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
I know this was a speed benchmark, but a P.S. of many (if not most) anti-virus/security applications no longer work would have been nice.
Nice article, but it really does nothing to convince/dissuade the current XP users out there.
A more valuable benchmark set would be to take two identical pieces of hardware and benchmark XPSP2 against VistaSP1. Except that we already know the outcome…
Unfortunately XP is missing many key features and programs that were tested in this article. Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Center, Windows Defender, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Mail, and Windows Contacts are all part of Vista, and can’t really be compared to XP directly.
When XP SP3 comes out, I do intend to test it against Vista with SP1, using other applications.
First, thanks for the article, nice to know my possible performance post SP1.
Second, I’m not at all sure this will persuade anyone to switch over from XP. As a casual user, I’ve had Vista for a few months now and while I’ve had few problems lately, I still remember the tortuous headaches I had early on.
All in all, I suspect this won’t “wow” a whole lot of people, unfortunately. Here’s hoping for that killer app in the near future, whatever it may be.
Is this vista 32 bit? And what flavor? ultimate? If so, how about 64 bit?
Thanks,
Wow, sorry I can’t believe I neglected to mention all that information. I’ll update the article immediately.
FYI, I used Home Premium 32 bit.
“is it going to convince you to switch to vista”
oh yes. Now that SP1 is out, I’m just waiting for a certain place to freeze over…
seriously, it looks more and more that vista is windows millennium II,