Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Conclusion
With the launch of Windows 7, there are really 3 different tales to tell. There’s Windows 7, the OS that replaces Vista. There’s Windows 7, the OS that needs to do what Vista failed to do and kill XP. And there’s Windows 7, the OS that needs to put a stop to Apple’s continuing growth. We’re going to look at all 3.
7 vs. Vista
I’ve never been entirely convinced that Microsoft was looking to significantly move away from Vista with Windows 7, and the final release version has not changed that. Win7 certainly has a number of new features, some of them such as the interface overhaul are even big enough to be classified as “major”, but none of them are important enough to be significant.
The analogy I’d like to use here to call Windows 7 Vista’s XP, but even there the change from 2000 to XP was more significant. There are a number of edge cases where this isn’t the case, but overall, in the general case, Windows 7 just isn’t a significant change from Windows Vista. The inclusion of more audio/video codecs is the only improvement that I think most users are going to encounter and benefit from.
Now as for the edge cases:
HTPC: If you’re using Windows Media Center to drive an HTPC, the changes to WMC are significant enough to justify an upgrade, particularly if you’re a cable TV user.
Low-End Hardware: We’ve seen this one ourselves – Win7 does much better here on marginal hardware. The only catch is that on such hardware the computer probably isn’t worth much more than the upgrade copy of Windows. Certainly Win7 is a better fit, but so is completely replacing such hardware.
Laptops: Windows 7 has better battery life than Vista, resumes from hibernation sooner, and given the lower performance of laptops often benefits from the better performance of Win7 on such hardware. If you need to squeeze out every minute of battery life or every point of performance, then it’s upgrade time. In fact laptops users are certainly going to be the easiest group to sell upgrades to, since Win7 consistently does so well.
Ultimately the issue with upgrading anything else is the price of a Windows 7 upgrade. It’s $110. So was Vista. And Vista was a much more profound change than Win7 is, bringing UAC, DirectX 10, Aero, and the other big features that are still prominent with Win7 today. Win7 isn’t a big enough upgrade for most Vista users given the price. If Microsoft did something similar to Apple and charged $30 or so for it, then it would become cheap enough to justify an upgrade even with the minor differences, but unless you’re eligible for a student upgrade ($30), then that isn’t going to happen. The closest Microsoft has come to that is the $50 pre-order sale, and the ship already sailed on that months ago.
In some degree of fairness, Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place here. XP is also a valid OS to upgrade from, and $30 to go from XP to Win7 would be ridiculously cheap. Not that we’d complain, but it’s not realistic. Microsoft’s other option would be to have different upgrade editions for XP and Vista, and while this is more reasonable the confusion it would cause would probably not be worth it.
With all of that said, this applies just to upgrades. The bottom line is that unlike the XP to Vista transition, I can’t fathom any good reason why anyone using a computer bigger than a netbook would want to stick to Vista. Win7 runs well and we haven’t encountered any software or hardware compatibility problems. Meanwhile it doesn’t bring with it any pitfalls like Vista did, so using Win7 on a new computer as opposed to Vista is the closest thing to a no-brainer that we’re going to see today. If you wanted Vista, you’re going to want Windows 7 instead.
7 vs. XP
If Windows 7 wasn’t meant to light a fire under Vista users, then it’s XP users that are the target. Microsoft couldn’t get them to move to Vista, so this is their second and possibly last real chance to move them before they become their own permanent faction of die-hard users. And to be frank, if Win7 succeeds here, it’s not going to be because of technical measures.
The vast majority of big improvements in Windows came with Vista, not with Win7. Microsoft did fix some edge cases for Win7 such as marginal performance and laptop battery life, but the dissent over Vista went far beyond those edge cases. If your hardware didn’t work under Vista, it still won’t under Win7. If you didn’t like UAC, you still won’t like it under Win7. If you found XP to be snappier than Vista even on a fast computer, then you’ll still find XP to be snappier than Win7. At best, if your software didn’t work under Vista, it might work under Win7 if you can put up with the Windows XP Mode virtual machine.
So if Win7 succeeds where Vista failed, it’s going to be because of marketing and word of mouth. It will be Microsoft convincing users that Win7 is great before anyone can convince them otherwise, because if that negative mindset were to set in, it can’t be erased no matter how good any of the service packs are. Vista had its problems, but what kept it down since SP1 was word of mouth much more than it was technical issues for edge cases.
The one exception to this is netbook users, and as we didn’t get a chance to test any netbooks, we’re not going to make any judgments. If Microsoft has Win7 to the point where it performs comfortably on the average netbook, then they’re going to be in a much better position than if it crawls like Vista. In which case the bigger problem will be weaning OEMs off of cheap XP licenses.
On a proper system, Vista has always been the better choice for Windows. So our recommendation isn’t really changing here. If you’re not on Windows Vista or Windows 7, you should be. XP has been outdated for quite some time.
7 vs. Snow Leopard
We’ll have a proper review of Snow Leopard in the near future, but for now we’ll talk about Snow Leopard as compared to Windows 7.
Snow Leopard (10.6) was a minor release as compared to Leopard (10.5), much like Win7 is compared to Vista. Apple was able to go ahead and charge $30 for it for an upgrade from Leopard while charging $130 for an upgrade from Tiger (10.4), which means that if nothing else, Apple has been able to avoid Microsoft’s pricing problems.
When comparing Windows and Mac OS X, Apple’s strength has been integration and the GUI. Microsoft can’t do anything about the former, but they have about the latter. Apple still has the better GUI, but the advantage is not quite as great as it used to be.
Without getting in to hardware, Snow Leopard has been even more stagnant than Windows has. Win7 brings some definite advantages over Snow Leopard: per-application volume controls, a wide audio/video codec selection (Apple’s the odd man out here; even Linux has them beat), SuperFetch, TRIM support, and of course all the applications Windows can run. Meanwhile Snow Leopard has its GUI, along with Apple’s gesture system, Exposé, and Time Machine.
Ultimately it’s either that the two aren’t different enough, or that they’re so different that they’re hard to compare. In either case Mac OS X doesn’t have the obvious advantage that it once had against Vista. Windows 7 has brought Windows to the point where it’s going to be Mac OS X’s peer in most cases, and right now it looks like it’s going to skip the teething issues that Snow Leopard is going through. For the time being, it’s going to be hardware that’s the real differentiator.
7 vs. Linux?
This late October timeframe also aligns with the 6-month cycle of Ubuntu Linux, and is close to several other Linux distributions. We haven’t had to a chance to see Ubuntu 9.10 yet, but it’s something to keep in mind. Win7 erodes the Linux advantage against Windows in the performance cases where Vista suffered, and Win7 is going to widen the GUI disparity some, but otherwise Win7 is much of the same. This can only be an advantage for Linux vendors, who get another 2-5 years to chase a very similar target to the one they’ve already been chasing for the last 3.
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yyrkoon - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
If I sell you a car, and you crash into something because you had no experience driving; Does that make the car unsafe ? No. It means you the operator should have learned how to operate a vehicle before driving. Now, no, I do not think a computer user should be licensed to operate their own computers; But I *do* think it is their responsibility to learn how to operate one the way they intend it to be used. Does that make one operating system or another insecure ? No.Vista since beta has touted a sand boxed browser; That is even before anyone else implemented it into their browsers. Microsoft does things the way they do because they understand that the average user does not want to spend hours/days/months learning how to use a computer( when perhaps they should).
Torment - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Worst. Analogy. Ever.
If you design a car, and it catches fire because you located the gas tank next to the engine, that makes it unsafe. Sure, the buyer could relocate the gas tank themselves, but that doesn't change the fact that *your* design was unsafe. Further, if the car flips over routinely during normal use, it doesn't matter that you could take more precautions when you take corners. The design has still failed.
The browser is not even remotely sandboxed in Vista or 7. Microsoft *did* decide to sandbox silverlight (both in the browser and standalone), and I think they will do the same with the browser in the next iteration of windows. UAC helps a bit, but with the browser becoming as an application platform, sandboxing is a necessity.
There is a reason why security freaks run VMs for browsing.
yyrkoon - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
It is not the worst analogy. Ever.You are intentionally blowing things out of proportion to make things sound worse than they really are. If you change how or when a service runs, this is nothing like relocating a gas tank. That would be like removing the service, and replacing it with another.
That, and, you really know what *smart* security freaks do ? They do things like make a USB bootable copy of their OS, so they can scan their OS drive while unmounted. Or, they run ridiculously impossible to setup setups like SELinux. The latter here is probably less smart, and just more geeky.
Security experts use VMs as honey pots, not for browsing . . .
Gunnman - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
As I read through this I can just imagine some of you holding your O/S boxes. Stroking them lovingly as you hug them in your arms.It all comes down to $$$ I think. If you have a piece of crap machine and have no cash or are one of those historian fanboys refusing to get rid of that TRS80, then sure keep DOS as the best os ever!! :P
If all you do is surf and use productivity apps, no need to upgrade from XP, I can see that.
If your needing a new upgrade and the new O/S's will not run on your rig. OK Stay on XP.
But you can not blame others that have good jobs and enjoy the life of the Enthusiast getting bleeding edge hardware and moving to the newest O/S.
I enjoy this very thing, it's fun getting the latest tech (in intervals). And nothing is more enjoyable (as far as computers)than installing that latest O/S and learning all about it's operation and putting it through its paces.
I like XP for what it is but I like Vista and 7's interface much better (it's pretty). :P
I do have a quad-boot on my system Win7 (primary O/S) then Vista then XP and then Linux, just in case I need them. You never can tell in the x86 world.
I'm prepped for anything.
Win 7 having added features of DX11 Direct Compute I think thats cool to do away with proprietary physics. I hope Nvidia didnt pay too much for Ageia.
I do more than game but I like to do it all in style. :)
MonicaS - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
I have never seen such a lackluster launch for something this big. Even mediocre cellphones we'll never us from companies we've never heard from have greater PR and fanfare to their releases. Still, W7 is great so far!Monica S
Los Angeles Computer Repair
http://www.sebecomputercare.com">http://www.sebecomputercare.com
7oby - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
If the evaluation of an OS depends on criteria such as application integration and homogeneity, user habits and visual appeal, then don't miss to check out KDE 4.3 as integrated in Kubuntu 9.10.Although KDE 4.3 still isn't as mature as Gnome is, to the novice user it feels and looks better.
ProDigit - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
The graphs of Anandtech differ too much with my own experiences!In many cases I think they made up the graphs by random or choice, rather than by actual testing.
I tested Win7 RC1 on my laptop, and it performs similar to XP, but not as snappy. It also runs hotter, and battery life suffered compared to XP.
Under Vista SP1 my laptop suffered A LOT on the battery life!!!
Win XP: 5,5Hours
Win 7: ~5hours
Vista: ~4,3 hours
In the tests done above it almost seems like Vista uses less battery than XP, which is just plain stupid and idiotic to claim that!
My experiences differ much, and like before I do believe that Anandtech is a tech site with biased reviews and opinions.
For this it is worse than Tomshardware, in that tomshardware can be biased, but it's articles always go together with the reality.
My experience is that anandtech pushes Nvidia and Intel,and now Win7.
Even from the time when AMD was clearly a better purchase in both graphics cards and processors, they still focused on Intel; and on multiple occasions twist graphs to their benefit!
This is a serious accusation, not my opinion alone anymore, but of many, and it has come to a point where it became too obvious...
Even with their article about "Internet Explorer 8 uses less power than Firefox"-article,
Well I've researched, and found that Internet Explorer 8 running a flash game had a lower FPS than Firefox.
I even took it further, on a T5500 CPU with XP, 2Gig RAM and Firefox, I had an average of 15fps.
Same game, Vista SP1, T7500 with 4Gig Ram, and IE8, I had an average of 4fps!!!
No wonder they are using lower power.
But that aside, which was probably the last article I could not get shoved through my throat, I think I've seen enough of Anandtech, and would recommend all users to read less biased reviews on tomshardware.com!!!
You'll notice immediately that they both offer different perspectives, and in my experience tomshardware has always been closer to the reality than Anandtech!
Flyboy27 - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
Tom's Hardware was once a great place especially back in the Thomas Pabst days. However, lately there is no reason to go there since they fired Ben, Travis, and Rob. For fuck's sake Tom's Games is now all flash games, WTF (I think there are a lot of people that are sore about this). I don't know where to go to get good game reviews anymore. If someone has any suggestions please let me know. Tom's got rid of their most unique content and is now little more than a cheap imitation of its former self, it's really sad actually. I hope Anand doesn't sell out to some shitty corporation. I wish I would have known about Anandtech back in the 90's. Its just too bad that they really don't cover games that well since there are so many SHIIIIITY review sites out there.goinginstyle - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
You have to be joking right? While Toms has improved recently, their analysis is far from competing with AT and they tend to be overly biased in several areas. Did you read Tom's Win7 article? It basically said XP users now have a reason to upgrade but they did not run any tests on XP. Tell me, how is that being closer to reality?It is funny to see all of these comments saying the Tom's Win7 article was better and it basically was nothing more than a PCWorld article. Apparently you have not read the latest AMD reviews here, they are all positive, fair, and recommend their products.
Peroxyde - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
Last paragraph in the article, section "7 vs Linux": "Win7 erodes the Linux advantage against Windows in the performance cases where Vista suffered".In all the benchmarks shown in the article, Vista almost has the same score than Windows 7. Why would Vista suffers some performance loss against Linux and Win7 does not? Can you please clarify?