Benchmarking Windows 7: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger?

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[citation][nom]The pragmatic one[/nom]It's great that you guys test the totally built gamer machine setup. However, it shows that Tom's is now out of touch with reality. Most of the world has switched to laptops (even software developers use laptops now guys). As noted above, testing with the latest custom built desktop hardware ignores reality. What most people, including IT professionals, want to know is will Win7 perform on a common business laptop. I for one have stuck with XP for real work, simply because Vista was too bloated. In fact, I've been moving stuff over to Mac, simply because I don't have to wait for my PC all day when opening the same types of apps I've been using for 15 yrs (docs, spreadsheets, email). Sad...[/citation]
That's your perception of reality.If everyone around you is a mobility user it would appear that way.Many students use laptops.However many offices and home users do use desktops.Most of the software developers that I know personally are using high end desktops to develop their software on rather than a laptop because their software is used on high end systems and using a keyboard for a desktop is a lot easier.
One of my friends (a truck driver) exclusively uses a laptop because of his profession and lifestyle.Because of limited power usage,space constraints and thermodynamics laptops can never match the raw performance of desktop PC's.Most of the new laptops are capable of running Vista or Windows 7 even inexpensive ones however I have heard of some deluded consumers who made a bad purchase a year ago of a laptop that came with only 1 GB RAM on it.Of course it would perform poorly with Vista at its minimum requirements.
 
this article doesnt explain much about the win 7 improvements, i work as digital artist for 3d animation and visual effects, i see a huge improvement on frame rate on viewports from vista to win 7 (maya/3ds max), same scenes went from 20 fps on winvista to 140 fps on win 7, also, memory management, and desktop speed.
 
Ok, screw XP vs Vista Vs 7. I want to see Win Server 2008 R2 vs Win 7 Pro. I want to see if the reports that Server 2008 R2 is better than Win 7 Pro for some tasks such as rendering,benchmarking,etc due to better optimization than Win 7 Pro,etc.
 
It would be nice to see some stress tests by starving the OS a little. What happens if we only feed it 1GB of RAM? How about a single core?
 
also wanted to add that the only thing I really see people gaining is direct x 10 and 11, which I still feel can be added to windows xp if microsoft wanted (the kernel is not locked so microsoft can pretty much change anything right down to the kernel) (but then there will be no push for gamers to upgrade especially if their current games run faster on XP)
(PS many dx 10 games don't really look better than dx 9 games, example crysis, if you do the quality hack for XP, it looks pretty much exactly the same as dx 10 but performs faster)

either they didn't make much improvement with newer direct X or companies dumped direct x 10 with out even touching it's abilities

(also please tomshardware add a edit button for the comments, it is pretty much impossible to correct spelling errors with out it)

also windows 7 ruined the start menu by forcing people into the search feature. not everyone wants it especially if you don't remember the name of a app or don't know how to spell it's name

with windows xp set to the classic start menu, all I need to do is wave the mouse over the the area of interest and the content automatically is shown, in windows 7, you are stuck with a tiny start menu in the corner of the screen that only takes up probably 50-60% of the height of the screen, so it takes a lot more scrolling to find a app especially if you don't know the name. windows xp shows everything in front of you at once so instead of scrolling and reading the names, you are only reading and if you a re used to it, you will automatically know where to look or if you short it alphabetically. to launch a random app from the windows xp/classic startmenu, it only takes 2 clicks. with windows 7 it takes 1 click to launch the start menu, 1 click to see the program list, 1 click and hold on the scroll bar to move it to see the content in it, then 1 more click on the apps start menu older to see the contents and then 1 final click to open the app. thats 5 clicks vs windows xp 2

and microsoft hired idiots when making the windows 7 default task bar. almost twice as big as older ones and shows less info, a pic of the icon of a program instead of the programs name, this forces you to use the preview feature constantly especially if you have multiple programs or documents or other stuff like that open which will flood the taskbar with a lot of the same icon. (lucky for us it can be disabled and a smaller more efficient taskbar can be used, which still retains the new features that microsoft added to it)(microsoft needs to learn that companies make larger monitors with higher resolutions to increase a users work space, not give you more space to make your user interface larger with out adding anything to it that will back up the need for the extra space)(most of the additional screen space taken up such as the larger taskbar, additional and extra thick borders around windows, larger title bars and other random stuff was designed to show off the glass crap eye candy and even if you use a more classic theme, the thick boarders and other crap like that still remain)
so for me, what I see with upgrading since I am a power user who doesn't care about the eye candy, is a less screen space due to a larger UI, slower performance, more complex UI which requires more clicks to do the same tasks and tabbed windows broken up into their own windows and multiple features of 1 window broken up into many windows

for example if you right click on your desktop and go to properties in windows xp, that same window is broken up into 5 different windows each in a different menu in windows 7, why does microsoft hate tabs so much?

in windows xp, getting to things like folder options and other features like that is available in all folders, in windows 7 you have to go to the control panel, which is annoying for me since with a lot of what I do, I am constantly using the folder options to show protected system files and also show file extensions when browsing through a view of hundreds of even thousands of files. constantly using these features in windows 7 is frustrating.
 
Interresting but uncomplete...

Should be 4 PCs class: low (P4) , mid (duo core), mid (quad core) and high (i7).
x86 and x64.
Vista VS Windows 7.

Benchmark shouldn't be just base on 3D benchmark.

Startup time, true in/out put performance, 3D, Encoding, productivity, ...
 
I believe that you guys left out the very important reason that most people hated windows vista which was that is was very terribly unstable. I didn't see a benchmark or a comment on if it's more stable than vista, and if it is more stable, than I would've liked to know how much. A very important feature. I've compared some laptops with windows 7 and vista and win7 was actually a bit faster when opening folders and was very stable, like ubuntu9.04. But winVISTA stopped responding after I opened some music on Media player and minesweeper and solitaire at the same time on 2/3 laptops. I would've liked it for you guys to mention that stuff.
 
As I would expect, no real difference in performance. Now I'd like to see these same benches ran on a machine that's about 2 years old. The type of machines Vista was sloped on. I'd find that kind of benchmarking much more useful when assisting my friends.
 
I've been one of those who stuck with Windows XP as the main OS, until about a week ago. In the past I'd tried Vista, and while I loved some of it, XP was so much faster on my aging PC. I'm on a new quadcore PC now and Windows 7 feels faster and better than XP or Vista ever was.

There are no benchmarks I can compare with for my hardware but what seems to be happening here for me is that a new PC that is fast enough to really drive Windows 7 and that makes all the difference. Firefox with a tonne of extensions loads in 4 seconds, it used to take 9 seconds (and that 9 seconds was after every tweak i could find) Windows boots up in probably around half the time and is usable from the desktop quicker. After really long sessions everything is just as responsive, on XP this just wasn't the case for me.

Bottom line is Windows 7 looks fantastic, the new taskbar once adapted to, is brilliant! On a decent PC it's a no brainer to go with Windows 7. On older hardware I'd still favour XP but on a fresh new system it would be sad to still stick with XP and lose everything that is new and interesting about 7 just to gain a few per cent speed improvement that you'd never notice outside of benchmarking.
 
[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]why do people say this.if what your doing in windows xp will be exactly the same as what you do in vista or windows 7. Still using the same apps, or using the same apps in a VM because the OS cant actually run it just to say you have the latest OS.[/citation]
One word: Security

Windows 7 is far less likely to get infected than Windows XP... for now anyway. I don't know about you but I prefer my OS to be trojan free.
 
If your hardware had problems with vista, you will still have issues with windows 7. There is no reason to upgrade other than the EOL of XP.
 
[citation][nom]knickle[/nom]One word: SecurityWindows 7 is far less likely to get infected than Windows XP... for now anyway. I don't know about you but I prefer my OS to be trojan free.[/citation]

the same was said about vista and most of the repair jobs that I get are infected vista machines.

in my windows 7 virtual machine, I can get it infected with the latest rogue antivirus and that total protection crap that locks out everything with in a few seconds by simply opening IE in windows 7 and typing a random expensive program name + any random word that has to do with cracking it and open a couple of results and the infection will happen automatically.

many of these infections can come through a malicious banner ad as they can do their own scripting. many people who get these kind of infections often get it from a site they commonly go to that eventually becomes compromised by by a malicious attacker.

newer versions of windows have not reduce the the problem of users getting their computer infected.

also a OS cant protect you.

also listen to podcast like security now and also look at the windows updates, vista and windows 7 are less secure than windows xp because a lot of the new code they added is being exploited left and right and is not battle hardened like that of windows xp. and whats even worst, most of the stuff thats being attacked are things that most users will never use but are services that will run in the background anyway.
 
Riiiiiight. I think I'll stick with XP. When will MS get the message? If your product isn't secure, doesn't offer real improvements, and isn't fully tested, please don't bother. Just watch, they'll have to cut XP support to make this fly. XP is by far the best version of Windows ever, and that's not saying much. They're going to keep this crap up until Linux makes the PC landscape look very different. Government Motors is another company that builds what IT wants to rather than what the customer asked for. Hey MS, have you noticed where that behavior has taken GM?
 
@Razor512 You're seriously paranoid and your surfing habits are dubious at best. Still all this commenting is meaningless in judging some overall winner in any category. You have your bias, I have mine. I've never had a single virus or any spyware in all the years I've been using computers, but then I don't go poking around warez sites. If you were to take my experience as an example of how secure Windows is, then every version of Windows would be hailed as having great security. Clearly that's not the case. So comments like mine and yours only really show you that they are worth what you paid for them.

@moejoe You stick with XP and enjoy it. Having used it for 6 years it feels comfy to me, I know it inside out, its flaws and positives but really if your PC is modern enough, there is a heck of a lot in Windows 7 that is nice and worth having. Still, each to their own.
 
why do people upgrade to the new core i7

why do people go from a 7200rpm drive, to a 10,000rpm drive of the same storage

why do people go to SSD's with less storage

why do people go from ddr2 to ddr3 memory

why do people from a 100mbit network to a gigabit network

why do some people go from a nvidia GTX 260 to a GTX 295

you will see that these are what people put infest in and the answer why is very similar

more speed and performance


now tell me, do you want a up to $300 upgrade that causes you to loose speed and performance?, once microsoft learns the answer to this then they will finally be able to make a new OS and have the world rush to upgrade to it.

also which would improve a users performance more going from windows XP to windows 7 or going from a 8800gt to a gtx 295 or going with a faster CPU or maxing out your memory?


A OS will not really provide you with security, it is the user that provides security. at my college, they added like 10 imacs in the library and all of them are infected with malware.
 
@techpops I have also never had an infection since I moved to windows xp because I actively stay safe. but I do infect virtual machines and test systems especially when a new infection comes out and I have to infect a system and remove it and repair the damage so I can more easily repair a customers computer if they get infected

I am not really biased about this. if a new OS gives me more speed and performance then I will upgrade to it.
 
@Razor512 I think you may be biased without realising it. You sound like you spend a lot of time fixing customers PC's. A lot of that caused by virus and malware. So you're biased because you see only a small part of the user spectrum. The inexperienced and experienced who should know better. I'm biased because I don't see any security problems, so feel just not bothering with attachements and a few other no brainer things are enough to keep me safe. I didn't even have an AV installed for the last couple of years. Currently have one now as Windows 7 came setup with Defender and I tried out Microsofts whole suite of new stuff.

So is XP more secure than 7 Or is it just enough to say they are both secure enough for most people who follow a few basic rules.
 
I had xp, vista, and now 7. 7 might not be as fast as xp during some tasks, but I can get around in 7 so much faster. For instance the libaries are stupid simple to use, and I can reach my videos, and pictures faster, also the homegoup is also stupid simple and stream from every computer on my network plus my direct tv and xbox 360 with just knowing one password. Also pulling files from across the network is a lot faster. Also I hardly ever reboot windows 7. vista was a compatibility nightmare. xp was a solid os, but a spyware nightmare. So out of all of this what did I choose. windows 7 on everything.
 
Frankly, I just upgraded last Saturday and really think that the hype about the "new" interface is totally unjustified. Seriously, it feels much like a slightly polished Vista and UAC works exactly the same as in Vista SP2. It's funny how "new" things get hyped and later trashed.

I know the real changes are internal, and i look forward to actually using those. But the interface is clearly hyped up. The new Task bar falls short in many ways as it quickly runs out of space to pin icons to it and cannot create groups (i.e. "Graphics Programs" etc.)
 
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