WIN 7 A Simple Benchmark - Good News!

[Prof Bill]

I decided to perform a very simple benchmark that would give an early indication as to the reative performances of VISTA and WIN 7.

I was indeed pleased with the result that WIN 7 produced.
I hope that this will be helpful and may encourage people to draw their own conclusions from these results.

I used a partitioned system that had WIN 7 installed in one partition and VISTA in another partition. No other applications were installed to ensure that "like" was being compared with "like"!
The VISTA System can only support DX10 and the latest installed NVIDIA driver.
The WIN 7 System supports DX11 and the latest NVIDIA Beta driver.

I used the very simple Microsoft Windows Experience Index Base Score as the comparative benchmark.

Bill.

VISTA System Results


Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 5.9 5.6
Determined by lowest subscore

Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 5.6
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 5.9
Gaming graphics 2430 MB Total available graphics memory 5.9
Primary hard disk 144GB Free (209GB Total) 5.9
Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium

System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer System manufacturer
Model Maximus Extreme
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 297 GB
Disk partition C: 144 GB Free (209 GB Total)
Media drive D: CD/DVD
Media drive F: CD/DVDCD
Disk partition W: 75 GB Free (88 GB Total)

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Total available graphics memory 2430 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 1024 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 1406 MB
Display adapter driver version 7.15.11.7813
Primary monitor resolution 1024x768
DirectX version DirectX 10

Network
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Network Adapter Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Network Adapter Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Network Adapter Microsoft Tun Miniport Adapter

WIN 7 System Results


Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 7.1 6.0
Determined by lowest subscore

Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 7.1
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (Prerelease - WDDM 1.1) 7.9
Gaming graphics 2431 MB Total available graphics memory 6.0
Primary hard disk 75GB Free (88GB Total) 6.0
Windows 7 Ultimate

System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer System manufacturer
Model Maximus Extreme
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 297 GB
Disk partition C: 144 GB Free (209 GB Total)
Media drive D: CD/DVD
Media drive F: CD
Disk partition W: 75 GB Free (88 GB Total)

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (Prerelease - WDDM 1.1)
Total available graphics memory 2431 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 1024 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 1407 MB
Display adapter driver version 7.15.11.7943 Primary monitor resolution 1280x1024

Network
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Network Adapter Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Network Adapter Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Network Adapter Microsoft Tun Miniport Adapter

[Peter Dowson]

I decided to perform a very simple benchmark that would give an early indication as to the reative performances of VISTA and WIN 7.

I was indeed pleased with the result that WIN 7 produced.

I hope you aren't being misled here. The MAXIMUM Vista ever awards in its power tests is 5.9. When it was released they didn't think that was a limit! <G>. Just because they've upped the top limit of their scoring system in Win7 doesn't really mean it is that much faster. You need other benchmarks, you can't use Windows' scoring.

Regards

Pete

[Prof Bill]

Many thanks for the information Peter.

I fully appreciate the significance of your comment and it will occupy some undergraduates for a while!

In the Labs here we have run our own benchmarks specifically targeted at some medical applications that are being researched and about to go into development prior to production and the OS performance is critical in one.
WIN 7 gives us exactly what we require. VISTA does not!

Some tests have now been run today on a system that scores much less than 5.9 in VISTA and WIN 7 at this point in time gives between 9% and 14% improvement!

Bill.

[Peter Dowson]

WIN 7 gives us exactly what we require. VISTA does not!
Yes, of course. I am never arguing that Win7 isn't a big improvement on Vista. I was only pointing out that your post showed Vista with several of its questionable "benchmarks" reading 5.9, which is the maximum it can report. That doesn't mean that is a useful or comparable value, as you were implying by posting them!


Some tests have now been run today on a system that scores much less than 5.9 in VISTA and WIN 7 at this point in time gives between 9% and 14% improvement!Yes, I can agree there as it accords with my experiences so far. It was only your posting which was questionable for the reasons given.

As for your undergraduate remarks, I have no idea what on Earth they are about, but I assume they are intended as some sort of back-handed insult. I only ever get them here, when I actually attempt to help and clarify matters, and I once vowed not to return. More fool me for doing so. :-(

:-(
Pete

[andarlite]

As for your undergraduate remarks, I have no idea what on Earth they are about, but I assume they are intended as some sort of back-handed insult. I only ever get them here, when I actually attempt to help and clarify matters, and I once vowed not to return. More fool me for doing so. :-(

:-(
Pete

Pete, give me a break here..... what's up with this comment? From reading past posts from Prof Bill, I get the impression that he is a University Professor..... hence undergraduates probably refer to his students (whom I presume he will be putting to work investigating this matter some more).

Regards,
Henry

[BHawthorne]

Not to knock the OP, but Microsoft Windows Experience Index is worthless as a benchmark. ;)

Please use 3DMark or some other standard benching apps.

[Prof Bill]

Peter,
The undergraduate remark seems to be "taken out of context" in a way that was never intended or might be assumed.
They are as Henry states curiosity driven students hard at work unpicking the "5.9 VISTA limit" that you so helpfully pointed out in your previous email. We had not appreciated this limit.

Your help, clarification and comments have always been much valued over the years and hopefully will continue.

It is good to hear that your experiences with WIN 7 are as positive as ours so perhaps the future performance of FSX may well have a bright future for all!!

Bill.

[LUFTY]

Hi Everyone

I have been running Windows 7 Beta for some time now on several different PC configurations and although the operating system appears very stable I have seen little benefit in terms of FSX performance unfortunately.

It all comes down to the fact that the CPU and multithreading is the biggest bottleneck for FSX.

I would still reccommend going for Windows 7 over Vista or Windows XP.

I would also make the transition to a 64 bit operating system as it is very stable and gives a big boost in performance for 64 bit applications however as we all know FSX is only 32 bit so there is little benefit apart from offering more available ram to the application.

Kind regards


Lufty