General Performance

Futuremark's PCMark Vantage x64 is probably the single most diverse set of benchmarks a user can run on a system to mimic real world usage scenarios. In offline testing, Windows 7 generally held a 3% advantage over Vista, including the HDD test suite. However, Vantage does not run on Windows XP so we are providing results with a few applications that stress the storage, memory, and CPU subsystems.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 - Retouch Artists Speed Test

MainConcept Reference - H.264 Transcode

Blender 2.48a Character Render

Sony Vegas Pro 8 - Blu-ray Disc Image Creation

WinRAR 3.9 Compression - 421MB Archive

In WinRAR 3.9, XP Pro x64 shows an advantage over the latest operating systems from Microsoft. However, that's the sole win in our tested applications and Windows 7, even without the benefit of optimized drivers, is performing better than Vista in this CPU/Storage heavy benchmark. Sony Vegas Pro 8 and Blender 2.48a favor Windows 7 with Vista once again coming in last. In the MainConcept Reference test where we transcode a 1.2GB H.264 file, Windows 7 and XP x64 are tied with Vista trailing as usual. The results are close in Photoshop CS4 with Windows 7 once again showing strength in a benchmark that relies on the memory, processor, and storage subsystems. Overall, Windows 7 clearly outperforms Vista in these tests although you would need a benchmark to see the differences. However, throughout testing, Windows 7 just "felt" snappier than Vista.

Gaming Results First Impressions
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  • Lexington02 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    He is not late, he is claiming otherwise to the other people who think that Anandtech is MS loving while this dude is claiming to be Apple loving. I wonder, which is true... Apple lovers or Microsoft lovers...
  • Lexington02 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    He is not late, he is claiming otherwise to the other people who think that Anandtech is MS loving while this dude is claiming to be Apple loving. I wonder, which is true... Apple lovers or Microsoft lovers...
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    From my perspective, if I'm being accused of being an Apple and a Microsoft fanboy in the same article, then I must be doing something right.;-)

    I'll note that I have a preference for Mac OS X if given a choice, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll talk more about that in next week's Ubuntu article.
  • strikeback03 - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    That was my point - I have long stated that 90% of the articles here that compare something generate comments from both sides claiming bias each way. So the anti-Apple comments were late arriving compared to the anti-MS ones.

    Are we really going to get a Ubuntu article? Is it now on the transition to 9.04 instead of 8.04?
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    8.04 (because it's the LTS and most comparable to Windows/Mac OS X as such), to be followed up with 9.04.
  • strikeback03 - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    Cool. 9.04 finally resolved some out-of-the-box compatibility problems my desktop has had with each release since I started (6.10)
  • Gary Key - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    I am still a big fan of DR-DOS. Does that mean I am anti-MS also? :)
  • MichaelD - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    This is important for me as that's what I use for an AV/AM solution. Overall, it looks very impressive, particularly for a RC; it may just get me away from XP.
  • masterbm - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    I have been using windows 7 on my old amd socket 939 4200 4gb ram 8800gs. I started since build 7000. I started out being guy how felt that I was going to stay on vista for most of my machine I will upgrade to windows when it released. My htpc/file server at this time I plan on leaving it at vista. Due to their is no really good way to convert the .wtv format. This htpc box is automated in since it defrag it self scan it self for virus and spyware. Then It just added auto convert of the show that records. I took while to do that stuff not sure if want do every again.(also note htpc is amd 3800)The other thing I will note is that windows 7 becuase it feels snappier has made use that system more then use to
  • fausto412 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    They need to make the defrag problem able to do more than one drive at a time...or to schedule them out.

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