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Windows 7: some minor improvements, no game changer

Ankiel

By Ankiel,
in Reader News and Reviews

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cmdshft
cmdshft
Posted
Posted

Windows 7 on my machine has been very amazing for me.

 

It definitely is faster and smoother than Windows XP SP3 was for me, and this is amazing for a beta. Rivals OS X on this machine now, and I am super jealous that OS X doesn't have an equally enjoyable bootloader like 7 does.

 

Aero looks much cleaner now and more unified, and is definitely not as resource intense as it is on Vista, and no longer does my system switch off Aero when starting 3D games.

 

Speaking of games, I noticed an increase in performance compared to running on Windows XP, which was a pleasant surprise.

 

RAM usage doesn't bother me, it's supposed to be used. It's CPU usage that I keep an eye on, and Windows 7 keeps things nice and smooth on this old 3Ghz P4 HyperThread processor. Idle on 7 matches what it is on Mac OS X, same with RAM usage.

 

All in all, I'm very interested in running Windows 7 final (and I may get a free copy for submitting a bug report, like they did with Vista).

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VooD
VooD
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Ok, here are my results:

 

cb10er0.png

 

passmarkjx5.png

 

bootpq0.png

 

And here there is a video for those who want to see details and the benchmarking process (be sure to turn HD on and fullscreen :wacko:)

 

http://www.vimeo.com/2823010

 

The video has many section accelerated in order to save you of 40 minutes of progress bars and zooming.

 

The computer is:

 

Asus P5KR (latest bios, AHCI mode)

Radeon x1950 Pro 256mb

2gb Kingston HyperX DDR2 800

Main hard disk 500gb Seagate 7200 RPM 32mb cache

Audigy 2 PCI / Onboard ALC883

 

The video drivers in Windows 7 are the ones the system includes (I also did the same tests with latest Vista ones and the difference was minimal...XP still have better scores)

 

Here are the detailed results from Passmark:

 

								Win7	XP SP3

CPU Integer Math				212.8   216.3
CPU Floating Point Math		 580.4   588.6
CPU Find Prime Numbers		  609.1   620.8
CPU SSE/3DNow!				  5085.9  5203.0
CPU Compression				 5328.4  5526.5
CPU Encryption				  33.1	33.7
CPU Image Rotation			  1104.3  1121.2
CPU String Sorting			  3483.4  3506.8
Graphics 2D Lines			   62.4	162.6
Graphics 2D Rectangles		  45.2	107.9
Graphics 2D Shapes			  30.0	50.2
Graphics 2D Fonts and Text	  174.1   187.9
Graphics 2D - GUI			   89.5	484.3
Graphics 3D Simple			  2694.5  2581.7
Graphics 3D Medium			  430.8   437.6
Graphics 3D Complex			 49.2	47.6
Memory Allocate Small Block	 2189.9  2387.5
Memory Read Cached			  1845.6  1850.5
Memory Read Uncached			1798.7  1833.1
Memory Write					1663.0  1732.2
Memory Large RAM				517.9   547.0
Disk Sequential Read			99.4	100.5
Disk Sequential Write		   98.8	98.4
Disk Random Seek + RW		   5.1	 5.1
CPU Mark						1428.6  1457.1
2D Graphics Mark				287.1   617.9
Memory Mark					 591.0   617.3
Disk Mark					   735.2   738.0
3D Graphics Mark				1015.9  981.5
PassMark Rating				 801.3   856.4

 

CineBench R10 Results

XP: 1 CPU 2456, 2 CPU 4686
W7: 1 CPU 2437, 2 CPU 4625

 

Curiously Windows 7 won in a couple of 3D tests (even with the default drivers). So great job (at least in that area) Microsoft. Though I think I had vsync forced for fullscreen tests and that made the XP score a bit lower.

Btw, is funny Windows 7 has 57 services running in background (my XP runs about 14). In the video there's also an example showing how slow can Windows 7 be, and the black redrawing which happens when you resize some Windows.

 

Anyway, I really believe those tests (the ones choosen by cnet) are not the best at all for benchmarking two different operating systems as they rely too much on cpu, and just a little in the os functions.

On the other hand, after a more indeep testing, I think Windows 7 is definitely an improvement over Vista, but still there are some things they should have done better, specially GUI responsiveness, and usability problems caused by including too many ways to get to the same place in the os. In general terms, XP SP3 still feel a lot faster for me.

 

Now...let the flame start.

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scottishduck
scottishduck
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You used default drivers in Windows 7, which instantly destroys any credability in results.

 

Btw, is funny Windows 7 has 57 services running in background (my XP runs about 14).

 

This clearly means a lot huh? :(

 

Anyway, I really believe those tests (the ones choosen by cnet) are not the best at all for benchmarking two different operating systems as they rely too much on cpu, and just a little in the os functions.

 

And what functions does an OS have besided Hardware utilistaion exactly?

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VooD
VooD
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You used default drivers in Windows 7, which instantly destroys any credability in results.
LOL, yes...cpu benchmarks are a looooooooooot VGA driver dependant LOL...and the default vga drivers in w7 were sooooooo bad that they were able to beat latest ati ones in XP LOL.

Btw, as I said a couple of times, I did the same tests with the latests vista drivers AND THE RESULTS WERE THE SAME (in fact they were a bit worse in the 3d tests).

And, all the others drivers WERE NOT the default ones :P. Latest intel chipset & ahci drivers, latest audigy2 & onboard audio drivers, etc, etc...

 

This clearly means a lot huh? :(
Yes it means at least as much as CNET graphs LOL

 

And what functions does an OS have besided Hardware utilistaion exactly?
Uhh...did you hear about process managing? process latency? filesystem eficcency (passmark only stresses the hard disk but not the filesystem, it just use a big file)?
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scottishduck
scottishduck
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LOL, yes...cpu benchmarks are a looooooooooot VGA driver dependant LOL...and the default vga drivers in w7 were sooooooo bad that they were able to beat latest ati ones in XP LOL.

 

But still, you didn't use the offical ATi catalyst for Win 7.

 

And, all the others drivers WERE NOT the default ones :) . Latest intel chipset & ahci drivers, latest audigy2 & onboard audio drivers, etc, etc...

 

As far as I know Intel Hasn't supplied Windows 7 drivers yet, apart from those available on windows update.

 

Yes it means at least as much as CNET graphs LOL

 

How is that related to the point I made?

 

Uhh...did you hear about process managing? process latency? filesystem eficcency (passmark only stresses the hard disk but not the filesystem, it just use a big file)?

 

Stressing the Hard Drive IS stressing the FS. Thats how Hard Drives work. Although using "one big file" as you describe it only tests one aspect of the FS, as most FS generally either excell in Small or Large file transfer.

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VooD
VooD
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But still, you didn't use the offical ATi catalyst for Win 7.

As far as I know Intel Hasn't supplied Windows 7 drivers yet, apart from those available on windows update.

How is that related to the point I made?

 

There are no Windows 7 drivers for my VGA. And since lucky for us W7 is driver compatible with vista, better use vista ones than nothing at all.

 

Anyway, you say W7 is great, and faster than XP SP3, and all you have are 3 CNET's graphs to backup your claims. I don't agree. Since the very first moment I installed W7 it was clear that is not and it never will be faster than XP SP3. I didn't need any benchmark in order to know that, but anyway I decided to make the cnet test's (which btw are a really really bad choice for testing an os), and unsurprisingly the result spoke by itself.

 

So all I can say know is, I give you facts, you can believe it or not.

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sama7896
sama7896
Posted
Posted

well, let me share my experience with build 7000 (specs bellow)

 

the god damn thing destroyed my dual boot setup

attempted to install 64 bit version: result :after formating partition, it gave a unknown error:unable to continue setup (yes the dvd was burned low speed, verified, source ok - microsoft)

on reboot, the pcefi v9 loaded, but did not boot the leopard partition anymore. no errors - just nothing

i am attempting now a reinstall of xp sp3 , so at least i could recover with macdrive some files on my leo partition, and then i'll see if a reinstall helps

 

oh yeah, i booted the leo dvd, attempted a fix disk on the leo partition it gave a error, and corrected it without any effects.

 

aio: frack m$

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VooD
VooD
Posted
Posted
well, let me share my experience with build 7000 (specs bellow)

 

the god damn thing destroyed my dual boot setup

attempted to install 64 bit version: result :after formating partition, it gave a unknown error:unable to continue setup (yes the dvd was burned low speed, verified, source ok - microsoft)

on reboot, the pcefi v9 loaded, but did not boot the leopard partition anymore. no errors - just nothing

i am attempting now a reinstall of xp sp3 , so at least i could recover with macdrive some files on my leo partition, and then i'll see if a reinstall helps

 

oh yeah, i booted the leo dvd, attempted a fix disk on the leo partition it gave a error, and corrected it without any effects.

 

aio: frack m$

 

The first time I installed Windows 7 also destroyed my GUID 10.4.11 partition. Lucky for me I managed to fix it using this http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

 

It seems that W7's new EFI & GUID support decides to fix something that's not broken in our guid disks.

 

That's the reason made me disconnect my osx disks the next time I installed Windows 7

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sama7896
sama7896
Posted
Posted
EasyBCD. It's not difficult.

looks good

except i don't use Vista, i use good old XP

what's up with that error ? is it ok for me to fix the mbr as the easybcd says (i am running xp ...)

would the format of the leopard partition help or is the entire MBR messed up

 

Thanks

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DukeRaoul
DukeRaoul
Posted
Posted

god d@mn what a bunch of pissy nerd bitching

 

shut the fuçk up already and do something worthwhile with your life

 

I am drinking Jagermeister and making a pizza

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VooD
VooD
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Posted
but nothing compares to your cut-down, mickey-mouse'd install of xp that uses no ram at all.

You believe so blindly and with so much faith in Windows 7 superiority that you should start a new religion about that.

You are a truly believer :) (somebody who blindly believes in something/somebody with no real facts to back himself up).

 

What is going to be your next answer?, telling everybody that Windows 7 "was born" from no coder, then XP people crucified it and 3 days later it came back to life and then was upgraded to SP1 ?

 

Bah It doesn't matter, but at least if you plan to answer try to say something useful other than :"waahh, mommy some kid at insanelymac is telling everybody my new Vista is not as good as I think!!!..please told him to shut up!!! waaaah"

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