Microsoft XP Still Kicking Vista’s Butt November 29, 2007
Read more Gizmodo UK , Laptops , PC , Software
New tests have revealed that Windows XP, running the beta Service Pack 3, is twice as fast as the new Vista operating system, running Service Pack 1 beta. In other words, the tweaked Vista is more than twice as slow as the operating system (OS) its going to replace. Hell, even without the service pack its still more than twice as slow.
Devil Mountain Software ran typical Officebench tests on both operating systems running on identical systems, namely Dell XPS M1710 test bed with 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM and discrete nVidia GeForce Go 7900GS video. By the way, the lower the seconds on the chart above, the faster it is.
This is just another in a long line of set-backs to Vista, Microsoft’s bloated successor to XP which many users don’t want but are being forced to use. Back in September, customer revolts forced Microsoft to hold off axing XP sales at the end of January 2008, until June.
The testers had this to say about Vista’s new patch:
“With the initial performance characteristics of Windows Vista leaving much to be desired, many IT organisations have put off deploying the new OS until the first service pack (SP1) is released by Microsoft early next year. The thinking goes that SP1 will address all of these early performance issues and somehow bring Windows Vista on par with - or at least closer to - Windows XP in terms of runtime performance.
Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. Extensive testing by the exo.performance.network (www.xpnet.com) research staff shows that SP1 provides no measurable relief to users saddled with sub-par performance under Vista."
So, how’s your Vista running?-Martin Lynch
software technology Microsoft Windows
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
Well i regret buying vista yes very pretty but with general use and perfromance i would love to go back to xp, im running vista home premuim 64x and still dont see a vast improvemen from my xp pro 32x, i just hope tht all the new ram graphics cards ive bought for vista enventually will have some use.
No wonder, vista cant run on 1gb of ram it needs 2. I use 4gb.
Now do the test again both running 4gb or 2gb and see.
What was the spec when xp was released?
Give the xp rig a PIII and 256mb of ram and that would be equal.
Wolfman, you're talking rubbish.
The minimum specification for Vista requires an 800MHz Processor, 512Mb of RAM and a DX9 capable GFX card. The test system above far exceeds that (and is in the realm of recommended spec for the "ultimate" experience)
Similarly, 4GB of RAM would be wasted on this test. 32Bit operating systems can only access approx 3.3GB of it.
Your "like with like" arguement also doesn't hold water. When Vista was released early this year, many people had PC's above the bar of "minimum spec". Their expectation, rightly, is that the new, "better" version of the OS will perform at least as well as the current. Why should Mac OS X Leopard upgraders get a richer user interface (in terms of bling) and get an increase in performance *as well* and not Windows Vista upgraders?
What would be much more interesting to me, however, as a benchmark; would be a comparison between 64bit XP and 64bit Vista to see if Microsoft's intention is to focus on 64bit and that the 32bit version is the afterthought...
meh - OS X is the way forward.. I was a die hard windows fan, got forced into using a mac when starting a new job. Now I've had Mac I've never looked back.
Systems should not be compared just by a single parameter. Vista has a power hungry user interface. Granted, if you don't want it, you can stick with XP. But comparing the two systems and saying one is slower than the other is almost meaningless if you don't consider their differences and features.
I use both and I would say I am happy with both as they are based on their functions. As PC power goes up and vista becomes more compatible, the the choice becomes more clear. These days, speed alone isn't everything. I value productivity a lot more.
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Future Converged
http://www.futureconverged.com
I agree, DOS starts within a few seconds, use that!
I agree with Wolfman. I've used Vista on a rig with 1GB for a while then upgraded to 2GB and the performance was far greater. There are a lot of features and services Vista uses which take a lot of memory which are turned on as standard.
After I went to 2GB of ram I often saw some core processes using a lot more ram and the total usage going to around 1.2GB. Vista may run at minimum at 512MB but it runs bad. With all these extras on top it needs 2GB to run properly without having to limit it's memory usage.
I got screwed by microsoft when they told me windows ME was going to be the best, I then got screwed by the hype of Vista and bought a laptop with it installed.
Next time I upgrade I'll make sure my computer has a fruit on the lid.
I built a tower pc with quad 2.4 , 4gb ram and vista 64 and the system runs great - but for desktop applications it seems ridiculous to expect a minimum of this spec to run power applications. in contrast i have a lenovo x60 tablet with vista. i could hardly run with 1gb ram before topping out - average os use was 750mb ram (!) leaving little for apps. I added a 2gb stick to give 2.5gb ram total - now the OS uses 1.2 gb ram!! Vista just eats ram and cpu for breakfast. what are all these background processes that kick in and sometimes even turn my desktop machine into a slug?! On the plus side, tablet pc handwriting recognition is close to pure magic - even recognises my joined up handwriting! amazing. i was tempted to buy apple...heavily tempted, glad i didnt but i know i will pay for it later :)
Windows 32bit can address 4GB joev, it's just that devices are mapped into the lower memory space, but some BIOS allow you to let the CPU's MMU to handle that.
Not that I ever tried 4GB myself though but I read that people managed to use the full 4GB.
My new laptop hp6599 with latest processor and 2Gb has Vista and the only way to make it usable is to switch off all the fancy rubbish. Vista is pretty at the expense of practicality. Form over function. SO much is changed and more obscure. The new Start button listing is horrid. The icons are now prettier, but i cannot equate many of them to what the program does. The spelling of everything is American not British English - so I have color management in my control panel. Yeuch. How I wish I had bought an XP machine. I am trying to get HP to do me a swap.
yeah theres alot of problems with the system requirements for vista, because unlike EVERY other OS they have decided to right the sys requirements like they would ON A PC GAME, as in you have min requirements and the you have "recommended" and i think you'll find that 2 gb of ram is recommended, again as part of microsoft continued campaign of dishonest marketing they will say this is for the Aero interface only, but its not,
My problems with vista is that it should be hands down better than XP, it should IMO- use less ram, use less hd space and run faster, this would be more "efficient" seems pointless to me to release an OS, thats bulkyer, has ridiculous system requirement, and half the feature dont work.
Not to mention the tried to kill off the unified driver setting the computer hardware industry back about 10 years,
and also please note that Vista 32bit "should" be able to address upto 64gb of ram using virtual addressing, however this feature doesnt work either!!