Windows 8 Versus Windows 7: Game Performance, Benchmarked

[cleeve]

We already know that the look and feel of Windows 8 is very different from Windows 7. But once you fire up your favorite title, does Microsoft's latest affect your experience? We test 10 games and talk to one of the company's SDEs to answer that question.

Windows 8 Versus Windows 7: Game Performance, Benchmarked : Read more

 

[mubin]

Only the fast boot time is noticeable in win 8. But still win7 is great and i love it as its 1years+ old running in my system, no crash, still fast.

 

[steve360]

Another reason NOT to buy Windows 8...I mean Windows Vista 2.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

It's good to see that there aren't any major performance deficits when moving to Windows 8, like some past Microsoft OS's. For the most part everything looks to be within the margin of error.

 

[saintjimmy]

I still plan on sticking with Windows 7 for a few more years...

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]steve360[/nom]Another reason NOT to buy Windows 8...I mean Windows Vista 2.[/citation]
And what reason is that? It seems pretty positive from a performance standpoint, which was the purpose of this article.

 

[ojas]

Hmmm...wasn't expecting anything else.

No compelling reason to upgrade for me yet.

Windows NT 7 is where it's at. B-)



EDIT: I KNOW Vista, 7 & 8 are NT 6.

 

[lockhrt999]

My current win7 installation is more than 2 years old. I never used windows installations that are older than 4-5 months. Yes, win7 ages too but it's too slow and well managed compared to old windows OS.

And yes win8 has better RAM and processor management as touted, but then you lose more time navigating through blocky interface. You complete your work a 3 seconds more with win8 but you had taken 5 more seconds to start that program from blocky interface.

 

[mafisometal]

[citation][nom]lockhrt999[/nom]My current win7 installation is more than 2 years old. I never used windows installations that are older than 4-5 months. Yes, win7 ages too but it's too slow and well managed compared to old windows OS.And yes win8 has better RAM and processor management as touted, but then you lose more time navigating through blocky interface. You complete your work a 3 seconds more with win8 but you had taken 5 more seconds to start that program from blocky interface.[/citation]

You do know that you can use a program called Star8 by StarDock to get your desktop and toolbar back...it works quite well, no problems over here.

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]mafisometal[/nom]You do know that you can use a program called Star8 by StarDock to get your desktop and toolbar back...it works quite well, no problems over here.[/citation]

The problem is that Star8 and other 3rd-party tools haven't been able to fully replicate Win7's Start function.

 

[Guest]

looks like M$ is going the route of Apple and making a idiot proof OS, which is, well, good for IDIOTS anyone who actually wants to more than check email and play a game needs to stick to windows 7

 

[agnickolov]

Seems like DirectX 11 only testing. What about DirectX 9?

 

[killerclick]

Another myth busted. Even the faster boot times are about making tradeoffs.

 

[agnickolov]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Hmmm...wasn't expecting anything else.No compelling reason to upgrade for me yet.Windows NT 7 is where it's at. B-)[/citation]
Well, Windows 7 is actually NT 6.1, while Windows 8 is NT 6.2...

 

[Guest]

laugh, windows 8 works fine and i love it on my 50" bigscreen. enjoy your small Start menu.

 

[mykebrian]

what i really don't like on windows 8 is just the start menu. i hope they'll introduce an option if you want to have the metro style or the windows 7 style.

 

[wildkitten]

The main concern over Win8 is the question that is still unresolved...what is MS's approach to their Windows Store going to be. If they intend to try to close off outside development, well, it will kill Windows. What they need to do is come out and answer the question one way or another or else Win8 may very flop to begin with.

I'm still confused about the interface and UI. Some articles say MS is trying to make it hard to have a classic desktop yet I've seen articles with screenshots showing a very Windows 7 like desktop.

 

[tomfreak]

lol I am pretty sure I get more performance upgrading RAM than paying upgrade cost to upgrade from win7.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]agnickolov[/nom]Well, Windows 7 is actually NT 6.1, while Windows 8 is NT 6.2...[/citation]

I meant Win NT 7 when it releases.

 

[Bloob]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]The main concern over Win8 is the question that is still unresolved...what is MS's approach to their Windows Store going to be. If they intend to try to close off outside development, well, it will kill Windows. What they need to do is come out and answer the question one way or another or else Win8 may very flop to begin with.I'm still confused about the interface and UI. Some articles say MS is trying to make it hard to have a classic desktop yet I've seen articles with screenshots showing a very Windows 7 like desktop.[/citation]

Win 8 is pretty much identical to Win 7, Start menu has just been replaced with Start screen. Win RT does not allow applications to be installed to desktop ( people would just get confused why their x86 applications don't work on ARM ). Every store that currently works on Win 7, will work on Win 8.

 

[Todd Sauve]

I've been using the Win 8 Release Candidate for several months now on a spare PC I built out of used parts, with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ CPU and 2 gigs of RAM. It works fine, though I hate the new interface and use the free Start8 utility to do away with it.

After all is said and done I find that the only real advantage it has over Win 7 is that it starts and closes faster.

To which I must conclude "So what?"

If that is all there is to Win 8 I will gladly keep Win 7 and save myself a lot of aggravation and money.

 

[hunshiki]

I already pointed this out at the other article, but I guess I have to cross-post.
Please understand that there is no performance benefit. No. None.

Boot speed, shutdown speed and the other yadda are just marketing buzzwords. If you ever used Windows 8 for a longer while (a week is enough) you will notice it's got the very same boot speed. Especially if you count that none of the benchmarks count the startup time as full boot. They count the time until Metro (Modern UI) shows up. Which means the desktop is not even loaded. It's like comparing a desktop OS with iOS or other mobile operating systems.

Other "snappiness" and whatnot. The UI is full of effects, animations, transitions. It's a fake sense of "snappiness".
Gaming benchmark? Hah. Some of the games won't even work, and the rest just runs with the same speed.

 

[designasaurus]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I really wish you guys (Tom's) had used an FX processor to do these tests. I haven't believed a word of all the "win8 scheduler will bring 10-15% improvements in Bulldozer performance" rumors since the moment they started, and it would be nice to have some tests to point to show the truth of things.

 

[xrodney]

[citation][nom]crymoar[/nom]laugh, windows 8 works fine and i love it on my 50" bigscreen. enjoy your small Start menu.[/citation]
You can simply get graphical application start menu as gadget if you need it you don't need to buy new windows just for that. And if i want to use it as media player simply start XBMC which is way better then anything M$ can offer.

For me Windows8 is just dumbed down version of windows 7 with removed functionality, slightly improved CPU/Memory management and painful system administration.

 

[memadmax]

Not worth the hassle unless you got a touch device...