W7 or 8.1 For Gaming?

[acliff123]

They both cost ~$100. I heard W8.1 is faster and less prone to viruses, but W7 has an easier interface. I dont have a copy of it and need to figure out which one to buy.

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NYF is Banned

 

[VirtualLarry]

The "Win8.1 is faster for gaming" meme is mostly a myth. Maybe if you have an AMD FX CPU, and play BF4 exclusively, it's faster. But I've seen comparisons made with other CPUs, and Win8.1 was actually slightly slower than Win7 in some games. So it's definitely a mixed bag.

I prefer the UI of Windows 7 myself. Operating 8 or 8.1 is kind of like playing a video game.
Move mouse cursor here, swipe downward there, hidden menu pops up, quickly click the item you want before it disappears, etc.

 

[BrightCandle]

Its pretty much a wash in terms of gaming performance. One reason it might be worth it however is DX 11.2, which isn't available on Windows 7. The other feature I appreciate is that you don't get Windows Basic warnings about performance at any point because the interface in Windows 8 doesn't use the 3D card in the same way, that is a strangely huge benefit as a lot of games used to try and switch me to Windows Basic because performance of the GPU was degraded....while I was playing a game!