Let me ask another one, what was the problem with 6.3? SP3 is about 350M!!! what is wrong? file size mean ther are many many bugs that Xilinx wants to fix them.
I perefer to use older but safer versions instead of new one!
Well, the SP get bigger because they include all the cumulative patches from previous service packs.
So, for example, if only 50MB of files need to be changed in SP3, but SP2 previously patched 300MB of the original distribution, this meen that SP3 would also include all of the SP2 patches. This is 300MB overhead if you already had SP2 installed, but it make it possible to install the product and immediately apply the latest SP.
I found a bug with 7.1 SP3. The impact tool does not program V4 devices. I confirmed this from Xilinx, after which they told me to switch back to SP2 or just 7.1