Floating Point - Precision Of Arithmetic Calculations On Server

I am trying to understand why SQL Server gives me significantly lower precision than many of the other sources that have tried when using the POWER function. My environment is 2008 R2 SP2 (10.50.4000.0 X64, Standard edition) on Windows 2008 X64 SP1

DECLARE @x FLOAT(53) = 1.0004;
DECLARE @y FLOAT(53) = 1.0/12.0;
SELECT POWER(@x,@y)-1; -- Answer: 3.33270904724348E-05
GO
DECLARE @x FLOAT(24) = 1.0004;
DECLARE @y FLOAT(24) = 1.0/12.0;

[URL] ....

Answer: 3.33272237835747E-05

I also tried using Windows Calculator.Answer:3.3327223783495255846580902358195e-5

And an online "high-precision" calculator from [URL] ...

Answer: 3.332722378349525584658E-5

The best SQL results compare only to the fourth digit with other results. Everything else agrees to the 10th or 12th digit.

Is the precision of arithmetic calculations on SQL Server that bad, or am I doing something wrong here? Is there another more precise alternative?

I did the following. The results speak for themselves

DECLARE @x FLOAT(53) = 1.0004;
DECLARE @y FLOAT(53) = 1.0/12.0;
DECLARE @z FLOAT(53) = POWER(@x,@y)-1; -- Answer: 3.33270904724348E-05
SELECT POWER((1+@z),12); -- 1.00039999839968

-- using results from other sources (c#, windows calc, casio.com)
SELECT POWER((1+3.33272237835747E-05),12) -- 1.0004
SELECT POWER((1+3.3327223783495255846580902358195e-5),12)-- 1.0004
SELECT POWER((1+3.332722378349525584658E-5),12) -- 1.0004

It is not important what I am trying to do, but in case it will work, I am trying to calculate the monthly return for a 90-day T-bill given the compounded annual return. x is the annualized return.