Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 07 April 2008 12:43
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
There was one test where Vista managed to out-do XP, but seemingly only because Vista had been upgraded to SP1.
CRN tested a 1.25GB file being copied “from a network share to each desktop”. Here XP SP3 took 2 mins 54 secs, while Vista was actually faster at 2 mins 29 seconds.
After that, a series of benchmark tests which you can read at CRN’s
story, showed that XP SP3 was the conclusive speed winner when up against Vista SP1, and if you’re into benchmarks, it’s certainly worth reading.
But really, it’s no big surprise. Older operating systems always use less resources than newer operating systems – or at least, those from Microsoft. Heck, if you ran Windows 3.1 today on any dual-core machine, it would be screamingly fast.
But who would run Windows 3.1, or Windows 95, 98 or ME today? Of course computers with Windows 98 (or older) are still out there being used to this day, but at the great risk of online hack attack.
Those computers would likely be very old, too – I’d be surprised if more than a tiny number of people were using the very latest hardware to run operating systems a decade or more old – except where virtualisation software is used, of course.
So, should you stick with XP and get SP3, or upgrade to Vista? Please read onto page 3.
