Win2K is faster than XP

[usual_suspect]

...or so infoworld.com seems to think: InfoWorld: WinXP much slower than Win2K


Our tests of the multitasking capabilities of Windows XP and Windows 2000 demonstrated that under the same heavy load on identical hardware, Windows 2000 significantly outperformed Windows XP. In the most extreme scenario, our Windows XP system took nearly twice as long to complete a workload as did the Windows 2000 client


Sad if true. I've only run XP for a few days but I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has run both OS's for a good length of time.

 

[Saltin]

Of course it is.

 

[usual_suspect]

Ok, well I guess that begs the question: Why get XP? Or more importantly, why should businesses get XP?


Note that they turned the eye candy off for the benchmarking.

 

[Saltin]

Good question. I work almost exclusively with NT networks and have a decent amount of experience with XP. There is no good reason for businesses to move from 2k to XP. Client wise, there is a little more flexibility with Group Policy. That is really all I have noticed. XP also requires , on average, a more expensive machine to run it.
2k pro is the superior desktop OS when it comes to business and networking. That is my experience.

Many people draw comparisons between XP and 2k. I reckon this has alot to do with the fact that they share the same underlying mechanics. It is my opinion however, that they are aimed at different markets.

2k Pro is squarely aimed at a production environment.
XP is squarely aimed at the home user.
XP pro was/is an afterthought on MS's part, it's an option they provided for NT 4.0 shops looking to upgrade thier clients, not for 2k shops.

You should really compare XP to it's real predecessor, 9x. If you look at it in relation to 98 or 95, it is a huge leap. That is why alot of users are making a big deal about it. These are people who never used 2k to begin with. Let's be honest, only "computer guys" run 2k at home. The rest of the world runs/ran 9x.
In respect to stability, flexibility, driver support, and (yes) even security, XP is a huge leap from 9x. That's what the fuss is all about.

 

[usual_suspect]

Thanks Saltin, that sounds reasonable. I'm getting ready to build a dual Athlon system and had been planning on going with XP. I didn't know that the performance gap was so distinct between 2k and xp though. And since it looks like driver support for 2k will be around for a while, I might install 2k pro instead.

 

[Saltin]

It depends on what you want to do. I use XP pro at home because it's on a smoking machine and it runs my games well.
I hear that 2k is getting better at game support, but when it first came out it was terrible. I guess that's why I don't use 2k for games even today.

 

[Jace]

Well, take that article with a grain of salt. It is a few months old, improved XP drivers could be a factor if the tests were run again today.

Also, with Win2k SP2 against XP gold; SP2 has greatly improved performance for 2k on a number of machines, so that test may not be the whole story. It is interesting, but I'd like to see some newer tests, maybe after SP1 or 2 before drawing too many conclusions?

Edit *

Re-reading the article I found that one of their major complaints as far as speed goes had to do with databases:

"Overall we are quite disappointed with Windows XP's ability to pull serious weight when compared to Windows 2000. We are not certain where the problem lies. Our follow-up testing indicates that the additional database and multimedia workloads are breaking the proverbial camel's back. Microsoft claims it's been unable to duplicate our results, but hasn't supplied us with a better explanation or identified a major flaw in our testing. Whatever the cause, until the problem behind Windows XP performance is resolved, we can't recommend Windows XP as a client for serious database crunching."

Take a look at this article on 8wire.com Performance Issues Plague XP Mdac 2.7

"Attention all database admins: There's a rather nasty bug lurking beneath Windows XP's shiny new facade, and the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) group is to blame. It appears that someone on the ADO development team inadvertently "broke" the support libraries used to conduct client/server database transactions under MDAC 2.7, the version that ships with Windows XP.

Any applications that use these libraries - specifically, the various system DLLs that begin with "msado" - have the unpleasant habit of chewing up an inordinate amount of CPU time. Basically, they become CPU hogs as the buggy ADO libraries they interface with gobble up processing bandwidth, forcing the application to compete with other CPU-bound tasks for an ever-shrinking pool of processor time."

This could explain some of Infoworlds findings, hopefully an MDAC update will narrow the margin greatly.

Just a thought.

 

[usual_suspect]

I heard the same thing about 2k and gaming; bad at first but good now. My main uses will be -web surfing -gaming -some mpeg encoding. The machine it will be on will definitely be smoking (dual Athlon XP 2000+/ scsi raid) but still I don't know if I could sleep at night knowing xp was holding the system back. Maybe I'm being too picky; I have both OS's so I guess I can change if I don't like one or the other.


Edit- Yes I would like to see a newer test with an updated winXP. I guess when I posted I was thinking that MS was trying to use XP to bring home and business users under the umbrella of one OS. And that xp pro should have been 'out of the box' at least as fast as w2k pro.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I am in the process of building a new machine, and I decided to go Win2K instead of WinXP. No bloat, much more mature and secure, and just about as good in most respects.

 

[Chatterjee]

2000 roxors XP's boxers.

-S

 

[aircooled]

Maybe the benchmarks see the difference, but I can't "feel" any difference. In fact, XP "feels" faster in many aspects.

 

[Jace]

XP feels a bit faster to me too. I'm really looking forward to the Service Packs, they should really add to the value of XP. I really like the stability, which to me is more important than the speed.

I'd like to start using XP Pro at work, but alas, since I'm also a SQL server admin, I have to wait until the mdac 2.7 bug is fixed because I can't put up with 30% slower database transactions.