Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 vs.Vista: First Benchmark

[raj11650]

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1. That's as close to fully baked as it gets, so we're finally comfortable pitting it against Vista for some good ol' fashion benchmarking. Windows 7 feels snappier. Is it?

We used 32-bit versions of both Vista and Windows 7 on the same machine for testing: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM (but really 3GB available cause of the 32-bit issue), 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT. We tested 32-bit because that's the official RC1 disc we were sent. We'll be doing a follow up with 64-bit, don't worry.

The first series of tests are the "everyday" ones—stuff you'd run into sorta daily, where taking less time is more better. Vista punked 7 out twice here, shutting down a bit faster applying a filter to a 16.6MB (9764x3720 pixel) photo in Adobe Photoshop CS4 with more haste. When we played Left 4 Dead using the recommend settings, Vista also seemed to deliver ever-so-slightly better performance, more consistently keeping the frame rate near 30 frames per second, though you'd have to be watching the FPS numbers rise and fall to really tell the difference between the two in gameplay. But you should keep in mind Nvidia's Windows 7 drivers are still in beta, and haven't been updated since March, while fresh Vista drivers came out a couple weeks ago, and drivers make huge differences with gaming performance.

This second series is pulled from PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage—more traditional benchmarks, designed for Windows Vista. Here, Windows 7 came out ahead, only losing to Vista on a single test in 3DMark.

Source:Gizmodo - Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 vs. Vista: First Benchmarks - Windows 7 benchmarks

 

[swarfega]

hmm interesting.. My startup is pretty fast. Programs load fast as well.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there.

Your CS4 (photoshop) results surprise me -- but with Photoshop you need to optimise your "Scratch Disk" space carefully or your results will be really "Wonky".

I use the 64 Bit edition of CS4 and IT flies compared with Vista X-64 ultimate.

I've also had the 64 bit version of CS4 on a laptop with only 1GB of RAM. This also worked "adequately". - Wouldn't like to do a load of photos with that laptop but it DID work OK for what I was doing at the time.

Vista X-64 would "barely load" on a 1GB laptop -- disk just "thrashing" most of the time -- would often take around 10 mins before you could actually use the computer.

(Please don't say that I should have run the 32 bit version -- I was involved in OS'es probably whilst a lot of people testing VISTA etc were still in diapers. If your CPU is 64 bit capable even on a 1GB RAM machine it's STILL worthwhile loading the 64 bit OS).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Mark]

Just goes to show that Vista is actually allot better then people think and the majority of people who hate Vista have never even tried it.

I have been using Vista for the last couple of years and I love it and have never had any problems with drivers except for a Blue tooth dongle but I was not bothered by that and the manufactures are the ones that are really letting us down, not Microsoft.

 

[Joan Archer]

Same here Mr Grim and like you the only problem was my Bluetooth Dongle but that's not important enough to make me want to scrap the OS or complain about it.

 

[marcellusmighty]

I notice a huge performance increase in both startup and shutdown time in windows 7 compared to windows vista (64-bit). After I installed the newest Nvidia display drivers yesterday, the shutdown time was nonexistent. Almost instantaneous. That is not an exagerration, folks.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all

Most of the bad performance issues were about trying to install the program on unsuitable hardware way way before SP1 came out. I don't even think the "Driver" issue was particularly valid - but it was a "convenient excuse".

The other problem that gave it a bad name was that because a lot of "Shop bought" PC's didn't come with a proper OS disk, it was almost impossible for even a fairly competent computer user (does such a thing actually exist) to optimise the OS. -- If for any reason you had to re-install then you usually had to restore some hidden partition which would install all the crapware that most store purchased PC's usually have pre-installed on them. If the hidden partition restore failed then you were left with just an inert Brick until you went out and bought a repacement DVD or even a new copy of the OS.

A "typical" user would just have to "grin and bear" the (at that time) the pretty horrific experience that the original VISTA yielded.

On these boards most users are fairly competant so optimising VISTA probably wouldn't have been too horrific a task. A lot also "make their own" PC's so the problem of not having an install disk didn't arise either.

For a LOT of people the original VISTA was most definitely a "downgrade" from their XP systems -- remember we are talking about 18 months - 1 year ago -- not today. Today's hardware is a totally different ballgame --where would I have got a really fast QUAD CPU with very fast discs, decent LARGE LCD monitor and 16GB RAM back then all for around 900 USD.

Even if I could have found the hardware we were talking probably of a price around 3,000 USD then.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[PhreePhly]

Hi all

Most of the bad performance issues were about trying to install the program on unsuitable hardware way way before SP1 came out. I don't even think the "Driver" issue was particularly valid - but it was a "convenient excuse".

The other problem that gave it a bad name was that because a lot of "Shop bought" PC's didn't come with a proper OS disk, it was almost impossible for even a fairly competent computer user (does such a thing actually exist) to optimise the OS. -- If for any reason you had to re-install then you usually had to restore some hidden partition which would install all the crapware that most store purchased PC's usually have pre-installed on them. If the hidden partition restore failed then you were left with just an inert Brick until you went out and bought a repacement DVD or even a new copy of the OS.

A "typical" user would just have to "grin and bear" the (at that time) the pretty horrific experience that the original VISTA yielded.

On these boards most users are fairly competant so optimising VISTA probably wouldn't have been too horrific a task. A lot also "make their own" PC's so the problem of not having an install disk didn't arise either.

For a LOT of people the original VISTA was most definitely a "downgrade" from their XP systems -- remember we are talking about 18 months - 1 year ago -- not today. Today's hardware is a totally different ballgame --where would I have got a really fast QUAD CPU with very fast discs, decent LARGE LCD monitor and 16GB RAM back then all for around 900 USD.

Even if I could have found the hardware we were talking probably of a price around 3,000 USD then.

Cheers
jimbo

Actually, Vista RTM'ed in Nov 2006, general release in Jan. 07, so we are talking about 2 to 2-1/2 years ago. The driver issue was real. My laptop at the time was not rated for Vista. The laptop manufacturer did not support Vista, so it was up to me to find drivers. I dual-booted for about 5 months after RTM, while I worked on finding drivers. In May 2007, I finally tossed XP and was exclusive Vista, and saw no performance hit. I was using a 2 gHz T7200 2-GB laptop. However, I would not want to have supported an entire office with Vista. I was the only Vista user in a group of about 350. I had to find alternate means to use the Novell client (we are a Novell shop) to access the mapped server drives, until Novell finally had a decent client. That wasn't until Oct. 2007.

I have to laugh at the "optimizing Vista" comment. Most of the Vista problems I encountered were due to friends listening to some idiot on an internet forum talk about shutting down the indexing service or superfetch in order to speed up Vista. If people would just let Vista run as intended, it was plenty speedy. You needed the proper hardware and enough RAM. 1GB RAM was the bare minimum in order to run aero. That also meant not using shared RAM with a video card. That killed many systems also. I had friends buy a Vista Basic system, with 512 MB of ram and the integrated intel graphics used 128 MB of that very precious RAM. Yea, Vista was a dog on that system, but that was not MS's fault, blame HP for actually putting that piece of cr*p on the market.

PhreePhly

 

[jimbo45]

You needed the proper hardware and enough RAM.
PhreePhly

That was the main point -- a lot of PC's then didn't have it and weren't even DUAL CPU's.

I like the remarks about "tinkering because of some remarks found on Internet Forums".

Anyway goes to show "A little learning is a dangerous thing".

Cheers
jimbo

 

[PhreePhly]

That was the main point -- a lot of PC's then didn't have it and weren't even DUAL CPU's.

I like the remarks about "tinkering because of some remarks found on Internet Forums".

Anyway goes to show "A little learning is a dangerous thing".

Cheers
jimbo

Please don't think that that was directed at you. In general, that has been a serious issue with systems that I have repaired. In early 2007, when Vista was released, I would agree that the upgrade process was tough due to hardware deficiancies, but you were talking about a year, 18 months ago. The hardware was definitely Vista capable. The XP downgrades that people were getting from Dell and HP on new systems was plain stupid. Those PC's were more than capable of running Vista. 2 GB was the norm, dual-core was the norm and quad-core was popping up on rather cheap hardware. I have no problem with enterprise customers down-grading, having part of an organization running XP and the other running Vista is difficult if not impossible, but the home user was being misled by really bad reporting from industry "experts".

Vista was and is a good OS. The fact that Win 7 is doing well is testament to that. Win 7 is built on Vista. I don't buy the Vista SP3 cr*p that you see on-line, but Win 7 is what XP was to Win2000, an interface upgrade with some cleanup of the kernel. The driver model has not changed significantly, and so there should be fewer peripheral problems with scanners and printers, but essentially Vista is vindicated with Win 7.

That's my opinion anyway.

 

[SIW2]

I don't see much difference in performance between the two - except , on my system, Vista boots up significantly faster.