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Windows 7 Beta Gaming Performance: XP vs Vista vs 7 January 23, 2009 Tom Colarusso |
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Summary: Which OS delivers better gaming performance at this point: Windows 7, Vista, or good old Windows XP? Tom answers this question testing all three operating systems out on midrange and high-end systems through 7 different games as well as USB transfer and 3DMark testing. See how they all stack up in this article!
 Windows 7 Beta Performance Preview | Page:: ( 1 / 16 ) |
Windows 7 is still in the early beta stages, so we urge our readers to keep this in mind when looking at the numbers. Drivers are being updated pretty frequently, so there is a lot of room left for improvement between now and when Microsoft finally releases 7 down the road. For instance, during our week long testing period, we were notified via Windows Update of 2 separate ATI driver releases. Microsoft hasn’t officially announced when 7 will be released, but rumors range from Q4 2009 to early 2010. It appears that Microsoft is attempting to get 7 into the market as soon as possible, as they try to repair their reputation after the lukewarm reception of Windows Vista.
Windows Vista was to be a huge leap in performance and security, with an improved 64-bit infrastructure over WinXP x64 and increased stability due to its revamped driver model. Microsoft, after receiving large amounts of criticism for the vulnerability of XP to worms and Trojans, implemented a number of features designed to prevent the execution of unwanted code. User account control was the biggest addition that aimed to prevent inexperienced users from running malicious programs without warning. Windows Defender and Windows Firewall were enhanced to create an impenetrable wall of security that strived to prevent global infections, such as the Blaster virus that infected a huge install base of XP machines.
Unfortunately, Vista did not turn out the way Microsoft had originally envisioned. Native audio acceleration was gone due to the removal of kernel mode driver support, and hardware that had worked under XP was now useless as manufacturers were unwilling or unable to provide updated drivers.
The UAC constantly queried the user for almost every little system change and the Windows Firewall blocked both the good and bad applications, creating a nightmare for ISP’s attempting to diagnose connection issues. Above all else however, the supposed performance improvements that were meant to be unleashed with DirectX 10 didn’t initially materialize; in fact users instead were left with systems that underperformed comparable configurations running Windows XP. To top it off, the graphical enhancements from DirectX 10 were so subtle, they hardly offset the performance hit that occurred when running with it enabled.
Now Microsoft has unleashed the public beta of Windows 7 on to the market, so let’s get right into the numbers and see where it stands at this early stage.
| System Setups | Page:: ( 2 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5
2GB OCZ Reaper DDR2 OCZ2RPR8002GK
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
nVidia ForceWare 181.20
Seagate 320GB 7200RPM SATAII ST303204N1A1AS-RK
High-End
Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition
Asus P6T Deluxe
3GB Kingston HyperX KHX14400D3K3/3GX
HIS ATI Radeon 4870X2 2GB
ATI Catalyst 8.12
Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10,000RPM SATAII WD3000GLFS
2GB OCZ Diesel OCZUSBDSL2G Flash Drive
Windows XP Professional SP3
Windows Vista 64-bit SP1
Windows 7 Beta
| Synthetic 3D Testing | Page:: ( 3 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range 3DMark
High-End 3DMark
On both our systems, you can see that XP still reigns as king under DirectX 9, as it beat Windows 7 by about 3-4% when running under either resolution on both setups. XP also maintained a steady lead over Vista on our mid-range setup by 10%, but that number shrunk to 2% on our high-end setup. Surprisingly, Windows 7 put up a good showing in both systems when compared to Vista, as the mid-range beat Vista by about 6%, while our numbers came within 1% in the high-end.
However, once we tested with the DirectX 10 only 3DMark Vantage, you can see that Vista still has the lead overall. Vista was able to beat Windows 7 by 16% on the mid-range and 9% on the high-end. This is most likely due to the driver maturity on Windows Vista.
| Crysis DirectX 9 | Page:: ( 4 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Crysis DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 5 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| World in Conflict DirectX 9 | Page:: ( 6 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| World in Conflict DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 7 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Far Cry 2 DirectX 9 | Page:: ( 8 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 9 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Fallout 3 | Page:: ( 10 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Call of Duty: World at War | Page:: ( 11 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Left 4 Dead | Page:: ( 12 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Company of Heroes | Page:: ( 13 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| Boot Times | Page:: ( 14 / 16 ) |
Mid-Range (Athlon X2 5000+/GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB)
High-End (Core i7-965/Radeon 4870 X2)
| USB Performance | Page:: ( 15 / 16 ) |
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 16 / 16 ) |
In all other applications though, the margin was much smaller as Windows 7 appears poised to be a serious contender as far as performance goes. USB transfer rates saw a decent increase while CPU utilization saw a small decrease, giving some credence to Microsoft’s claim that they have reworked the USB subsystem. Boot times are also worth mentioning not only because Windows 7 was faster, but more importantly, because Windows 7 felt more ready to go once the desktop loaded up. Both XP and Vista took at least an extra minute after the desktop loaded to be ready to run applications, while Windows 7 ran Firefox without stuttering or hesitation. Overall, we would say that Windows 7 was just snappier and more responsive when it came to general usage.
For a beta, Windows 7 is surprisingly ready to compete in the big leagues. During our week long testing period we experienced no crashes or system halts and system performance was a lot better than we would have expected from the first public beta. We weren’t totally without incident however, as an attempt to update our ATI drivers was repeatedly met with failures. While attempting to update the drivers through Windows Update, we kept getting an archaic failure code that we had to Google to explain as the Windows Help program gave 0 results (ATI has issued a Catalyst 8.12 hotfix to address this issue under Vista).
It’s going to be interesting to see how Windows 7 shapes up in the coming months, as the public beta is scheduled to continue until August of this year. Microsoft is releasing both system and driver updates on a fairly frequent basis, but even running stock, Windows 7 is surprisingly complete. The new dock system for the task bar takes some getting used, but once you do, you find yourself missing it once you go back to Vista or XP. We still prefer the start menu from Windows XP, but everywhere else is much improved in regard to usability. Most of all however, performance is where it needs to be if it hopes to compete with the well-regarded Windows XP. As the OS and drivers mature, Windows 7 could finally drive many of those XP hold-outs to upgrade to Microsoft’s newest operating system.