See how the new OS fared against
Windows Vista never was particularly speedy in most people's eyes. Whether it deserved the reputation or not, the word on the street was that
Given that, it's no wonder that improving performance was one of Microsoft's design goals with Windows 7. Many reviewers have said that the new operating system feels faster than
We installed Windows 7 on five computers (two desktop systems, two laptop PCs, and a netbook), and put the systems through our WorldBench 6 benchmark suite, which consists of a number of tests that assess a machine's performance in popular, real-world applications. We also ran timed tests to measure how the two
The verdict? Windows 7 makes some performance strides over
WorldBench 6 Test Results
Overall, Windows 7's performance improvement over Windows Vista is slight--but the important thing is that there is an improvement at all. For a breakdown of some of the performance scores, see the chart below.
On our E&C Black Mamba desktop (with a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor, overclocked to 3.8GHz), Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit earned a WorldBench 6 mark of 144, edging out Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit, which scored 139. Here Windows 7 was roughly 3.6 percent faster than Windows Vista.
When comparing the two versions of Windows on the HP Pavilion a6710t desktop (with a 2.6GHz Pentium Dual Core E5300 CPU), we tested both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows 7 Ultimate. Running the 32-bit versions of
We saw similar incremental performance improvements on our portable test PCs as well. With the 32-bit versions of Vista Home Premium and Windows 7 Home Premium, our Gateway T-6815 notebook went from a WorldBench 6 score of 58 on the older OS to a result of 64 on the newer one. Our Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 laptop's WorldBench 6 score improved by only one point with Windows 7 in our comparison of 32-bit Ultimate editions (going from 83 to 84); when we tested the 64-bit editions of the two OSs, we again saw a modest boost, with the Y530's score increasing from 79 to 83.
In our WorldBench 6 Nero tests, Windows 7 showed big improvements. Performance nearly doubled on average over
Windows 7 makes big gains in disk performance, however. For example, in our hard-disk-intensive WorldBench 6 Nero test--in which we create a series of images of an optical disc and then save them--every PC we tested showed an improvement. In our comparison of the 64-bit versions of
One particular result worth noting: In our testing, the 64-bit versions of Vista produced poorer disk performance than the 32-bit
Boot-Up and Shutdown Times
Microsoft says that in Windows 7 it changed the way the operating system handles starting up processes when you boot your computer. For some processes and services, Microsoft employs a scheme called trigger-start services. These are system services and processes that under
Launching Photoshop took two to three times longer on the new OS, but that isn't a big deal--the difference was still just a few seconds. *Times are in seconds. Shorter times indicate better performance.
In our boot-up tests using one desktop and one laptop, though, we saw mixed results. On our Gateway T-6815 laptop, Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit) had the advantage, booting up in 39.6 seconds on average. Windows 7 Home Premium (also the 32-bit edition) took slightly longer, averaging 43.6 seconds. On our HP Pavilion a6710t test desktop, the outcome was reversed. The 64-bit edition of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition booted in 55.2 seconds, whereas Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-bit came out slightly ahead, booting in 48.3 seconds.
At first, we couldn't explain why the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 improved the boot-up time over
As for shutdown times, in our tests we observed no significant difference between Windows 7 and Windows Vista. On our Gateway T-6815 laptop, the 32-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium shut down in 11.72 seconds on average. The 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium took 11.57 seconds to shut down--an improvement of a mere 0.15 second. The results were just as tight on our HP a6710t desktop. The 64-bit Vista Ultimate shut down in 9.1 seconds on average, while the 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate took 9.0 seconds--a negligible difference of just 0.1 second.
To say that such results are too close to call would be an understatement: The difference between the two is so minor that you likely wouldn't notice it even if you had the
Granted, boot-up and shutdown times aren't as important today as they once were, now that many people use their computer's sleep or hibernate mode instead, but in either case you'll probably find only slight differences, if any.
