26 Responses for "Windows XP SP2 vs. SP1 performance comparison"

1. JC

   October 18th, 2004 at 6:21 pm

   1

   Hmm… how about they do it again, after an average user has used each PC for 3 months… see what the difference is once 3 months worth of spyware has accumulated on the SP1 box, that the SP2 box blocked… I have a suspicion the performance numbers might just tilt in the opposite direction

2. Barbutti

   October 18th, 2004 at 7:21 pm

   2

   I’ve been using Windows XP with no service pack for 3 years and never had a problem with spyware or anything else, but that’s just because I’m not an average user.

   I encourage average users that I know on upgrading to Service Pack 2, although that might not save them from all the harmful things that internet offer. My girlfriend is a completely average user and I have to reformat her PC and reinstall Windows every 2 months because of all the spyware, virus and slowness. I always install the newsest service pack and security updates but somehow that just doesn’t seem to work for her. Maybe it is impossible for Windows to be a completely safe operating system for the average user… ( or maybe my girlfriend is the problem :-)

3. minghong

   October 18th, 2004 at 11:23 pm

   3

   Do your girl friend a flavour and install Firefox. It is not a geek browser. 1.0 final will be out soon so you may like to keep attention.

4. Netaku

   October 19th, 2004 at 12:54 am

   4

   I’m not bothereing with SP2 for a while. Never really had problems with SP1, and I’m not really in an adventurous mood.

5. Barbutti

   October 19th, 2004 at 6:42 am

   5

   She started using Firefox a little while ago. The problem is that her PC is kinda old and FF requires more memory than IE.

6. Dan

   October 21st, 2004 at 8:57 am

   6

   How about upgrading the girlfriend instead?! :-)

7. Barbutti

   October 21st, 2004 at 9:24 am

   7

   lol

   If only I didn’t love her… =)

8. Carlo

   December 6th, 2004 at 7:02 am

   8

   I have a P4 3.06Ghz on a P4PE ASUS with 1Gb RAM. I installed a new version WXP SP1. I tested it with a banchmarking program (Sandra Lite 2005 and PCBench) and it’s ranked correclty. I intalled SP2 (no others pgm) and the PC has been downgraded as a PIII 700Hz in term of MIPS and FLOAT. I thing that with SP2 some pgm have prolblem in using the virtual CPU. Any help ? by

9. Adam

   February 5th, 2005 at 11:00 pm

   9

   in sisoft sandra I got a slight decrease in performance with sp2 installed over sp1.

   I formatted, installed SP1, formatted and installed SP2. That was my method for testing.

10. Kshitij Prasai

    March 28th, 2005 at 1:08 pm

    10

    Does SP2 support USB 2.0 like SP1 does?? I have a hight speed USB 2.0 PCMCI card hooked up to my pentium III 700Mhz laptop, and when I plugin a USB 2.0 Drive in the Card it still gives me the “HI-SPEED USB device and will function at reduced speed when plugged into a non-HI-SPEED port” error message

11. Anthony

    September 22nd, 2005 at 11:42 am

    11

    you guys suck

12. SpyderCanopus

    October 22nd, 2005 at 6:20 pm

    12

    I sure as heck notice a huge difference in SP1 & SP2 when starting up Windows. You know you can still get security updates without SP2 so whats the point except to let it hold your hand while your on the PC. If you’re a IT whiz in your family, you can do without it. I haven’t done any comparison directly with SP1 vs SP2, but everyone knows SP2 WAY more than 0.5% slower than SP2.

13. Ren

    December 30th, 2005 at 10:15 am

    13

    30Dec2005
    The original test has vanished from the ether. (ie the link doesn’t work:P).

    Would be interesting to know if the situation has changed over the year.

14. help

    January 17th, 2006 at 11:23 am

    14

    HI guys,
    I installed windows xp sp2 few dyas ago, but now my play speed music is high for all softwares. HELP, if someone can tell me how to solve the pbm or decrease the play speed.

    Thx

15. HELP

    January 17th, 2006 at 11:24 am

    15

    Hi guys,
    I installed windows xp sp2 few dAYS ago, but now my play speed music is high for all software (win. media player, real player
). HELP, if someone can tell me how to solve the pbm or decrease the play speed.

    Thx

16. AJ

    February 4th, 2006 at 7:04 pm

    16

    The only reason I upgraded to SP2 is because you cannot install Adobe Premiere 2.0 unless you have been upgraded to SP2. I don’t like SP2 but I had no choice in the matter and I think it’s rediculous you need it for that program.

17. John

    February 28th, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    17

    is there a way to install premiere 2 without installing sp2?…I’m working with audio software which has NUMEROUS issues with sp2 and i want to avoid installing it.

18. jolly

    May 27th, 2006 at 12:57 am

    18

    Ya, I kinda agree with the point of installing premiere 2 with presence of sp2, it’s rediculous… any ideas?

19. Charles

    May 28th, 2006 at 12:06 am

    19

    I upgraded Windows XP sp1 to sp2 and now my audio doesn’t work! Any suggestions on how to fix this problem? Thx.

20. muthu

    September 15th, 2006 at 9:49 am

    20

    this is very useful site

21. dankman

    November 16th, 2006 at 2:17 am

    21

    high speed usb???

22. Microsoft.Sucks

    December 5th, 2006 at 8:43 pm

    22

    I hate to admit it but I installed Windows XP SP2 instead of SP1. I never had any problems with viruses, spyware, or any other privacy/security threat on SP1. But, with Microsoft discontinuing support for SP1 I was, kind of, forced into it. I don’t care about security updates I manage and keep my system secure myself. The support for IE7 and WMP11 is what got me to switch.

23. Cody

    January 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am

    23

    Iv been running windowss xp without service packs and found the performance high and for an AMD ATHLON XP 2000+ @1.6GHz that is good but starting to admit it that if i want my computers opperating system to last i need to install xp sp2.

24. Microsoft.Sucks unrelated

    January 10th, 2007 at 5:57 am

    24

    I just ordered the sp2 cd and am going to install it because all I want is to upgrade from IE6 sp1 to IE7 or at least ADD IE7, by the way cody an operating system will never die before the people do… :) it just gets ignored and thrown into the closed and locked away for years, and years…

25. athan

    January 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am

    25

    sp1 sucks…. its prone to all the BUGS we all hate!!!

26. kamal

    January 31st, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    26

    what is the difference bewteen windos xp sp1 and windows xp sp2 in terms of its installation in mac computer using boot camp because boot camp recommonds sp2 version of windows only.
    I have windows xp sp1 cd how to convert it into sp2
    regards
    kamal