Windburner vs reactor for alpine climbing

I have an AK trip coming up this spring and some bigger trips in the works for the next few years. I currently have a windburner with the 1L pot for my on-route stove. This has worked fine for melting snow for myself but with 2 people it is time consuming. It has been okay for bivies where you have time to brew but it sucks when you are just making a quick brewstop. I was going to get a 1.8L pot for the windburner to address this. Now I am thinking that I might as well just upgrade to the reactor. Would it be worth spending the extra money for the reactor? I have never used one but I know it is a powerhouse with 9000 BTU/hr vs 7000 BTU/hr on the windburner. The trade off I see is that it is less efficient than the windburner. Anyone have experience with both? 

I wouldn't recommend an integrated canister stove unless you are doing something technical where that tiny footprint actually matters, external canister stoves work better in cold environments and are much more stable. The wind burner duo would be an upgrade provided you don't plan on spending much time in a portaledge. 

The only time an external/remote canister stove works better in the cold is when it has a preheating loop in the fuel line to allow inverted canister/liquid feed operation, which the Windburner Duo does not. The remote canister design of the Windburner Duo makes larger pots (1.8L, 2.5L, 4.5L) more stable, but since it doesn't have the preheating loop in the fuel line, trying to invert the canister in cold temperatures will send liquid fuel into the burner  and result in some scary flareups (been there, done that). 

To the OP: Where do you get the information that the Reactor is less efficient than the Windburner? The numbers I got from an MSR rep show that the Reactor boils more water for a given amount of fuel in addition to boiling water faster. A fuel canister won't burn as long in the Reactor as in the Windburner, but I'm assuming that you're more interested in the amount of water you can boil. PM me and I'll send you the pdf I got from the MSR rep, I can't figure out how to attach it to this post.

mark felber wrote:

To the OP: Where do you get the information that the Reactor is less efficient than the Windburner? 

This was an article on the MSR website. That statement in the top paragraph made it sound like the windburner has overall greater efficiency.  I hadn’t seen that chart until just now. I’m going to get a reactor. Seems like the better option for anything snow related 

"Sipping fuel more slowly" seems to be salesperson talk for "doesn't cook as fast". My Windburner does fine for the stuff I do, but I agree, it looks like the Reactor is a better choice for melting snow for more than one person.