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New Windows 7 Build Slightly Faster Than Vista -- And So What?


Over at ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reports on benchmark tests he just conducted with the latest build of Windows 7 (6956, if you're keeping score). The results? Windows 7 beat Vista (both the RTM and SP1 versions) in three out of four tests. But let's not overlook a few very significant points.


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    Over at ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reports on benchmark tests he just conducted with the latest build of Windows 7 (6956, if you're keeping score). The results? Windows 7 beat Vista (both the RTM and SP1 versions) in three out of four tests. You can bet the blogosphere will be abuzz about these numbers, claiming yet again that Vista is a performance hog that should be avoided at all costs. (Productivity blog Lifehacker already jumped on that particular bandwagon: Windows 7 Beats Vista in Benchmark Test.) But let's not overlook a few very significant points. First, it's not like Windows 7 was 50 percent faster than Vista in these tests. For example, in the PassMark PerformanceTest 6 benchmark app, Windows 7 scored a 1007.5 to Vista SP1's 986.6. In PCMark Vantage, Windows 7 pulled a 5,233, while Vista RTM managed a 4807. That's a couple percentage points at most. In a real-world environment, no user on the planet would notice any kind of performance difference between the two machines. And let's not forget, Vista won the day in the Cinebench R10 tests, though by a similarly slim margin. Now, will Microsoft optimize Windows 7 to run faster still? Probably. Maybe. Heck, it might end up slower. But given the raw horsepower of any desktop or laptop you're likely to buy today, it's not likely you'll perceive any difference whatsoever in everyday performance. The exception to all this is boot speed: The Windows 7 system booted in just 20 seconds, versus 37 seconds for the Vista SP1 box. That's pretty major (and welcome), though IT managers should once again pause for a reality check: Does a machine that takes an extra 17 seconds to boot represent any kind of liability to the enterprise? Um, no.

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