Anybody Have Any XP v Vista Speed Tests?

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BobbytheBrain

Whenever there is a new OS, somebody always performs some sort of
speed tests. Yet with Vista, I have never seen any tests. Only thing
I hear are personal experiences such as "it's so slow" or "it runs
fine". So, has anybody actually done any objective speed testing?
 
Hi,

For what I've learned, one argument (regardless it's true or not) has long
been established - Vista is fundamentally different than XP and all previous
operating systems.

So with that predetermined criterion, any benchmark will be disqualified,
and that is probably one reason for little benchmarks, if any, have bee
done. Because at any time, that argument can be brought in.

PS: I don't know if it's fundamentally different or not, and guess only
those involved in the architecture design would know for sure, and the rest
are words-of-mouth.
 
Bobby,

There are a couple... most of what I have seen are showing Vista is running
DirectX games fast (by 5-10%) than XP games on the same hardware.

Be VERY careful of performance reports out there that do not use Vista RTM
(6000), as previous versions tend to still have non-production code, hooks
for testing and applications, and other such things that are not in the RTM
product.

I've noticed that my library for music and images (over 10,000 MP3's and
WMAs and just shy of 100000 World War 2 aircraft images) are much faster to
seach in Vista than XP. LOADS faster.

Right now XP is still faster and better playing back video's and DVD's but
that is more than likely due to the fact I don't yet have 100% release
drivers from ATI/AMD yet, I am still running the November 2nd drivers.
Hopefully they will have release drivers out in the next few weeks.

Sound playback seems to still be better under XP as well, but again, I'm
still running beta drivers for my SoundBlaster X-Fi card. I get occasional
popping and sometimes the sound just drops off and it does require me to
restart the Windows Audio service... annoying every once in a while, but I
really can't hold Vista at fault until CreativeLabs releases the offical,
non-beta driver.

If you are running 64 bit Vista versus 64 bit XP, its no competition. XP
gets smacked out of the water totally by x64 Vista. It doesn't even stand a
chance.

Bill F.
 
I'll second that Vista x64 is definitely faster than XP x64. Despite the
audio and video driver drawbacks right now, Vista x64 is more responsive.
 
Purpose of Windows XP and Windows Vista is the same or running
application softwares designed to run on Windows OS. Therefor, any
results by using existing benchmark softwares can be meaningful.
 
From my experience just from using Vista (RC2 mind you), I'd say there are
some things in Vista that are faster and things that are slower. Just about
any application I launch in Vista loads quicker, but my computer bogs down
easier when multitasking even though I have over half of my RAM free. Doing
common Windows tasks are 50/50. Some are faster, some are slower, and some
are the same. Loading a large playlist flies in Vista in comparison with
XP. Thumbnails load a lot slower on Vista than XP. File transfers are also
a lot slower for me in Vista. Dragging a window is better in Vista *if* you
are running Aero Glass. If you're not, XP is a ton faster when you drag a
window. People say that Aero is a hog, but it actually makes my computer
run better with Aero on than it is with it off. Gaming - I don't know. I
haven't done much to know. From what I've heard, you can expect gaming
performance to be 10% to 15% slower in Vista. Performance overall in Vista
is a mixed bag - some things are slower, some things are faster, and some
things are about the same. Jim Allchin himself even said that performance
is 50/50 in a channel 9 video *after* RTM.
 
A comparison between XP and Vista is hard in one respect. The hardware
requirements for each OS are completely different. The real test would be
to test each OS on its minimum hardware and again on the minimum "suggested"
hardware and then perhaps even again on the hottest hardware you can buy.
Vista is a new OS with many completely new ways to do things. A simple
speed comparison without factoring in the value (or even perhaps lack of
value) that is built in to the OS is not a fair test.

As an over simplified (or dramatized) analogy, consider two routines to
import a million completely valid records into a database. One validates
the records against business rules and runs in two minutes. The second does
no validation but runs in one minute. While the end result appears to be
the same, and the second routine clearly out performs the first, there is
value in the first that the second cannot compare with. A speed comparison
between these two is meaningless. The only legitimate assessment is whether
first meet the business requirements - is 2 minutes acceptable for this
task?

The same applies to Vista. Where Vista adds security or reliability, or
ease of use enhancements, or requires less training, or many other features
that it may (or may not) add, then you cannot really measure performance
strictly as a measurement of time from point A to point B on a normal,
everything-as-expected, trip from A to B.

Dale
 
In theory, that's true.

In practice, as mentioned, many will use that argument for disqualifying
benchmarks, especially when minimum hardware requirements might be
different.

I have no problem with any benchmark as long as methodologies and bases are
provided, and I simply pointed out that argument has long been established
for many possible reasons.
 
Performing a general speed test between Vista and Windows XP is like doing
the same between XP and Linux.

Maybe a specific test, such as how long does it take to open the same
program in the different operating systems.

You have to be a lot more specific about what you are actually looking for.

I personally think that Vista RTM (yes, the version of Vista you are using
enters into the picture) is generally faster on my main computer than
Windows XP. Of course, I don't have all my applications loaded into Vista as
of yet because many of the companies have not updated their apps to be Vista
compatible.

So again, you see, there is no real way to run a comparison as of yet.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Whenever there is a new OS, somebody always performs some sort of
speed tests. Yet with Vista, I have never seen any tests. Only thing
I hear are personal experiences such as "it's so slow" or "it runs
fine". So, has anybody actually done any objective speed testing?
Click to expand...

I did some:

3D Mark 2003 at 1024x768
BADAXE 9152
BADAXE(Vista) 7808

Quake Timedemo
BADAXE 294.7FPS
BADAXE (Vista) 60.0 FPS

Unreal Tournament
BADAXE 1024x768 Flyby 370.22 Botmach 149.3
BADAXE (Vista) 1024x768 Flyby 316.06 Botmach 109.56

The faster results are XP Pro SP2, the PC is a BadAxe board, E6600, 2GB
RAM, all SATA hard drives.

I am guessing that the graphics drivers are not optimised and I'm hoping
that things will improve when nVidia bring out better drivers.
 
I've run various bechmarks on my new machine under XP x86 and Vista x64.
Vista wins hands down in 95% of the cases... Eg. SuperPi (1m) is 20s vs
29sec which is a big improvement - but this is partially due to the benefits
of 64-bit addressing.

It's hardly scientific, but the differences are sufficient to be believed. I
suspect that borderline hardware may fare worse off. I suspect your hardware
need to be a step or two above the recommended minimum to really take
advantage of Vista.
 
I have done tests, and vista is faster to start and shutdown,

but when you use it, it is 15-20 % slower that XP using the same hardware.

You dont have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.. just open the
taskmanager
and you will see in vista that there are too many things running in the
background....
 
Your observations are about the same as what I've
experienced- this includes one laptop and one desktop,
both rather new and loaded. I really don't understand the
problem Vista has with thumbnails, but it does. I've also
noticed the slower file transfer speeds, too. Be it from
folder to folder, drive to drive, or to/from a network drive.
It does exist and is noticeable.

However, just for kicks- I installed RC2 on an old Dell.
Dell Dimension 8200. I reckon I got it in late 2001 or
maybe early 2002. 1GB Rambus DRAM, 120GB hard
drive, 64MB Nvidia GeForce Ti200, and a P4 2.4Ghz.
Vista works absolutely wonderfully on that old girl.
No Aero Glass, but Vista still looks good and I swear-
seems quite speedy. No ReadyBoost, either- it only has
USB 1.1. That Dell was quite powerful back then, but not
by today's standards. I even play around with the VMWare
Player I installed in Vista on that computer- works great.

Thankfully, I haven't had to replace one of the RDRAM
sticks- they are quite expensive.

Vista does scale very well, and still looks good even without
the Glass. I am really surprised at how well Vista RC2 runs on
that old computer.

-Michael
 
Bill Frisbee wrote:
just shy of 100000 World War 2 aircraft images

Where did you find all those? , my son googles those and has only a few
good shots
 
But it's not designed for the same hardware. So what's the point of
comparing it on XP class hardware?

Dale
 
so you are saying that xp wont run faster on newer hardware that is of new
designed for vista?

I say give xp and vista a shot on the same new hardware as you claim and xp
will be a winner hands down.

lol.... this newsgroup is full of dumbos....

Try running win98 on a pentium4 3.6 ghz... it will run like a deamon....
 
DOS runs faster on any of today's hardware so I guess we should all go back
to DOS.

Vista running on Vista specific hardware in a Vista specific computer will,
in my opinion, out perform Windows XP on XP specific hardware of even 1 year
ago. Yeah! I know. It takes a lot more horse power. So what!

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Warpsix,

Honestly from all over the place. Most are from the various major aircraft
web site, some from the manufacturers I scanned in, others from books I
scanned, and about 3000 from various museums.


Bill F.
 
Read the post before mine. I was being rather dismissive, and condescending
to Microfox. He was complaining about slow speed in Vista and I just don't
see that.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
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