Slashdot Mirror
Is Windows 7 Faster Or Just Smarter?
Barence writes "The Windows 7 unveiling garnered largely positive coverage, with many hands-on testers praising it for being faster than Vista. But is it actually? To find out, this blogger ran a suite of benchmarks to see just how much quicker Windows 7 really is — and the results weren't quite what he expected. 'The actual performance gap between Vista and Windows 7 is ... nada. Absolutely nothing. Our Office benchmarks and video encoding tests complete in precisely the same time regardless of which OS is installed. [...] It's tempting to see this as a bit of a con. They've sped up the front end so it feels like you're getting more done, but in terms of real productivity it's no better than Vista."
Unsurprisingly, the German magazine C't has just compared XP, Vista and the new one.
They came to a different conclusion - W7 is noticeably faster than Vista and roughly the same as XP.
They found no difference on laptop Battery life between Vista and W7 though.
When it comes down to C't and some blogger, sorry - I'll take C't. Those guys take independence very seriously.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
I also notice this problem with Firefox under linux. One way that I partially resolved it was with changing my gtk theme. Change to one that uses the generic gtk engine...not a fancy one like clearlooks or murrine or something. Some gtk engines are coded badly and lag a bit. Although it doesn't completely resolve the issue it speeds it up a bit...I have always wonder why firefox seems slower on linux than windows...I thought it was just me being crazy, but I guess not.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
Yes. I doubt that the CPU or GPU are of differing quality. Except, of course, that the Mac has a much faster CPU than the eMachine, which is also where some of that cost comes in.
Uhh. NO. While Apple's case designs are *much* better than most third party cases that are available, they still use Seagate/Maxtor HDD's (just going by some G3/G4/G5's I've had my hands into), and standard off the shelf RAM, even off the shelf CD-ROM's.
Continuing...
I built my own PCs for a long time, but finally got fed up with low quality, buggy components. I don't have spare RAM, mobos, and PSUs lying around to troubleshoot crappy hardware to figure out which piece is bad or incompatible with some other random cheap crappy piece. I still buy PC desktops, but my last several computers have been barebones kits from Dell and Shuttle. When I buy RAM it's always from a reputable company, as I've had as many unusable sticks of Kingston and the like as have actually worked.
It is not the "PC's" fault that you purchased bottom-barrel crap components. Know what Apple uses for motherboards? Slightly modified Intel parts (again, going from what I've seen in some newer machines that went to surplus at my place of work because of how expensive they'd have been to repair). I've never purchased motherboards (even some bottom-barrel priced boards), memory sticks from various companies (though I've settled on G.Skill lately), or other parts that were "buggy". Yes, I've had an occasional DOA part, but that's what warranties are for. Just going by your own words, I'd say you are one of those "Yea, I can be a PC-Tech here for (insert company), because I built my own machine at home!" people I see all over the place. The kind of person that knows *just* enough to assemble a machine, but not enough to make sure all the parts your ordering/spec'ing for a machine will actually work together. This isn't the fault of the aftermarket parts producers -- it's yours.
And to suggest that they're the "same thing" as an $200-$400 eMachines or Dell is a complete farce.
Actually, they *are* basically the same thing. Like I said, you get an awesome Apple designed case, but the parts inside are basically off the shelf PC parts. Hell, I bought an Intel 975xbx2 mainboard that, with pcefi, worked perfectly under OSX 10.4 and 10.5 with vanilla kernel/kexts/etc (of course I did have to keep the couple modifications needed to bypass checks for the silly Apple ROM's, etc).
Having re-read what I typed, it sounds an awful lot like I'm harping on YOU instead of your argument, however, that's not my intention. I'm just really tired of seeing "Nu-uh! Apple uses much higher quality parts than you'll find in a PC, that's why they're better/more expensive!" arguments. If there were any truth to it, I'd be quiet on the subject (or even blast the "pc makers" for the same), however, it's just not true. Now, maybe when you get to the $200 Bargain Basement E-Machine, maybe (though even still, many of the parts *are* the same).
I think the major bits making Apple machines as expensive as they can be are the case designs and the modifications made to the mainboards (it doesn't help that Apple charges ridiculous prices for RAM/HDD upgrades). If Apple pushed the kinds of volume that, say, HP or Dell did, they might get some better volume discounts on the custom parts...
bork bork bork!