MobilePCMag took 10 laptops and upgraded them to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), then ran their standard suite of benchmarks. Although a couple of machines saw small performance increases, on the whole the laptops were 9-percent slower than when they were running SP1. That’s a fairly marked performance decrease, made a little worse by the fact that SP2 is sort of a “must install” bit of software for Windows users.
Of course, they don’t give any benchmarks on their website because they want you to buy their magazine, the bastards. They do mention that they told Microsoft about it, who offered this gem of a quote, “[Microsoft] takes all feedback on the performance of Windows XP SP2 seriously. At this time we are not aware of performance degradation on PCs running Windows XP SP2.” You know, except this performance degradation you’re calling me about.
It’s weird, though, because most of the SP2 benchmarks I saw on desktop machines showed only minor performance differences, mostly in favor of SP2, especially in games.
Read – Service Pack 2 slams on the brakes [MobilePCMag]
