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Windows XP SP2 vs. SP1 performance comparison
Monday, Oct. 18 2004 | Author: barbuttiShort Media threw 108 performance benchmarks at Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 2. The results:
The test PC equipped with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 was an average of 0.5% faster than the same hardware with Service Pack 2 installed. The percentage difference between faster and slower is insignificantly small. Less than 2 or 3 percent in some benchmarks could be dismissed by most but when gamers are looking to squeeze every extra frame out of their machines…it may count.
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Category: General
Tags: Linking, Reviews, Windows, Windows XP
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26 Responses for "Windows XP SP2 vs. SP1 performance comparison"
October 18th, 2004 at 6:21 pm
1Hmm… how about they do it again, after an average user has used each PC for 3 months… see what the difference is once 3 months worth of spyware has accumulated on the SP1 box, that the SP2 box blocked… I have a suspicion the performance numbers might just tilt in the opposite direction
October 18th, 2004 at 7:21 pm
2I’ve been using Windows XP with no service pack for 3 years and never had a problem with spyware or anything else, but that’s just because I’m not an average user.
I encourage average users that I know on upgrading to Service Pack 2, although that might not save them from all the harmful things that internet offer. My girlfriend is a completely average user and I have to reformat her PC and reinstall Windows every 2 months because of all the spyware, virus and slowness. I always install the newsest service pack and security updates but somehow that just doesn’t seem to work for her. Maybe it is impossible for Windows to be a completely safe operating system for the average user… ( or maybe my girlfriend is the problem :-)
October 18th, 2004 at 11:23 pm
3Do your girl friend a flavour and install Firefox. It is not a geek browser. 1.0 final will be out soon so you may like to keep attention.
October 19th, 2004 at 12:54 am
4I’m not bothereing with SP2 for a while. Never really had problems with SP1, and I’m not really in an adventurous mood.
October 19th, 2004 at 6:42 am
5She started using Firefox a little while ago. The problem is that her PC is kinda old and FF requires more memory than IE.
October 21st, 2004 at 8:57 am
6How about upgrading the girlfriend instead?! :-)
October 21st, 2004 at 9:24 am
7lol
If only I didn’t love her… =)
December 6th, 2004 at 7:02 am
8I have a P4 3.06Ghz on a P4PE ASUS with 1Gb RAM. I installed a new version WXP SP1. I tested it with a banchmarking program (Sandra Lite 2005 and PCBench) and it’s ranked correclty. I intalled SP2 (no others pgm) and the PC has been downgraded as a PIII 700Hz in term of MIPS and FLOAT. I thing that with SP2 some pgm have prolblem in using the virtual CPU. Any help ? by
February 5th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
9in sisoft sandra I got a slight decrease in performance with sp2 installed over sp1.
I formatted, installed SP1, formatted and installed SP2. That was my method for testing.
March 28th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
10Does SP2 support USB 2.0 like SP1 does?? I have a hight speed USB 2.0 PCMCI card hooked up to my pentium III 700Mhz laptop, and when I plugin a USB 2.0 Drive in the Card it still gives me the “HI-SPEED USB device and will function at reduced speed when plugged into a non-HI-SPEED port” error message
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:42 am
11you guys suck
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:20 pm
12I sure as heck notice a huge difference in SP1 & SP2 when starting up Windows. You know you can still get security updates without SP2 so whats the point except to let it hold your hand while your on the PC. If you’re a IT whiz in your family, you can do without it. I haven’t done any comparison directly with SP1 vs SP2, but everyone knows SP2 WAY more than 0.5% slower than SP2.
December 30th, 2005 at 10:15 am
1330Dec2005
The original test has vanished from the ether. (ie the link doesn’t work:P).
Would be interesting to know if the situation has changed over the year.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:23 am
14HI guys,
I installed windows xp sp2 few dyas ago, but now my play speed music is high for all softwares. HELP, if someone can tell me how to solve the pbm or decrease the play speed.
Thx
January 17th, 2006 at 11:24 am
15Hi guys,
I installed windows xp sp2 few dAYS ago, but now my play speed music is high for all software (win. media player, real playerâŠ). HELP, if someone can tell me how to solve the pbm or decrease the play speed.
Thx
February 4th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
16The only reason I upgraded to SP2 is because you cannot install Adobe Premiere 2.0 unless you have been upgraded to SP2. I don’t like SP2 but I had no choice in the matter and I think it’s rediculous you need it for that program.
February 28th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
17is there a way to install premiere 2 without installing sp2?…I’m working with audio software which has NUMEROUS issues with sp2 and i want to avoid installing it.
May 27th, 2006 at 12:57 am
18Ya, I kinda agree with the point of installing premiere 2 with presence of sp2, it’s rediculous… any ideas?
May 28th, 2006 at 12:06 am
19I upgraded Windows XP sp1 to sp2 and now my audio doesn’t work! Any suggestions on how to fix this problem? Thx.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:49 am
20this is very useful site
November 16th, 2006 at 2:17 am
21high speed usb???
December 5th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
22I hate to admit it but I installed Windows XP SP2 instead of SP1. I never had any problems with viruses, spyware, or any other privacy/security threat on SP1. But, with Microsoft discontinuing support for SP1 I was, kind of, forced into it. I don’t care about security updates I manage and keep my system secure myself. The support for IE7 and WMP11 is what got me to switch.
January 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am
23Iv been running windowss xp without service packs and found the performance high and for an AMD ATHLON XP 2000+ @1.6GHz that is good but starting to admit it that if i want my computers opperating system to last i need to install xp sp2.
January 10th, 2007 at 5:57 am
24I just ordered the sp2 cd and am going to install it because all I want is to upgrade from IE6 sp1 to IE7 or at least ADD IE7, by the way cody an operating system will never die before the people do… :) it just gets ignored and thrown into the closed and locked away for years, and years…
January 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am
25sp1 sucks…. its prone to all the BUGS we all hate!!!
January 31st, 2007 at 5:31 pm
26what is the difference bewteen windos xp sp1 and windows xp sp2 in terms of its installation in mac computer using boot camp because boot camp recommonds sp2 version of windows only.
I have windows xp sp1 cd how to convert it into sp2
regards
kamal
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