December 11th, 2008

Windows 7 build 6956 performance test

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 7:08 am

Categories: On the test bench, Windows 7

Tags: 32-bit, Microsoft Windows 7, Performance, Microsoft Windows Vista, Score, CINEBENCH R10 Next, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating Systems, Software

My Hardware 2.0 mailbag is brimming with Windows 7 related questions. The main question on everyone’s lips is the obvious one - How does Windows 7 stack up against Vista?

Important note: Before I go any further I feel I need to make a point, and make it clear. The build I’m testing of Windows 7 (build 6956) is a pre-beta build, and as a rule pre-beta builds aren’t known for their performance. That said, the performance of this build should give us a clue as to how the OS is coming along.

This test will pitch Windows 7 build 6956 32-bit against Windows Vista RTM 32-bit and Windows Vista SP1 32-bit.

Check out the Windows 7 build 6956 benchmark gallery

UPDATE: I’ve added Windows XP data to the data below. Check out this post for details.

The System

Here’s the spec of the system I used:

• Phenom 9700 quad-core processor
• ATI Radeon 3850 graphics card with 256MB RAM
• ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe motherboard
• 2GB (2 x 1GB) Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D RAM
• Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM 150GB primary hard drive
• Western Digital Caviar 7,200RPM 500GB secondary hard drive

Each system was fully patched with all patches available from Windows Update. 

Other noteworthy points:

• No optimizations were carried out other than to process idle tasks and defrag the hard drive between each test. 
• Windows Defender was left on for all tests. 
• The Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 testing guidelines document was followed closely.

The Tests

For this test we’re going to use one real life test and three synthetic benchmarks:

• Boot-up time
• PassMark PerformanceTest
• PCMark Vantage
• CINEBENCH R10

Next –>

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6