Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4393 mails)

[Lee O'Malley <tracerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought some might be interested in this article from InfoWorld 
magazine.  The best just keeps getting better, huh?  ;-)

Win XP vs. Win 2000

InfoWorld Test Center

"Waiting for Windows XP" - Oct 29, 2001

XP's poor performance under heavy load should prompt industrial 
strength users to stick with Windows 2000.

In independent testing performed by CSA Research, 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. Our testing also suggests that 
companies determined to deploy Windows XP should consider ordering 
desktop systems with dual CPU's to get the most out of the new OS.

XP by the numbers
In every test we performed on systems with a single CPU, OfficeBench 
ran in less time under Windows 2000 than under Windows XP. The 
differences ranged from slight to dramatic, depending on the hardware 
configuration, but XP was always slower. For example, our initial 
baselining using Office XP and an optimized UI on the Pentium 4 
[/1.5GHz] system indicated a lag of a modest 11 percent, but things 
went downhill from there. The baseline reading for the Pentium III 
system showed that under Windows XP and Office XP, OfficeBench took 27 
percent more time to execute than under Windows 2000 and Office XP.

Generally, Windows XP proved increasingly slower than Windows 2000 as 
load increased, with a few rare exceptions. Except for a few instances, 
Windows XP increasingly ate the dust of Windows 2000 as load ramped up, 
regardless of machine specs or Office version. When the Pentium 4 
client with Office XP was tested, script execution generally took 
between a quarter and a third longer with Windows XP as with Windows 
2000, and as much as half again as long with the heaviest load and a 
stock UI.

Finally, our cross-generational testing, which measured the performance 
of Windows XP and Office XP directly against that of Windows 2000 and 
Office 2000, found that once again, newer means slower. In every one of 
our scenarios the combination of Windows XP and Office XP took 
noticeably longer - from 35 percent to 68 percent longer - to complete 
the script than Windows 2000 and Office 2000.

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 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.

Windows XP performance - Executive Summary: Performance isn't the only 
factor that goes into the decision to upgrade desktop operating 
systems. But if capitalizing on the benefits of Windows XP requires 
investing in new PC hardware, then a companywide upgrade could be cost 
prohibitive.
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