Windows XP, Vista, And 7 Performance

C1

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2008
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Conclusion
Windows 7 is capable of delivering better performance than Windows Vista. However, the last three Windows operating systems —Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7—produce quite different results when used on upper-mainstream notebooks, such as our Dell Latitude 630.

We used identical hardware and had three identical 2.5” Momentus 7200.2 160GB drives by Seagate. Even the firmware was the same. We aligned the power scheme settings as much as possible to allow for a straight comparison. The performance result isn’t surprising, as Windows XP with Service Pack 3 delivered the highest application performance. If you want your apps to execute at their fastest then Windows XP still is the best choice. Since it will still be supported for a while, the choice is rather safe.

Windows Vista did better, despite its its poor reputation; performance and battery runtime were rather balanced. You get less performance than on Windows XP, but slightly better battery runtime. Windows 7, which has received laurels pretty much everywhere, loses the performance battle, although the difference will not be noticeable in everyday life. In exchange, you get by far the best battery life of all three operating systems. While the Windows XP installation forced a shutdown after 5 hours and 50 minutes, Windows 7 allowed for 28 minutes more. That’s 8% more battery life.

The results and especially the 8% difference won’t be fully applicable to different system configurations, but they help to make a general decision on the operating system. If you’re considering buying a new notebook, your best choice is probably going to be Windows 7. The performance is close to XP, but you get that extra battery runtime as a bonus.

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JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
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Hey people need to make a living on the Internet from Reviews.

In the real scientific world there is a whole discipline that is called Research Design.

Hundreds of books, with hundreds of pages were written about it, and there multi-year courses given in Graduate Schools concerning issues of Research Design.

There are statical methods to decide what is valid and what is Not.

The most popular tool recently acquired by IBM.

http://www.spss.com/software/?source=homepage&hpzone=nav_bar

However all of this doesn't apply to most online reviewers.

Example, if one video card scores 100 and the other one 105.
instead of making a chart like this.

A) ********************
B) *********************

Which shows how insignificant is the difference.

They do like this

a) 95 *
b) 95 **

Which create the illusion as though B is twice as good as A. D:

Conclusion

We aligned the power scheme settings as much as possible to allow for a straight comparison.

The results and especially the 8% difference won’t be fully applicable to different system configurations.
.

The whole point of research design is to add this confounding facts to the evaluation to derive the real validly of the testing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding ).

You can rest assure that if done in a proper way the 8% would be score as insignificant.

The people who did the research are smart enough to know it, and yet their "personalty disorder" can not let them write it correctly.

They conclude, "The results and especially the 8% difference won’t be fully applicable to different system configurations, but they help to make a general decision on the operating system".

Nice contradiction in one sentence. :twisted:
 
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RebateMonger

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Dec 24, 2005
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WAY back in the "early days" of PCs, IBM (as I recall) did research on user perception of "speed". They found that it took about a 25% speed increase before a typical user could detect a difference between two PCs.

I remember all the hype about "MMX" (my brother refused to buy his first PC until he could get the new Intel processor with MMX), hyper-threading (which was pretty useless at first), and dual-channel memory.

Right now, I play a lot of "Left4Dead". I found that my PC takes two minutes to load the game, while friends are loading in fifteen seconds. And I don't really care. Once the game loads, I have adequate (but unmeasured) frame rates, no stuttering, and I just enjoy playing for a couple of hours.
 
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JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
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Right now, I play a lot of "Left4Dead". I found that my PC takes two minutes to load the game, while friends are loading in fifteen seconds. And I don't really care. Once the game loads, I have adequate (but unmeasured) frame rates, no stuttering, and I just enjoy playing for a couple of hours.

That is because you enjoy the Game, while the others enjoy only the social One-Upmanship. I.e being capable to say to their peers "Man my Rig load it in 2 Minutes Dude". :hmm:
 

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
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That is because you enjoy the Game, while the others enjoy only the social One-Upmanship. I.e being capable to say to their peers "Man my Rig load it in 2 Minutes Dude". :hmm:
Hehehe...I'm sure you've experienced this:

As a "PC expert", you know that it's finally time to upgrade your PC when the neighbor, who knows nothing about PCs, has just bought a new machine at KMart for $300 that's three times as fast as your fastest computer.
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,516
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My neighbor's Kmart computer is My new Laptop. :D

I just got a new one for $399 (sale, rebate, free shipping, No local tax, whatever). Putting aside the Graphic card, the CPU, Mobo, Memory of the "thingy" is faster than my main Rig, and it has DVD with Light Scribe too. :awe:

Fast 3D Graphics? I do not care, I use to play a little WOW with my Grandson when he was into it a while ago. Now he is working himself toward PreMed College and does not spend time any more on online gaming.
 

C1

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2008
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The conclusion I come to out of this is that unless there is something in particular you need or are looking for in an OS upgrade then there is really no need to do it. A valid reason is to be able to state that your using WIN 7 (supposedly the latest & greatest).