Let's face it, Windows XP, Microsoft's latest operating system, comes with a lot of baggage. There's the much talked about product activation that counts only Gates and Ballmer as its fans. There's the host of new features and services bundled with XP that some cry is an abuse of Microsoft's monopoly power. Then there's that fruity new GUI that looks like it's retaining water, the one that Dr. Evil refers to as "puffypaint.dll."

Get past all that, however, and the first question that comes to mind (to us anyway) is "But is it any faster?" Our own Geoff "Dissonance" Gaisor was curious about that question, so he put the three most recent flavors of Windows (WinME, Win2K and WinXP) through a variety of grueling tests to find out the answer. Office suites, content creation, 3D games, you name it. He even performed the tests on an older machine as well as a new one, to find out if this new OS requires the newest iron to show its stuff.

So is Microsoft's new baby a speed demon or a performance dud? Read on to find out.