Conclusion

Right now, Windows 7 is kind of a mixed bag. While it was able to beat both Vista and XP in certain applications, it also got beat in others. 3DMark06 gave a clear advantage to XP on both of our test beds, while Vantage favored Vista by about 10%. However, real world performance brought our numbers to a much narrower margin, with Windows 7 performing admirably in both DX9 and DX10 modes. Crysis still favors Vista pretty heavily as it officially trounced Windows 7 by 16 frames per second on average on our high-end test bed. The margin was closed when we take a look at our mid-range setup, when that gap shrunk to a one frame difference.

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.