In this work we investigate and compare the electrostatics of fully-depleted double-gate (DG) and cylindrical nanowire (CNW) MOSFETs accounting for quantum effects and, in doing so, we propose a new approach for the self-consistent solution of the Schrödinger-Poisson equations based on a rigorous time-independent perturbation method. This study leads to the conclusion that the cylindrical geometry is superior to the equivalent double-gate structure both in terms of the current ratio I on /I off and the available voltage gain g m /g o , indicating that both the subthreshold slope and the drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL) are better controlled by the CNW-MOSFET.