A comparative analysis of two Y-STR loci sets was conducted on a population sample of 224 individuals, 114 Caucasians and 110 African Americans. One set of loci, designated the OSU 10-locus set, comprises variable, single copy, male-specific loci that are dispersed across the Y-chromosome. Parallel evaluations were performed using the 10 Y-chromosome loci most frequently used for forensic analysis, the loci chosen as the SWGDAM Y-STR loci. The OSU 10-locus set had a greater average number of alleles per locus and higher average gene diversity than the SWGDAM loci. The OSU 10-locus set found 220 unique haplotypes in 224 individuals. In approximately 6000 pairwise haplotype comparisons for each population with each set of loci, the OSU 10-locus set also yielded a greater average number of allelic differences per pair than the SWGDAM loci. Finally, the overall linkage disequilibrium levels were lower for the OSU 10-locus set in the Caucasian population. In general, the OSU 10-locus set revealed a higher power of discrimination than the SWGDAM set.