“Objective” test shows Windows 7 better than Vista where it matters
An extensive series of practical test has shown that Windows 7 does perform better than Vista in some areas. Fortunately those are the areas most likely to make a noticeable difference.
Tom’s Hardware has compared the two systems through benchmarking: a series of tests which compare how long a computer takes to carry out a particular task.
The testers found little significant difference using automated “synthetic” packages which run a series of tests and produce an overall score. However, when carrying out individual tasks, there were some distinct hits and misses.
When it comes to individual demanding applications such as compressing a large file, converting audio formats or manipulating detailed images, Windows 7 didn’t show any serious improvement over Vista. The same could be said of some graphics processing.
However, there were measurable improvements in 3D gaming and some less demanding applications such as office document editing. For common system tasks such as starting up and putting a computer into standby, there were significant differences. (However, shutting down the PC was no quicker.)
Exactly why this pattern emerged is open to question. It’s possible Microsoft has concentrated its efforts on making changes which will benefit the majority of users in the majority of their computing. However, it’s also possible that for some of the tasks which didn’t see improvements, Vista was already performing as well as could reasonably be expected and that the performance is limited by hardware rather than software.
Of course, benchmarking can only rank an operating system on specific, objective criteria. It can’t tell you how intuitive the system feels to use, and any hard numbers are less important than the most important benchmark: What proportion of your computing time do you spend tapping your fingers or screaming, “For the love of Pete, DO something.”
But when it comes to performance, what matters is whether any improvement is noticeable by the user. The Toms Hardware tests show that while some areas are no better than Vista, what improvements do exist are in the most commonly used tasks which have the most effect on the user’s computing experience, which will certainly be one of the factors behind the generally positive reviews and feedback.
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