Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Gaming: DX9
As we have moved most of our benchmark suite to DirectX10 these days, it's not possible to run XP under our normal gaming test suite given its DX9 limitation. Instead we have taken a limited selection of our test suite that does run under DX9, and compiled separate results for it so that we can compare Vista to XP and Win7 using our GeForce GTX 275. On the next page, you will see our regular test suite.
FarCry 2
Featuring fantastic visuals courtesy of the Dunia Engine, this game also features one of the most impressive benchmark tools we have seen in a PC game. We set the performance feature set to Very High, graphics to High, and enable DX9 with AA set to 2x. The in-game benchmark tool is utilized with the Ranch Small level.
Left 4 Dead
This game is a blast and addictive to boot - provided you like killing hundreds of zombies while trying to take care of your teammates and sustaining high blood pressure rates. We enable all options, set AA to 2x and AF to 8x, and play back a custom demo of a game session from the Runway Finale chapter within the Dead Air campaign.
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
While not a true flight simulation or even serious air combat game, it is a lot of fun and looks visually stunning on a 30” monitor with all options turned up. In our case, we set all options to high, enable 2xAA and DX9, and then use FRAPS to time a custom demo sequence.
World in Conflict
We utilize the built-in benchmark for our game test. We set the resolution to 1920x1080 with 2xAA/16xAF, DX9, and High Quality options.
On a final note, although we didn't include a multi-GPU setup in here, there will be much greater differences in performance there. Vista and Win7 get much better multi-GPU performance, which is something we've seen before such as in our Release Candidate article.
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Spivonious - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
Vista/7 have I/O priorities. If the game needs to access the hard disk then the AV scanner (assuming it was written to take advantage of priorities) will pause. Should be little to no performance loss.The default auto-defrag setting is once a week, not daily. I find it really helps with overall performance.
ibarskiy - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Just WTF are you talking about?!1) Browser is much more essential for an average user, so by extension, if bundling the browser (a more essential component) is viewed as anti-competitive, it is certain that bundling less essential components would also be viewed as such. In that respect, it was completely reasonable to anticipate it. It is entirely silly / idiotic (you pick, I pick the latter), but it is not MS's doing, it's the EU regulators'. Bitch at them.
2) You don't need to manually defrag (it has been background since Vista)
3) You don't need registry cleaners
4) You don't need layers of malware protection and, factually, it is more difficult to compromise than OSX, that's been shown
5) You don't need various 3rd party utilities - difficult to guess here what you are talking about since no specific reference is made - but then again, that's how you bashers typically operate
6) It is one of the more reliable systems out there; again, please talk specifics. Since Vista, Windows very rarely crashes.
What is pretty sad is that morons such as yourself with clear misinformation are allowed to impact other people's opinions.
The0ne - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I would like to see more tests on laptops if possible. The snappy UI of Windows more than makes up for it's performance/lack-there-of. This is especially true of replacing Vista. Regardless of the performance, Windows 7 has the driver and snappy-ness to warrant the replacement of XP and Vista.This test is where one truly finds what a joke Vista OS is.
The0ne - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Tom's hardware has the conclusion for what I'm asking for. I'll wait to see if Anandtech can do something similar as Tom's is litter with script junk. Thank God for noscript.ATWindsor - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
"To that end, I certainly wouldn’t recommend running Win7 at the default UAC level for any computer connected to the internet."That depends on the user, frankly, all you need is an updated OS and a firewall, and one should be resonably safe, those two things will in most cases limit attacks to the types where the user has to manually execute a file. People got by on XP without problems, Win 7 with UAC level 2 is much more safe than that. Of course there will be less skilled users who run into problems, but as a skilled user, one should be fine.
Griswold - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
"That depends on the user, frankly, all you need is an updated OS and a firewall, and one should be resonably safe, those two things will in most cases limit attacks to the types where the user has to manually execute a file."No, because:
"And that’s a risky proposition when a UAC prompt may be all that’s left between malware executing and running amok or not."
No firewall or AV is going to protect you if all it takes is a brand new little trojan using this flawed security concept to gain highest privileges. And thats why I set UAC to level 4. I got used to it by having vista do the same for 2.5 years.
Genx87 - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
IMO my biggest disappointment in Win7 was Microsoft gave into the XP whiners who love no security with an admin account. They tuned the thing down and gave the user the ability to elevate its protection. Personally I run with a user level account in Win7 and left the default settings. When Win7 shows up on our network Ill have to configure a GP to stick the thing at the highest setting and disable the ability of the users to change it.But for mom and pop. They will either turn it off or get infected with something that disables it. The end result is basically XP level security which is a huge step backwards.
Zoomer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I installed vista with UAC off, apps automatically run as admin, and it was fine. Since n/vlite wasn't quite ready for w7 a few months ago, I just disabled UAC.Don't see the point of these. I'm still looking for a good command line av or at least something that does not install services. Getting tired of the java AV scanners.
Devo2007 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Looks like you used the wrong graph on Page 11 (the first graph). That one compares different motherboards, rather than Win7/Vista/XP.darwinosx - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Most of the graphs are meaningless anyway.