April 25th, 2008
XP SP3 performance gains - Nothing to write home about
Those who believed that Windows XP Service Pack 3 would provide the aging OS with a performance boost may well be disappointed. My benchmark tests show that the application of XP SP3 makes negligible difference to system performance.
The Test Systems
For this round of benchmarking I turned to two vastly different systems. At high end of the spectrum AMD Phenom-based system:
- Phenom 9700 quad-core processor
- ATi Radeon 3850 graphics card with 256MB RAM
- ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe motherboard
- 2GB (2 x 1GB) Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D RAM
- Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM 150GB primary hard drive
- Western Digital Caviar 7,200RPM 500GB secondary hard drive
At the low-end of the spectrum, I have a system that dates back to the Flintstone era, otherwise known as mid-2001:
- Intel Pentium III 800MHz
- SIS 6326 AGP card with 8MB RAM
- Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X motherboard
- 512MB of no-name RAM
- 60GB Western Digital 5,400RPM primary hard drive
- 60GB Western Digital 5,400RPM secondary hard drive
Up until a few weeks ago this system was in daily use (albeit with 1.25GB of RAM installed) and it has performed flawlessly over the years (the PSU, motherboard and CPU are all the original parts, while the RAM and hard drives are newer).
The Tests –>
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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| 04/25/08
