Should I be using Vista SP1 or XP Pro SP3?

[jediphx]

My hardware is the following

Intel Q6600 QuadCore tape modded to 3 ghz
2 gigs ram
250 gig HD and 500 gig backup HD
Geforce 8600 256 meg pcie

I play games occasionally, I do some basic video editing with my Canon ZR850 minidv camera and capture via firewire. I run Vista Home premium now since thats what came on it. Experience index is 5.6

Im just wondering if I would see better overall performance if I went to XP Pro SP3 but then would I lose the benefit of the Quads?

Thanks

 

[inhotep]

I'd say if you can upgrade your ram to 4 or more Gigs then use Vista SP1. I have just upgrade my Q6600 from 2GB to 6GB and noticed significant speed boost. For instance, Vista's super fetch can use more ram, and your games can use more too. Like my FSX used around 1gig ram and page file, now with page file off FSX uses around 1.6GB.
alt-tab between apps is much much faster with more ram with no page file. So much quicker.

BTW, how did you tape mod your Q6600? I've tried few things with mine with FSB for CPU only but only able to do around 2.6ish stable.

I have Asus P5N-E SLI mobo.

 

[biostud]

My guess is that you wouldn't notice any difference.

 

[Shortass]

If you want to XP you might notice it being a little faster, but if you upgrade to 4 gigs I would definitely suggest Vista. There is simply (apparently) a noticable performance increase in Vista when using more than 2 gigs (3 is ideal, 4 for dual channel).

 

[jellyrole]

Vista FTW especially with 4GB's of RAM! It makes it run much smoother.

 

[corkyg]

Does it really have to be one or the other? I am running both - Vista/SP1 and XP Pro/SP3.

 

[Piuc2020]

Yeah you could run both but if you can only choose one I'd go with Vista, it's a great operating system and in my opinion tons faster than XP, especially with a nice amount of RAM.

 

[sourceninja]

If what I had was working fine, I wouldn't bother to reinstall for a chance at a gain.

 

[JACKDRUID]

I would..

1. make another partition / hd
2. ghost your winxp to the new hd
3. upgrade one copy of xp to vista
4. play with it, see which is faster, make sure there is no compatibility problems etc

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Yeah you could run both but if you can only choose one I'd go with Vista, it's a great operating system and in my opinion tons faster than XP, especially with a nice amount of RAM.

I moved back to XP today, used vista for about a year...

the reason why is because i installed xp on a old old athlon 2500 and it ran faster than my 3ghz core 2 duo with vista....

though now that im back in XP i kinda wanna go back , i do have 4 gigs of ram but only use 2 because the overclock didnt want to work with 4gigs hmmm

i dont think vista is faster though, all the benchmarks say otherwise at least, the only time you hear of vista going faster is in comments as above, with no evidence!

 

[ViRGE]

The only time Vista is faster is in loading applications thanks to SuperFetch. There may be a marginal difference in other loading situations thanks to I/O prioritization, but it won't make much of a difference. Otherwise it performs the same as XP.

 

[hans007]

well he said his machine came with vista, /... i'm assuming its a branded machine so it'd be vista 32-bit. so if he got 4gb, it would still not really be any better than xp sp3.


the only vista worth really installing is vista 64. vista 32, i cant think of any really good reason other than dx10 to install over xp sp3 . i suppose some of the built in security and the outbound firewall are useful if you need those features....but yeah its probably not better than xp sp3 for most people.

 

[Arkaign]

Install what you like, your hardware is more than fast enough to run both perfectly. If you game, Vista is probably for you at this point, because of the incoming tide of DX10/10.1 titles and video cards.

I just dumped Vista Ultimate, I just can't stand some things, like how Windows Explorer is set up now. For some freaking reason, it was also running sluggishly on my new box, which is : P5K-E, 9600GT, 8GB DDR2-6400, 2x1TB Sata, etc. XP Pro SP3 is running everything near-instant.

NOTE : Installing XP properly to support modern sata systems is not extremely easy. I used an actual floppy drive and the F6 floppy method, and all is well. If you are not willing to go through some hoops to install XP on your modern hardware, just go with Vista, it's easier to get set up.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
The only time Vista is faster is in loading applications thanks to SuperFetch. There may be a marginal difference in other loading situations thanks to I/O prioritization, but it won't make much of a difference. Otherwise it performs the same as XP.

lol well, i came back to vista today, missed it to much lol. But on the reviews i read load times were indeed longer, to load things such as office apps. I can't find those reviews but toms has a review http://www.tomshardware.com/re...p-vs-vista,1531-4.html
that shows vista is slower in nearly everything it does...

but i like some stuff about vista,
1. the instant search (this can be obtained in xp with things like google desktop)
2. i like the sidebar and eye candy though there isnt much compared to linux
3. I like the auto defrag
4. i like the superfetch though benchmarks say xp is faster
5. Direct x 10

those things made me come back and will stay back till windows 7

 

[ViRGE]

That article page you linked to is all video benchmarks from January of 2007. Things have changed a lot since then due to drivers, that kind of performance gap no longer exists. If you look at some of the non-graphical benchmarks (WinRAR, 3dsMax, etc) the performance between the two is virtually identical or slightly better with Vista.

 

[Tempered81]

vista was 10 times slower on my laptop compared to xp. I've downgraded to XP Pro sp3

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
vista was 10 times slower on my laptop compared to xp. I've downgraded to XP Pro sp3

Vista on my Dell Vostro laptop is just as fast as XP,infact I have retired my XP (RIP).

Vista shouldn't be 10 times slower then XP,if it is then you have a serious issue somewhere not caused by Vista.

 

[inhotep]

Originally posted by: KeypoX

Originally posted by: ViRGE
The only time Vista is faster is in loading applications thanks to SuperFetch. There may be a marginal difference in other loading situations thanks to I/O prioritization, but it won't make much of a difference. Otherwise it performs the same as XP.

lol well, i came back to vista today, missed it to much lol. But on the reviews i read load times were indeed longer, to load things such as office apps. I can't find those reviews but toms has a review http://www.tomshardware.com/re...p-vs-vista,1531-4.html
that shows vista is slower in nearly everything it does...

but i like some stuff about vista,
1. the instant search (this can be obtained in xp with things like google desktop)
2. i like the sidebar and eye candy though there isnt much compared to linux
3. I like the auto defrag
4. i like the superfetch though benchmarks say xp is faster
5. Direct x 10

those things made me come back and will stay back till windows 7

I looked at the test setup for this review you viewed and guess what?

They used 2GB ram to test both OS. 2GB ram for Vista is like 512 for XP!!

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: KeypoX

Originally posted by: ViRGE
The only time Vista is faster is in loading applications thanks to SuperFetch. There may be a marginal difference in other loading situations thanks to I/O prioritization, but it won't make much of a difference. Otherwise it performs the same as XP.

lol well, i came back to vista today, missed it to much lol. But on the reviews i read load times were indeed longer, to load things such as office apps. I can't find those reviews but toms has a review http://www.tomshardware.com/re...p-vs-vista,1531-4.html
that shows vista is slower in nearly everything it does...

but i like some stuff about vista,
1. the instant search (this can be obtained in xp with things like google desktop)
2. i like the sidebar and eye candy though there isnt much compared to linux
3. I like the auto defrag
4. i like the superfetch though benchmarks say xp is faster
5. Direct x 10

those things made me come back and will stay back till windows 7

Newer benchmarks (Dated 12th May 2008) here

Note :

Game Results
It's clear that driver issues in Windows Vista have been largely ironed out, as the five to 10 percent performance drop compared to Windows XP is virtually gone. In fact, the only test out of these three in which Vista didn't match its predecessor was in the pre-SP1 World in Conflict result.

Also more
here .

Final Thoughts
If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers.

 

[inhotep]

I'm still waiting for 64bit fix for my HDTV PCI card from Pinnaclesys. Damn them!! My card won't work on 64bit vista. I assumed it will.
If you have 64bit Vista and considering this product, wait till they make the 64bit fix.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/Pub...-T%29/PCTV+HD+Card.htm

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: inhotep
I'm still waiting for 64bit fix for my HDTV PCI card from Pinnaclesys. Damn them!! My card won't work on 64bit vista. I assumed it will.
If you have 64bit Vista and considering this product, wait till they make the 64bit fix.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/Pub...-T%29/PCTV+HD+Card.htm

I had Vista x64 drivers for my Leadtek USB DTV within 5 weeks of Vista's launch,unfortunately a lot of companies are not as fast or don't have the great customer support like Leadtek.
Sad when you think Vista is almsot 18 months old and a few companies are still very slow with driver support.