Im sorry if i re-post,

Is Windows XP Service Packs affect performance ?

From my experience, it does have a difference, it much more slower, but i could be misleading, im not an expert IT guy, even though my college title is IT,

since u guys play alot with SP and performance issue, i think u guys know the answers,

im planning to customized XP instalation tomorow, i already try to make one installer today for just testing and get a feel with nLite, the installer reduced to 146mb from 488mb,
the CD is original XP, no SP

what i know is SP more related to security issues (which i really dont care now...)
i do care alot with performance,
my pc is just P3 550 Mhz, 512mb
its a 9 years old system.... when i buy it, it was $1300, can u believe it ?
It was the latest hardware,

even a guy or at nLite website (i forget) saying rather to use optimized Windows 2000 rather than thinking about Windows 98, thats interesting,
actually i like Windows 2000, when i use it, it much stable for me...

so my plan should be simple, since i just want to remove all the crap, install two 3rd party driver (sound/cable modem), and use portables apps
there is not much i need with windows xp, (ICF, sharing files on LAN,...)
not like u guys add here and there, integrate this and that

Thank you,

Service packs do not usually provide performance enhancements. However, SP2 might be the exception, notice the might be. In some cases, yes, in others, not. If I were you, I would wait a few more days to integrate SP3 (supposed to RTW Monday). At least, integrate SP2. SPs are not ONLY about security.

For Windows 2000, it's up to you. For that kind of power, I would use 2000, but if you're fine with XP, it's okay too. It's just my opinion.

XP SP2 was noticeably slower than SP1. They touted this is because of security 'improvements' and when Vista came out suddenly XP SP2 is insecure?!

It's all marketing.

GL

ok thanks, i just use no sp then like i used to for years...

Lots of studies and tests have shown that SP3 increase performance by at least 10%.

Not to mention the extra stability, protection and error fixes.

Runnin XP gold is like running win 98 without a firewall or antivirus.

10% from what ?
from original xp no sp, (if this one, then its great)
or from the latest version or ?

From everything I see it is just from sp2 I can't find any benchmarks over gold.

ok thanks,