Windows XP Outperforming Vista and 7?

[Ryu-ka]

Original article:

TestFreaks

 

A quick glance through this article reveals that XP and 7 outperform Vista mostly by a long shot, but a closer look shows that Windows XP and Windows 7 are roughly equal. Some results show XP is performing better than 7. Is this news or what? This is basically stating "Why waste your precious cash on 7 when you can pickup XP on Amazon for a great deal? 7 only looks pretty with DirectX 10 and those bells and whistles." Before jumping to conclusions, consider this: Although in most scenarios, Windows XP scores better than 7, 7 takes better advantage of CPU power and 64 bit processors, and, unlike Vista, it uses that extra power for your programs, instead of hogging it to itself to run greedy system processes that you had no idea you were running.

[curlyboy]

Original article:

TestFreaks

 

A quick glance through this article reveals that XP and 7 outperform Vista mostly by a long shot, but a closer look shows that Windows XP and Windows 7 are roughly equal. Some results show XP is performing better than 7. Is this news or what? This is basically stating "Why waste your precious cash on 7 when you can pickup XP on Amazon for a great deal? 7 only looks pretty with DirectX 10 and those bells and whistles." Before jumping to conclusions, consider this: Although in most scenarios, Windows XP scores better than 7, 7 takes better advantage of CPU power and 64 bit processors, and, unlike Vista, it uses that extra power for your programs, instead of hogging it to itself to run greedy system processes that you had no idea you were running.

 

7 is much better at power & memory management and xp is good for gaming , oh and 7 is directx 11 vist well that just sux full stop

[A Nonny Moose]

It's typical of an OS that is just out that relies heavily on graphics doo-hickeys. OS 9 was tons faster than OS X for years after its release (and was ungodly fast in Classic on a dual processor system). Give it some time to iron out the wrinkles.

[Graebags]

Forgive me for pointing this out, but its only a few weeks since the same type of comparisons were being made of Snow Leopard and Leopard. The big difference; well already more people have upgraded to Win7 than have forked out for SL. And, how many of those SL sales have gone onto Hacs rather than Macs? Does anyone know a Mac user that buys software, let alone an OS? LOL.

 

An interesting question for Microsoft will be how many corporates now go and upgrade to Vista as the more conservative choice, rather than jump to Win7.

 

For my own machine, there's only a couple of points between my Xbench scores for SL and Leo, and similarly between my 3DMark2006 scores for Win7 and Vista.

[vilpostus]

I'd say it is not a very fair comparison, XP wise. They use XP32bit, while Windows7 and Windows Vista, both are 64bit. And still XP is better in some aspects.

[voxelized]

XP is dead. It doesn't support AHCI out of the box natively. The 64-bit support is brutal (I know, I run XP64 at home and work). Color management is non-existent. Restoring/recovering the OS is a royal pain. DX11 > DX9. And 32-bit OSes should have been killed off years ago.

 

It's an ancient OS by modern standards and needs to die. Windows 7 is an updated version with Vista-UI issues.

[Ryu-ka]

Forgive me for pointing this out, but its only a few weeks since the same type of comparisons were being made of Snow Leopard and Leopard. The big difference; well already more people have upgraded to Win7 than have forked out for SL. And, how many of those SL sales have gone onto Hacs rather than Macs? Does anyone know a Mac user that buys software, let alone an OS? LOL.

 

An interesting question for Microsoft will be how many corporates now go and upgrade to Vista as the more conservative choice, rather than jump to Win7.

 

For my own machine, there's only a couple of points between my Xbench scores for SL and Leo, and similarly between my 3DMark2006 scores for Win7 and Vista.

 

Technically, I "bought" SL with my MacBook Pro, because it came preinstalled (I got it around a week after SL came out), but I don't really think it counts. Besides, when Apple makes a new OS, we can turn to our reliable BitTorrent sources.

 

Actually, some (if not many) companies are still using XP, probably because they're waiting for more feedback on 7 and they didn't upgrade to Vista around four years earlier.

I'd say it is not a very fair comparison, XP wise. They use XP32bit, while Windows7 and Windows Vista, both are 64bit. And still XP is better in some aspects.

 

I also wish they would've tested all operating systems on 32 bit, and as soon as I have access to all three systems on the same machine, I can try to run benchmark tests of my own and compare the results to this test.

 

XP is dead. It doesn't support AHCI out of the box natively. The 64-bit support is brutal (I know, I run XP64 at home and work). Color management is non-existent. Restoring/recovering the OS is a royal pain. DX11 > DX9. And 32-bit OSes should have been killed off years ago.

 

It's an ancient OS by modern standards and needs to die. Windows 7 is an updated version with Vista-UI issues.

 

32 bit OSes still need to exist because most platforms are still 32 bit. If we killed of 32 bit platforms, we wouldn't be able to use tons of software with 32 bit-only support and we would die without our favorite apps, wouldn't we?

[vilpostus]

...I also wish they would've tested all operating systems on 32 bit, and as soon as I have access to all three systems on the same machine, I can try to run benchmark tests of my own and compare the results to this test.

As my personal GeekBench tests showed, OS X is ahead of XP and Linux. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...=180908&hl= Unfortunately I don't have Visa and Windows 7 to test (honestly I don't like Vista).

32 bit OSes still need to exist because most platforms are still 32 bit. If we killed of 32 bit platforms, we wouldn't be able to use tons of software with 32 bit-only support and we would die without our favorite apps, wouldn't we?

Some (if not all) 64-bit OSes still support 32-bit apps. So most 32-bit software can run on 64-bit systems. Though some 32-bit apps do not run on some 64-bit OSes. Not to mention the old hardware support.That (hardware) was not intended to be used with 64-bit OSes, therefore not supported. Unfortunately naiver hardware manufacturers, nor software manufacturers tend to write 64-bit drivers for older hardware (4-5 y.o. or more). I guess nobody wants to change all hardware at once just cos' a software manufacturer wants one's money for a declared-to-be-new OS.

cnr0616

What a joke! Someone must be using old hardware to come up with these stats. I have installed XP on a computer with an i7 core processor and the performance was terrible compared to Windows 7. I can also vouch that XP 64-bit has terrible driver support. It goes without saying that older hardware will probably run XP better but I dare anyone to run a performace test on new hardware and state that XP has better performance. I can guarantee it won't out perform Win7.

At the time XP was released naiver i5 nor i7 haven't had existed. Therefore XP was not intended for this particular CPU (read XP is not i7 optimised). It is not a fare comparison with Windows 7 which has a far better support of up-to-date CPUs. I'd better run some tests of Windows7 and XP on the same older hardware e.g. 4-5 y.o. Pentium4. Guess it'd be an interesting story

[VooD]

I haven't tested Windows 7 with so many applications as that reviews does, I just tested the most important subject to me: interface speed, and this is what I learned:

 

 

 

I wrote about some months ago in this topic: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...=178038&hl= , but it seems most people who posted answers either didn't have the knowledges to understand the problem, or just decided to look away and enjoy the (slow) eyecandy, and novelty effect.

[vbetts]

Really, I doubt even half of those results are real. Reasons,

 

Crystalmark- This was a horrible choice for a benchmark. Since, the 32-bit version had to be used because of XP. XP will have advantage in this, since XP is native 32-bit. However, you get the 64-bit version for Vista and 7, the 8gb of ram will fly.

 

3dmark 06- This one is definately messed up somewhere. As, most top scores for 3d mark 06 are on Vista, or the RC of 7 right now.

 

Cinebench- This one I can understand for OpenGL. Vista and 7 are not big on Open GL because of Microsoft.

 

Memory Bandwidth- This is probably the most unfair one of all. Again, they're using a 32-bit benchmark for 64-bit operating systems.

 

XP may be higher in some fields, but XP has had years of updates, optimizations, etc. Where as, Vista bugged from the start was okay, but got better then XP since SP! which most benchmarks of Vista SP1 and XP SP2 will tell you that Vista is faster. Plus, both Vista and 7 has a lot more room for better performance, where as XP is near the end of its road. XP also can't do dx10, dx10.1, and dx11. It's not designed to.

[Ryu-ka]

What a joke! Someone must be using old hardware to come up with these stats. I have installed XP on a computer with an i7 core processor and the performance was terrible compared to Windows 7. I can also vouch that XP 64-bit has terrible driver support. It goes without saying that older hardware will probably run XP better but I dare anyone to run a performace test on new hardware and state that XP has better performance. I can guarantee it won't out perform Win7.

 

...I have access to all...systems [excluding Vista] on the same machine, I can try to run benchmark tests of my own and compare the results to this test...

 

Well, minus Vista, because Vista was incompetent compared to 7, but I may also test this on my MBP and compare it to 10.6.2.

[kalel83]

xp looks like {censored}

vista was a joke

seven is slower? it is faster for me then xp and vista on my eee pc and desktop pc, yet even if it was a little slower i wouldn't care, it makes xp look like dos

[akula2]

I have installed XP on a computer with an i7 core processor and the performance was terrible compared to Windows 7. I can also vouch that XP 64-bit has terrible driver support. It goes without saying that older hardware will probably run XP better but I dare anyone to run a performace test on new hardware and state that XP has better performance. I can guarantee it won't out perform Win7.

I concur with you mostly but Windows XP did outperform Windows 7 on few things and also it's almost equal to Windows 7 (Any MS OS would be in nascent state till the SP release). Microsoft knows this reality and that's why they extended the XP EOL till 2014 and also Windows XP is still used by hundreds of millions globally! Please read more typing in Google:

 

AnandTech Windows 7 Performance Guide

 

I also found this in the same extensive review:

 

"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."

I don't know how much truth in that because some established reviews are biased towards a particular OS/Company but I couldn't believe those underlined words

[wimac]

7 and xp are head to head but since 7 is prettier that windows 7 ftw

[teknicalissue]

I agree, To me Windows 7 is the product of windows xp + Windows Vista. I run on a 7 machine and its flawless, infact imo better than xp

 

core i7 920

ATI HD 4850

60gb SSD on raid0

12gb DDR3 RAM

 

nuff said

[Serulean]

I use Windows 7 as my Main OS on my Desktop, I haven't touched XP nor any Linux distributions since for my desktop, I've had it since launch. It's so much faster booting than XP, just everything feels so much snappier. However, on lower end machines like my Asus EEEPC 904HD it's usable defiantly but Windows XP would probably be the better pick since it fits with the requirements. Although that said, the only problems I've really encountered is that the CPU seems to flick up to 100% usage for a second then back down to around 2% on average, Windows 7 has also been criticized for it's bad battery management on Netbooks, but I've only ever noticed a 40 Minutes loss, so I'm not really that bothered since I only use about half of the battery power anyway on my Netbook during the day without access to the charger. So it's defiantly a close battle between XP and 7 performance wise.

[npolite]

I've been using 7 since it has been in beta. I really think MS has improved this to almost the quickness of XP. It may be a bit slower on most modern PCs but it isn't that noticeable. On slower machines though like Netbooks and older Pentium Mobile machines, you'll notice the slowness. Overall I'm happy with it.

[mitchell209]

I've been using 7 since it has been in beta. I really think MS has improved this to almost the quickness of XP. It may be a bit slower on most modern PCs but it isn't that noticeable. On slower machines though like Netbooks and older Pentium Mobile machines, you'll notice the slowness. Overall I'm happy with it.

 

Yeah, it is much, much better than Vista.

 

Of course it's going to be slower than XP. It has many more features and other additions than XP has.

[Espionage724]

XP is dead. It doesn't support AHCI out of the box natively. The 64-bit support is brutal (I know, I run XP64 at home and work). Color management is non-existent. Restoring/recovering the OS is a royal pain. DX11 > DX9. And 32-bit OSes should have been killed off years ago.

 

It's an ancient OS by modern standards and needs to die. Windows 7 is an updated version with Vista-UI issues.

 

XP is the fastest (windows) OS that runs on my laptop. Also x64 XP, i had no issues with it (had more issues with server 2008 rc2 then xp x64). And MORE apps support DX9 then DX10 and 11. Some users can't upgrade to x64 CPU's either (what? maybe I should upgrade my CPU? Impossible, only upgrade I can get is a core solo 1.8Ghz without x64)

[DJ Semplice]

XP is the fastest (windows) OS that runs on my laptop. Also x64 XP, i had no issues with it (had more issues with server 2008 rc2 then xp x64). And MORE apps support DX9 then DX10 and 11. Some users can't upgrade to x64 CPU's either (what? maybe I should upgrade my CPU? Impossible, only upgrade I can get is a core solo 1.8Ghz without x64)

XP is really faster then windows 7.. though there are lessdrivers for XP now at the moment.. before you even know it your stuff will be outdated !

[Netto Hikari]

I've been using Windows XP since 2004 and Windows 7 since it was beta. XP was good, but today, it's just outdated.

IMHO, Windows 7 beats Windows XP in all aspects. Speed, responsibility, look, handling, whatever. Microsoft did a good job in this case.

[heronfisher]

Of course, we all know how Vista turned out. Haunted by poor performance in everything from games to disk access to networking, Vista is widely considered to be Microsoft’s biggest failure. Nonetheless, Vista laid the groundwork for a host of new technologies, all absolutely vital to pushing Windows into the 21st century. Vista’s new, modern driver architecture was designed to move core functionality from the kernel (where any instability can bring down the whole system) to user space—an absolutely necessary development. Likewise, Vista’s proper enforcement of permissions for both users and applications enhanced security, even though UAC remains very annoying. And once vendors fixed their driver flaws and Microsoft squashed some underlying bugs, Vista morphed into an entirely workable operating system, even if we still wouldn’t describe it as “good.”

[Nameci]

How about "Windows explorer stop working" annoying error on win 7 now? I'd like to trash win 7 and be back to XP. Win 7 i think is all eye candy... imho.