Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test

lowlight · 03-06-2008, 01:04 AM

Vista’s first huge Service Pack is just days away from being released to the public. It includes all of the updates that have been released since going retail last year, but also promises some performance benefit over the original retail version.

For many people, this might be exactly what they have waited for. After all, Vista has the reputation for being slower than XP, and unnecessarily bloated.

We tested a plethora of real world software under SP1, including all of the integrated programs as well as 3rd party applications. We also tested file copying performance, with a various file sizes.

If you are a Vista user who is sitting on the fence about installing SP1, or an XP user who was reluctant to make the switch (after all, Vista only holds about 12% of the OS market share), you should have a far clearer view after reading our 8 pages of performance analysis.

We tested the following applications, and were able to come to a conclusion about exactly how much SP1 improves performance:

Integrated Vista components:

* Windows Photo Gallery
* Windows Movie Maker
* Windows Media Center
* Internet Explorer 7
* Windows Media Player 11
* Windows Defender
* Windows Live Messenger
* Windows Mail
* Windows Contacts
* WordPad
* Vista’s integrated compression API (FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION)
* Vista’s integrated decompression API (LZRead)
* Vista’s integrated cryptography API (Next Generation)

External Applications:

* Microsoft Word 2007
* Adobe Photoshop CS2
* Microsoft Outlook 2007
* Adobe After Effects 7
* Adobe Illustrator CS2
* Adobe Photoshop CS2
* AutoDesk 3ds Max 8
* Macromedia Flash 8
* Microsoft Excel 2003
* Microsoft Outlook 2003
* Microsoft PowerPoint 2003
* Microsoft Word 2003
* Microsoft Project 2003
* Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 series
* Sony Vegas 7
* SketchUp 5
* WinZip 10.0
* dbPowerAmp
* LAME MP3 Audio Codec
* WMA 9.2 Audio Codec
* WMA 10 Professional Audio Codec
* VirtualDub
* DivX 6.8 Video Codec
* XviD 1.1.3 Video Codec
* CineBench R10
* Call of Duty 4
* Crysis
* Unreal Tournament 3

We saw some performance double with SP1, but also saw some huge drops in a few select tests. Read the full report to learn more!

Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test

ECC · 03-06-2008, 01:42 AM

It's about frickin time ms did something properly. those are some nice improvements.

lowlight · 03-06-2008, 04:39 AM

People of the wonderful HCW community, please show your support by digging this article, thanks!

kraig · 03-06-2008, 05:05 AM

Nice article. Its nice to see some hard numbers.

Would have been nice if it had a paragraph detailing any fixes with the typical vista issues (networking, printing etc...), but thats me being lazy and not wanting to have to go searching for it myself.

Any chance you'll be doing this for XP SP3 too?

One thing to note, Vista waits until all disk write commands are executed before it closes the dialog for copying files. XP closes the dialog once all write commands have been issued, even if they aren't finished. Thats why Vista hangs at the end. Not sure if SP1 changes that, or if they've actually sped up the copying somehow.

lowlight · 03-06-2008, 05:38 AM

I'll definitely do this with XP, although PC Mark Vantage only works in Vista... I'll have to do all the tests manually with XP

rastin · 03-06-2008, 01:18 PM

great artical

Flunk · 03-06-2008, 01:56 PM

Good analysis, and the benchmarks actually show a noticeable performance increase. Interesting stuff.

wilcox · 03-06-2008, 05:02 PM

Dugg for the actual increase of performance. Someday I might actually buy a PC with Vista... Someday...

Mykle · 03-06-2008, 06:14 PM

Really good article LL. Dugg that piece.

N.V.M. · 03-06-2008, 06:40 PM

i actually don't even know what the hell this digging is all about.

03-06-2008, 01:04 AM	#1
lowlight 37% More Evil! Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 12,974	Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test Vista’s first huge Service Pack is just days away from being released to the public. It includes all of the updates that have been released since going retail last year, but also promises some performance benefit over the original retail version. For many people, this might be exactly what they have waited for. After all, Vista has the reputation for being slower than XP, and unnecessarily bloated. We tested a plethora of real world software under SP1, including all of the integrated programs as well as 3rd party applications. We also tested file copying performance, with a various file sizes. If you are a Vista user who is sitting on the fence about installing SP1, or an XP user who was reluctant to make the switch (after all, Vista only holds about 12% of the OS market share), you should have a far clearer view after reading our 8 pages of performance analysis. We tested the following applications, and were able to come to a conclusion about exactly how much SP1 improves performance: Integrated Vista components: * Windows Photo Gallery * Windows Movie Maker * Windows Media Center * Internet Explorer 7 * Windows Media Player 11 * Windows Defender * Windows Live Messenger * Windows Mail * Windows Contacts * WordPad * Vista’s integrated compression API (FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION) * Vista’s integrated decompression API (LZRead) * Vista’s integrated cryptography API (Next Generation) External Applications: * Microsoft Word 2007 * Adobe Photoshop CS2 * Microsoft Outlook 2007 * Adobe After Effects 7 * Adobe Illustrator CS2 * Adobe Photoshop CS2 * AutoDesk 3ds Max 8 * Macromedia Flash 8 * Microsoft Excel 2003 * Microsoft Outlook 2003 * Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 * Microsoft Word 2003 * Microsoft Project 2003 * Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 series * Sony Vegas 7 * SketchUp 5 * WinZip 10.0 * dbPowerAmp * LAME MP3 Audio Codec * WMA 9.2 Audio Codec * WMA 10 Professional Audio Codec * VirtualDub * DivX 6.8 Video Codec * XviD 1.1.3 Video Codec * CineBench R10 * Call of Duty 4 * Crysis * Unreal Tournament 3 We saw some performance double with SP1, but also saw some huge drops in a few select tests. Read the full report to learn more! Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test __________________

03-06-2008, 01:42 AM	#2
ECC OM NOM NOM Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UNBSJ Tunnel system Posts: 6,143	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test It's about frickin time ms did something properly. those are some nice improvements. __________________ AMD A64 X2 5200+,8Gb DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 ,750 Seagate 32mb SATA, 250GB SE16 SATA, Radeon 4850, X2 LG DVD RW X2, AC F64 pro. W7 RC + VMs Lappy: T22 xp sp3 I am nerdier than 100% of all people. Are you nerdier? 2600il - The Israeli 2600 community

03-06-2008, 04:39 AM	#3
lowlight 37% More Evil! Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 12,974	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test People of the wonderful HCW community, please show your support by digging this article, thanks! __________________

03-06-2008, 05:05 AM	#4
kraig Avg. Geek Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Halifax NS Posts: 4,666	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test Nice article. Its nice to see some hard numbers. Would have been nice if it had a paragraph detailing any fixes with the typical vista issues (networking, printing etc...), but thats me being lazy and not wanting to have to go searching for it myself. Any chance you'll be doing this for XP SP3 too? One thing to note, Vista waits until all disk write commands are executed before it closes the dialog for copying files. XP closes the dialog once all write commands have been issued, even if they aren't finished. Thats why Vista hangs at the end. Not sure if SP1 changes that, or if they've actually sped up the copying somehow. __________________ I believe that the very act of believing in something causes us to distance ourselves from that thing. Now since we all know that in order to fully understand a thing one must be that thing, it seems obvious that the state of believing in something inevitably causes us to not truly understand it. This leads to all sorts of difficulties. "I believe in love" has a better than even chance of leading to divorce, while "I believe in God" seems to end in variations on the Spanish Inquisition -CLP

03-06-2008, 05:38 AM	#5
lowlight 37% More Evil! Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 12,974	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test I'll definitely do this with XP, although PC Mark Vantage only works in Vista... I'll have to do all the tests manually with XP __________________

03-06-2008, 01:18 PM	#6
rastin Hardcore Wannabe Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Israel-eilat/ber-shava Posts: 192	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test great artical __________________ Intel core 2 quad Q6600 G05 / Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L / Corsair DDR2 2gb(1024*2) 800MHz / BFG 8800GT 512Mb OC2 / WD 320Gb sata2 / LG DVDRW x18 / TR2 RX 450W / TT ARMOR JUNIOR / SAMSUNG 906BW

03-06-2008, 01:56 PM	#7
Flunk Fanboi Bater Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Toronto, ON, Canada Posts: 4,347	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test Good analysis, and the benchmarks actually show a noticeable performance increase. Interesting stuff. __________________ Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Value must be 1 or below' in \www\hardcoreware.net\forum\index.php:623 Stack trace: #0 \www\hardcoreware.net\forum\index.php(12): checkNum(28) #1 {main} thrown in \www\hardcoreware.net\forum\index.php on line 623

03-06-2008, 05:02 PM	#8
wilcox punkin' daft Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: great white north eh! Posts: 6,394	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test Dugg for the actual increase of performance. Someday I might actually buy a PC with Vista... Someday... __________________ * 20" iMac * 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo * 4 GB memory * 500GB SATA hard drive * 8x double-layer SuperDrive * ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory * OSX Leopard Snow

03-06-2008, 06:14 PM	#9
Mykle Truly HARDCORE Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 1,248	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test Really good article LL. Dugg that piece.

03-06-2008, 06:40 PM	#10
N.V.M. now...a cartoon Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: North Vancouver,B.C.. Posts: 5,526	Re: Windows Vista SP1 Performance Test i actually don't even know what the hell this digging is all about.