XP SP3 vs. Vista SP1 - Which is fastest?

How about a comparison of XP SP3 vs Vista SP1?

Good question! Fortunately I’ve already done a fair bit of the groundwork in that I used the Phenom 9700 system I have for benchmarking both XP SP3 and Vista SP1.

I benchmarked both operating systems using PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 and bringing together the results from both tests allows me to answer _deitrich’s question.

Note: The hardware configuration of the Phenom 9700 remained unchanged between the two tests and similar optimizations steps were carried out for each OS.

XP Professional:

* XP RTM
PassMark rating: 1001.4
* XP SP2
PassMark rating: 891
* XP SP3
PassMark rating: 990.8

Vista 32-bit:

* Vista RTM
PassMark rating: 1002.4
* Vista SP1
PassMark rating: 972.3

Vista 64-bit:

* Vista RTM
PassMark rating: 1183.1
* Vista SP1
PassMark rating: 1128.8