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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  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    Actually, it has both of those features, although as the article was running long and I didn't consider them important I didn't mention them. It can defrag drives simultaneously. Scheduling has been in there since at least Vista.
  • strikeback03 - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    I was able to schedule weekly defrags back in Win2000 on my old laptop
  • leexgx - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    it can if you use command line on win7 (emm i think it does loet you defrag more then one disk at the same time in the GUI, got no power for laptop so cant find out yet)
  • Pirks - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001675.h...">http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001675.h...
  • leexgx - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    Hide extensions for known file types, yes every PC i am on i untick that option, its So unsafe its unreal

    with windows 7 extensions should Not be hidden be it any verson of windows with vista pressing F2 or rename only selects the name now not all of the file name like XP and lower does so harder to lose the extension
  • Pirks - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    Yeah, I agree that extensions should NOT be hidden BY DEFAULT. Unfortunately they are hidden. So, Win 7 is still a virus heaven _by default_!
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    Hiding extensions doesn't make it a "virus heaven"; it just makes it possible for Trojan horses to trick stupid users a bit easier. How does that malware.txt.exe file get to the PC in the first place? By some user being stupid. If extensions are hidden, then why is that file called "malware.txt" rather than just "malware"? Oh yes: because it's trying to trick you by not doing the same thing as every other icon, so it's already a red flag (which admittedly most computer users are not smart enough to notice).

    For technical people, the extensions mean something - I know I always show them - but for most computer users the fact that an icon says "EXE", "SCR", "COM", "CMD", or anything else as the extension means very little. If you don't *know* what an icon is, you shouldn't click it. Simple! But sadly most computer users are not smart enough to know that.
  • B3an - Friday, May 8, 2009 - link

    That comment was posted by Pirks. Possibly the biggest apple fanboy ever. I'm not sure i've seen a comment of his on DailyTech that hasn't been rated down. Dont feed the troll.
  • leexgx - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link

    network tests need to be done not the same as XP

    please open winamp, WMP or teamspeak play something and then do the gigabit network test thay must of fixed the 10MB/s cap problem on Win7 when playing sound (have to mess with vista reg to remove the MMS limiter), none raid to none raid pcs shouuld be doing harddisk speeds acroess the network {70-90mb/s ish,}raid to raid or SSD should be 120MB/s about on the network
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link

    It's a time issue; we didn't have a chance to work that it. It has been noted, and I'll make sure that gets in the next W7 article.

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