Broadband speed under XP and Windows 7

[#1]

My broadband is 100 times slower under XP than Windows7 under load.
Using the same latest version of Firefox I take a typical scenario of 5 Firefox windows each with say 30 tabs, the XP machine has 2gb of ram of which 1.2gb of commited memory is shown in task manager with firefox using 600mb.  XP draws to a crawl, firefox uses 90% of CPU usage and the internet speed crawls.  I took the same sites, loaded them under Windows Vista and no speed problems with firefox at all and Firefox flies.
With so many people complaining about broadband speed, I thought some might find this a useful way of increasing perceived speed.

[#2]

That is a totally unrealistic scenario and only shows the difference between OSs in how they handle lots of applications / threads.
If an OS is inefficient in handling lots of threads then clearly other aspects of the system will have less time available to perform their activities.

[#3]

A few things to look at:
1. FireFox can get horrible, investigate "Speedyfox".
2. IE8 can get a corrupt temporary files setting, I'd check and ensure it's 50MB or less.
3. RWIN settings on XP - use DRTCP or similar (Vista/7 are automatic)
4. Antivirus.....

[#4]

Quote from: Peter

That is a totally unrealistic scenario and only shows the difference between OSs in how they handle lots of applications / threads. If an OS is inefficient in handling lots of threads then clearly other aspects of the system will have less time available to perform their activities.

No it is a totally realistic and actual scenario, for me it just shows internet is faster under Win7, Windows always gets slower and slower with every service pack, I suspect that M$ either knows and does not care or perhaps they slowed it down deliberately.

[#5]

5 windows with 30 tabs each is realistic? 

[#6]

Tis realistic for me, I tend to work on several projects at once and use a window per project.  Have that many open right now.  Sometimes I have to save all tabs to a bookmark folder and come back to it later, I hVave the too many tabs toolbar but filled that up within a few weeks.

[#7]

This may or may not be reallistic depending on an individual user's usage patterns, I have a very bad habit of continually opening new windows and not shutting them down for days or weeks on my work PC, this does show that XP can handle a good number of threads without dying (I don't know how much is constrained by the OS and how much by the hardware) but on a 3 year old Dell Precision workstation I don't get the slowdown that I'd expect with this kind of usage on some older hardware or on previous versions of Windows.
It is interesting, however, to see an illustration of how the OS can effect browsing speed in certain circumstances.

[#8]

OK so the spec of the XP was partly given, but no details of the Win 7, that type of comparison is only valid on two identical machines with different OS