Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Networking
For our networking tests we utilize a Promise SmartStor NS4600 NAS unit equipped with two WD Caviar Black 640GB drives in RAID 1 operation. We are using our standard large folder and perform a copy from the NAS and then back to the NAS. The Promise NAS unit is connected to each test platform via a NetGear Gigabit Ethernet switch. We left all settings at their defaults on both the motherboard and Promise NAS unit. Our goal was to maximize the performance of the NAS unit to verify our network throughput capabilities in each operating system.
In our download test, Win7 is blazing fast with a 25% advantage over XP and 34% over Vista, making this result particularly notable since network file copy performance has always been a bit of a laggard on Vista. The results are very close in our upload test with Win7 and Vista basically tied and 16% ahead of XP.
USB / FireWire Performance
Our USB transfer speed tests are conducted with an USB 2.0/FireWire based Lacie external hard drive unit featuring a 1TB 7200rpm Samsung F1 drive. In the SSD to External test, we transfer a 3.82GB folder containing 2735 files of various sizes from our Kingston 80GB SSD to the Lacie drive. In the next two file tests, we use the same 3.82GB folder to transfer from our WD VRaptor 300GB hard drive to the external Lacie drive utilizing the USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394a interface.
Win7 and XP perform similarly in our USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394a tests with both finishing ahead of Vista.
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Tewt - Monday, November 2, 2009 - link
Toms pretty much had the same conclusion as Anandtech. Here is a quote from their conclusion:"From the benchmarker’s standpoint, the change from Windows Vista to Windows 7 is simply a matter of documentation."
I wish someone would quantify the "snappy" feeling or the "it feels faster" they get from Windows 7 because I'm not seeing a compelling reason to move from Vista from either article on the two sites.
werfu - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I absolutely love Win7. I've installed the RC on my Thinkpad T61p and it's a real pleasure to use it compared to Vista. It's more responsive, not like Vista sluggish experience. However, the ACPI driver for the T61p don't work right. The screen doesn't dim and power management don't work right. I think that's really odd, as it's been working right under Vista and Linux.Also, I wonder if the NAS test was done using a Large Packet enabled NAS. It do make a huge difference on networking gear that support it.
strikeback03 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Have you checked for updated drivers recently? Lenovo had a bunch of Win7 drivers for my T43 which were all dated within the past week.7Enigma - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Did you happen to do any benchmarking or "general user responsiveness" when you upgraded the systems? I have upgraded 3 systems since Windows 95 and in every case I ended up reformatting and doing a clean install; not because of a hardware/software issue, but rather because some unknown demon made the systems chug.I've seen this same issue with the move from XP SP2 to SP3 on my dad's computer (in this case to the point where we actually rolled back to SP2). In that instance it is possible the extra security features/etc. on an older system that just couldn't take it, but in the other instances it seemed to be a major problem.
Any comments by the authors would be greatly appreciated.
Ryan Smith - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
One of the systems that I did the upgrade install on was my personal system. I'm not going to publish any numbers since they aren't rigorous enough, but before and after testing didn't reveal any differences in performance. It continues to perform just as well as any other Win7 system I have.7Enigma - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
Thank you for the response Ryan. Honestly while the articles are fantastic, it is the timely comments from the authors that make this site the best.Postoasted - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Had been using XP64 for about 4 years and lived through all its teething problems. Had been totally satisfied except that with some programs it couldn't regulate the RAM efficiently. I have 6 gigs of RAM and would ofter run out while using some apps. With 7 Ultimate I can watch an H264 movie, have FF open and encode a movie all at the same time and have RAM left over. For me Windows 7 was the fix.nafhan - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone who feels comfortable configuring POP3/SMTP settings would also be comfortable downloading the free mail client from MS (or Thunderbird, etc.). Businesses will likely have MS Office installed (including Outlook). Non-technical users generally use webmail.So, the only group I can come up with who would want it installed by default is tech-savvy users without Office, that prefer MS's free desktop client over webmail, and don't have admin rights to install it themselves or access to IT support to install it for them.
jay401 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Gary - Whatever happened to the P55 motherboard reviews and round-up articles you mentioned last month? Are they still on the way? I think we've seen 3 or 4 P55 motherboards reviewed so far at Anandtech. Are you still going to review the others?It's not so much the performance that's important or unknown, since they're all relatively similar. It's the technical specs comparisons, the board layout images and commentary, any issues you experienced while testing with them, etc. Would love to see the round-ups.
Gary Key - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
They are coming shortly. We went back and purchased 8 retail boards to do additional testing on the Foxconn socket compared to the Lotes/Tyco Amp. I have finished that testing and guess what, no changes on air or water, plus it appears the revised Foxconn socket is certainly working better, not perfect, but much better.