Is it worth it to upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista with new hardware?

Hi,
I bought these:

ASUS P8P67 mobo
Newegg.com - ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz
Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600

8GB of DDR3 1600 RAM
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

nVidia GTX 460 SE 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card
Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-1366-TR GeForce GTX 460 SE (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

The mobo manual "recommends" that you should use the latest supported OS to "maximize" your features. So this made me wonder a bit because my Vista "Windows Experience Index" is 5.9, which I don't think it was too much lower before with 3.5 year old hardware. Does Vista bottleneck performance with new hardware? Should I upgrade to Windows 7 or else I would suffer some sort of performance hit? I'm not using any SDD's or multitouch screens or anything like that.

You can also run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on your existing rig. Connect your peripherals and make sure they are switched on before you start the WGA scan and any conflicts will be flagged up.

With the specifications you've posted, I'd have no hesitation in upgrading to Windows 7 for a far better computing experience.

I would recommend upgrading as you can utilize the 64 bit capabilities of your sandybridge better than Windows Vista.

I actually don't like the little pictures on the bottom. I like the words better.

What other computing experiences does it offer? Do I get a performance hit with Vista? Or is the 5.9 thing because Vista doesn't "rate" the new hardware properly?

clearfire62 said:

I would recommend upgrading as you can utilize the 64 bit capabilities of your sandybridge better than Windows Vista.

What exactly does it do 64-bit? Is that why Vista rating maxes every component out at 5.9? I mean something like the Core i7 did not exist during the Vista creation so I kind of expected the "Experience Index" whatever that means to be higher.

64 Bit is means it is twice as fast as a 32 Bit computer(which most are). With Windows 7, you should be able to get a 6.5 or higher on your CPU.

clearfire62 said:

64 Bit is means it is twice as fast as a 32 Bit computer(which most are). With Windows 7, you should be able to get a 6.5 or higher on your CPU.

The Vista version I have is 64-bit.

I agree with clearfire62 that you should get a higher WEI score than 5.9.

On my computer the top score is 7.5, but the WEI is dragged down to 5.9 by a HDD rated at 5400 RPM.

As yours is 7200 RPM, it should beat the score of 5.9 easily.

seavixen32 said:

I agree with clearfire62 that you should get a higher WEI score than 5.9.

On my computer the top score is 7.5, but the WEI is dragged down to 5.9 by a HDD rated at 5400 RPM.

As yours is 7200 RPM, it should beat the score of 5.9 easily.

Yeah, it's says 5.9 accross the board so it looked kind of suspicious. I'm sure if I put in really good 2010 hardware in there it would have been greater than 5.9. So I just wasn't sure if new hardware was not "working right" with the "old software" or whatever.

The question is...is it really performing like a 5.9 system right now...and if I install Windows 7 it will really jump up to a 7.9, etc.? Or is it working like a 7.9 already and the number is bogus.

One recommendation I will make is to get solid state drive (SSD) if you can. It really makes a difference in speed and will blow you away when you see it start.