafeta (3.44) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 22:00 UTC in reply to "Shooting themselves in the foot?"
Almafeta Member since:
2007-02-22
Fans: 5

One can't help but wonder if it benefits Microsoft to give consumers yet another reason to stick with XP?


Speaking from experience, XP 10% faster than normal still isn't enough to catch up with Vista's speed.

virman Member since:
2007-11-23
Fans: 0

Speaking from experience, XP 10% faster than normal still isn't enough to catch up with Vista's speed.

I don't think dreams qualify as experience.

Almafeta Member since:
2007-02-22
Fans: 5

I don't think dreams qualify as experience.


And I don't think bloggers qualify as "Research staff."

There, we're even.

RE[4]: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by nxsty (5.12) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 16:42 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Shooting themselves in the foot?"
nxsty Member since:
2005-11-12
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linumax Member since:
2007-02-07
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"I don't think dreams qualify as experience."

They do, depending on who you are...
One's experience:
http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/5367/gellert.jpg

Could quite easily be another one's dream:
http://www.hobotraveler.com/uploaded_images/207-91-african-beads-74...

Almafeta had a good experience with Vista, which might be a dream to many.

Almafeta's post was initially voted down, now, it was not offtopic, nothing implied personal attacks or offensive language and it definitely did not include spam/advertisement. I would really love to know what was the reason.

Now mod me as offtopic (probably rightfully) ;)

google_ninja Member since:
2006-02-05
Fans: 13

Its funny, I had to install XP on my laptop a little while ago. I found XP booted about twice as fast (~30sec vs ~1min), BUT for whatever reason, it took another 30 seconds or so until I was able to connect to the internet. With vista, it connects to my wireless pretty much by the time I see the desktop.

lemur2 Member since:
2007-02-17
Fans: 4

I found XP booted about twice as fast (~30sec vs ~1min), BUT for whatever reason, it took another 30 seconds or so until I was able to connect to the internet.


XP displays the desktop well before it has finished actually booting. It won't be for some time after the desktop appears that you can actually do anything useful.

This is done so that in "boot performance" tests XP would get a better mark than it actually has if you catch the meaning.

I don't know what the story is with Vista in this regard.

Mind you ... even KDE shows a desktop a few seconds before all of the desktop services have finished starting up, so XP is by no means unique here.

Edited 2007-11-26 04:27

RE[2]: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by Valhalla (3.28) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 03:09 UTC in reply to "RE: Shooting themselves in the foot?"
Valhalla Member since:
2006-01-24
Fans: 3

Almafeta wrote:
-"Speaking from experience, XP 10% faster than normal still isn't enough to catch up with Vista's speed."

in what areas does Vista performance exceed XP? the benchmarks I've seen have all points to the reverse, starting with the one I read from tomshardware almost a year ago: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/

so I'm wondering have you actually measured anything or is this just your 'experience' talking? personally I'll take a tech blog which provides data and the actual benchmark program used to gather that data up for scrutiny, over someone who quotes nothing but their subjective 'experience'.

back on the subject, the measured ~10% boost applies to a very specific test concerning some very specific windows technologies. I very much doubt we'll be seeing anything near an overall ~10% speed boost from xpsp3, I sure as hell wouldn't mind being wrong though ;)

RE[3]: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by simo (1.56) on Sun 25th Nov 2007 10:50 UTC in reply to "RE: Shooting themselves in the foot?"
simo Member since:
2006-01-09
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do you mean vista on that new 3gb quad core machine you've had to buy is faster than xp on your "old" pentium4, yeah as that's a fair comparison.

i've not come across a single fan of vista out of all the people i know who have bought a pc with it on recently - some have switched to linux, others have acquired xp, one even sent his vaio back and got a mac - they'd all laugh if you said vista was faster.

Edited 2007-11-25 10:51

WereCatf Member since:
2006-02-15
Fans: 7

My ex gf too bought a new computer with Vista preloaded. She was impressed that it looked so good. But then after playing around with it for a few hours I got a phone call from her: "I want XP!" Why? Because it was so darn slow, even compared to her OLD machine! She even said that installing Sims 2 took an hour :O Anyway, I guided her through installing XP and after all was finished she was more than happy. She did say that now it feels like a new machine ;)

RE[2]: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by lemur2 (3.32) on Mon 26th Nov 2007 03:59 UTC in reply to "RE: Shooting themselves in the foot?"
lemur2 Member since:
2007-02-17
Fans: 4

Speaking from experience, XP 10% faster than normal still isn't enough to catch up with Vista's speed.


Microsoft Windows XP SP3 - Twice as fast as Vista SP1?
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/11/25/microsoft-windo...

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB...
According to the Office performance benchmarks, Windows XP SP3 is also considerably faster than Vista SP1.


Other people are honestly having a somewhat different Windows experience than you, Almafeta.

RE: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by whittmadden (3.12) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 22:19 UTC in reply to "Shooting themselves in the foot?"
whittmadden Member since:
2007-10-08
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Well if they keep getting so many bad reviews of Vista, they do what they can to keep you from switching to OSX or linux. A person using XP SP3 is much better than something switching to linux or OSX in their opinion. They are still keeping their userbase.

RE[2]: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by cmost (4.32) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 23:18 UTC in reply to "RE: Shooting themselves in the foot?"
cmost Member since:
2006-07-16
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"Well if they keep getting so many bad reviews of Vista, they do what they can to keep you from switching to OSX or linux. A person using XP SP3 is much better than something switching to linux or OSX in their opinion. They are still keeping their userbase."

You're assuming that Microsoft plays by the rules. Upon hearing the news of XP SP-3's performance gains over XP SP-2, Microsoft will likely issue orders to its engineers to "cripple" the service pack in such a way that it either breaks a key XP feature (or compatibility with some key software, etc.) That might force those users smart enough to stick with XP to make the jump to Vista just to regain the lost functionality or overcome the loss of performance, or else stick with SP-2, which is getting long in the tooth. This sort of nonsense has already been done by Microsoft. Cases in point: Microsoft purposely kept IE7 from Windows 2000 users (even though the beta worked fine on that platform) and it has kept Direct X 10 from XP users. Microsoft has lost their edge with Vista and lets hope they continue to slide into obsolescence.

Nossie Member since:
2007-07-31
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I like a good conspiracy like the next tin foilhat wearer but I dont think it would be in Microsofts interests to make a platform even worse than it already is.

I agree they have pulled some pretty dodgy stuff even just making a game Vista DX10 only when with a few hacks it runs fine on DX9 on XP ... but I think the last thing MS wants (especially with all this attention on them) is even more bad publicity.

Expect more features to be Vista only... but they have already ported a lot of Vista back to XP that was never intended.

RE[2]: Shooting themselves in the foot?
by cg0def (2.12) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 13:20 UTC in reply to "Shooting themselves in the foot?"
cg0def Member since:
2006-02-12
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"One can't help but wonder if it benefits Microsoft to give consumers yet another reason to stick with XP?"

Well it's not regular users that SP3 is targeting. Regular users don't really have a choice since Vista has been the default version for the last year. SP3 is targeted at all those corporations that are still refusing to buy into the FUD that Vista is better ( and there are quite a few of them out there ). Those are companies that know very well that switching the OS to a new version that hardly provides any real benefits ( other than better media experience and DirectX 10 ) would cost them a significant amount of money it training and support. Plus those are the customers that MS really makes it's money from. If you try to buy a business computer from any major VAR you will see that XP is still an option. However this is not the case with the consumer devices. And as far as corporations are concerned MS's image right now is pretty low. Besides ME, there hasn't been another version of Windows that offered so little for the business users and yet was not a service pack ... Oh and before you start arguing that there are better management tools in Vista consider that fact that there isn't a single decent size IT department that doesn't have 3rd party tools with similar ( if not better ) functionality.

So SP3 does make perfect sense even if you look at it only from the marketing perspective. MS needs to convince big business that they are serious about supporting their products.

But...
by whittmadden (3.12) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 22:10 UTC
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2007-10-08
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Will this create another Service Pack implementation headache, like the SP 2 did? Also was the comment at the end of this article completely necessary? Windows Vista = Windows ME "Reloaded?" You be the judge! I guess since this is just a blog site, it is acceptable, but the poster of this article seems already biased to me.

RE: But...
by eggs (2.28) on Mon 26th Nov 2007 22:10 UTC in reply to "But..."
eggs Member since:
2006-01-23
Fans: 0

Yeah... has everyone forgotten what Windows ME was like? It was literally worse and less stable than Windows 95. I use Vista on 2 computers and it doesn't crash. Its not significantly better than XP although there are some little usability tweaks I like (and some I don't). Overall I like it, but I hated ME (and all the other 9x's).

RE: But...
by Phloptical (3.52) on Tue 27th Nov 2007 23:51 UTC in reply to "But..."
Phloptical Member since:
2006-10-10
Fans: 1

Windows Vista = Windows ME "Reloaded"

Analogous because it's a pointless upgrade. Any future MS OS that is released simply for the sake of doing so will be forever compared to Windows ME.

Best OS.
by mkools (2.64) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 22:12 UTC
mkools
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2005-10-11
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I think XP is still the best OS out there and it even gets better. Nothing againts Linux, I use it myself, but XP rocks. You won't see me going to Vista in the next couple of years

v RE: Best OS.
by Matt24 (1.64) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 08:40 UTC in reply to "Best OS."
RE[2]: Best OS.
by Lobotomik (4.4) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 10:20 UTC in reply to "RE: Best OS."
Lobotomik Member since:
2006-01-03
Fans: 1

?????

What's your problem with the Czechs and Skoda? Let me guess, you are living in Arkansas and you're driving the latest Oldsmobile, with a bible and some guns in the trunk, for good measure.

v RE[3]: Best OS.
by Matt24 (1.64) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 12:53 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Best OS."
v RE[4]: Best OS.
by tomcat (2.16) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 19:23 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Best OS."
Same outdated platform
by DonQ (2.12) on Fri 23rd Nov 2007 22:38 UTC
DonQ
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2005-06-29
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Although Vista is usually slower, they should have compare speed on system with 2GB o'ram - Vista struggles with one lonely gigbayte ;)
Looking at DDR2 price there's no reason to buy system with 1GB or less memory. 2GB DDR2 laptop memory for 45 euros...

About XP update - nice, but I don't think it will work 10% faster on my PC, optimized for XP speed anyway ;) Let's wait.

@WereCatf
I know people, liking Vista much more than XP - my daughter for example ;) And she's using it without a problem.

re
by netpython (2.44) on Sat 24th Nov 2007 09:50 UTC
netpython
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2005-07-06
Fans: 6

I would like to see how well XP performs at the benchmark without any servicepack installed.

Where's now the so called big bag of salt on the desk?

Edited 2007-11-24 09:51

Any performance boost with proper security is good
by bousozoku (2.8) on Sun 25th Nov 2007 02:42 UTC
bousozoku
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2006-01-23
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If WinXP SP3 actually has fewer security holes than the current SP2 + security updates, that's great. If it has a performance increase of any kind, that's even better.

OfficeBench wouldn't seem to really tell most of us a lot about what we could expect, could it?

As with most things Microsoft, I'm happy to have an update that doesn't leave me worse off than I was prior to applying it. (That goes for Apple, also, but they're somewhat more reliable.)

By the way, to the people who think that Mac OS X is or was slower than Mac OS 9, it wasn't slower overall. GUI responsiveness is the only real place where Mac OS 9 had any advatange. Run 3 or more applications and it's obvious which is faster.

vista not slow?
by pixel8r (2.44) on Mon 26th Nov 2007 02:57 UTC
pixel8r
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2007-08-11
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but have you tried it with 999999 gazillion gigs of RAM?

seriously, give it a break. My linux desktop is likely still quicker than your vista with 2G RAM and my system only has 512MB. At any given time most of that 512MB is just used for a cache. The swap has been written to about 2 or 3 times in the last 6 months. Sure I dont do video editing but even if I did, 1GB would be plenty.

I dont care how cheap RAM is, it still means I have to buy more than I currently have, to run a system that does no more than what I currently have (actually - it does LESS).

But then I dont use winxp much...so it looks like a change from linux to windows is a lot more unlikely than the other way around. ;)