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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."
Is Windows 7 Faster Or Just Smarter?
I don't like either of those options, how about "just more of the same Microsoft software?"
I understand the article points out that they went with simply a "more responsive interface" paradigm (Web 2.0/AJAX, anyone?) and probably didn't really fix any serious problems. But at the same time this headline reeks of either marketing or hilarious lawyer type questions. Examples:
My work here is dung.
Can I play mp3 *and* copy files on Windows 7 ? I have old Quad-Core system only.
839*929
The productivity would actually increase if the front end speed increased since it would allow the user to interact faster etc. The other tests such as encoding etc are really CPU and application dependent and not very much OS dependent, so it's not really a fair test.
To quote the pointy haired boss "Work smarter not harder".
Personally I'll stick with Homer Simpson's motto: "If something is hard to do, then it is not worth doing." Which is my rule regarding installing new Microsoft Operating Systems.
Just to throw out one more gem; "If it isn't broken it doesn't have enough features yet." Which seems to be Microsoft's golden rule.
The Long Now Foundation
Video encoding is a terrible metric for "productivity" since it's something the computer can do on it's on while you go get tea. It's pretty much CPU and memory bound. The underlying OS shouldn't be doing anything but getting out of the way.
But UI "tricks" are an improvement. If find it easier to start your video encoder, or can do other resource-light things while the video encoder is running at a small cost to the actual encoding speed, then you're making better use of your meat co-processor. Which really is a "productivity" gain.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I was under the impression that W7 would have a modified kernel , but if it is nothing more than the Vista kernel warmed over with the same core libraries then nothing much will change so I guess no surprise there.
As is the way with MS , they update all the eye candy first to get the drooling masses interested , then they get down to the core stuff where it really matters later on - ie the exact opposite way round to the way it should be done.
FTA:
For comparison, the PC Pro benchmarks complete around 22% more quickly on XP than on Vista, as detailed in my feature "Memory Laid Bare" (issue 169, p122).
-sigh-
Wouldn't suppose they'll have an "LTS" version of XP, supporting it past the already-stated cutoff....
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
I really wouldn't expect significantly different scores for something like an office suite or media encoding. Once the OS gives the process all the memory and CPU time it needs, that's basically it. Maybe for games where there could be significant differences in the DirectX flow, but not in general.
But as the article notes, throughput isn't everything. The "up front" speed and how long it takes for a button push to result in action is equally important if not more so. The responsiveness of applications is something an OS can have a significant impact on, and is probably the most important thing for making the computer -feel- fast, and thus giving a better user experience. Hell I've long considered responsiveness to be justification enough for dual-core processors even when a user isn't multi-tasking or running multi-threading apps. So if it's a good enough reason to get a whole second core, it's a good enough reason for an OS upgrade.
It does sound kinda cagey that they're making this one of the main reasons to get 7, rather than improving Vista. But whatever, it's all academic to me.
The enemies of Democracy are
They don't define "faster" to include the response time of the interface.
But most users DO include the interface response time in their opinion of which is "faster".
I think Microsoft made a big mistake with the "fade in" menus. Just turning them off gives the user the impression that you've made their machine "faster". Even though email works at the same speed as before. As does Word. As do their games.
I'm no fan of Windows. But improving UI responsiveness, does greatly improve user throughput when using a system - partly because the user can do what they need to do more quickly, but also because there are fewer jarring moments where you are brought out of the process of creation to have to wait on the computer to finish something. These small interruptions can add up to a big loss of focus over a day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it SEEMS faster, what does it matter what the actual internal speed is? As long as it passes the "God damned piece of shit just give me my web page!" test (as long as you don't say that it's ok) why does a benchmark matter?
I'd rather have a slow app that felt fast than a fast app that felt slow. Our work connection is slug-slow, the annoyance is much more of a productivity drain than the actual (lack of) speed.
Free Martian Whores!
I dunno about most of you, but I do consider a nippier interface to be an improvement in productivity. For the vast majority of Windows users, the thing they want to see improved is those moments lost "when they click a button and nothing seems to happen", as the article author puts it. That is time that has been taken from me. If I get those moments back, and the performance of the trivial CPU tasks involved in actually reading and writing files are kept the same, then yes, my productivity has improved.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
considering the biggest complaints that users have about vista is that it is SO SLOW (read: responds slowly), i think microsoft may be going in the right direction (if i understand their changes correctly).
the biggest issues with vista haven't been it's performance in crunching numbers, the problems have related to how fast it seems to be. which brings up an interesting question, was much work really needed when consumer computers are quickly becoming powerful enough to actually run vista smoothly?
at the risk of being modded down... i think vista is a good os, with some tweaking. BUT, only if it's the 64bit version, 32bit is crap. furthermore, microsoft has done a great job combining 64 and 32bit functionality, i applaud that
So let me get this straight: Windows 7 is only faster than Vista. It doesn't manage to also make third party programs written for Vista magically faster as well.
Since 1995 I've had a chance to play with each beta and RC release of Windows, from 98 to Vista. They always run faster than the final release. I've no idea why.
Most recently, I played with Vista at the RC stage on a very modest notebook computer (1.6GHz Celeron, 512MB memory) and it ran like a dream. I then switched back to Linux, my personal OS, and then read all the reports upon the release of Vista criticizing it for being slow and cranky.
Upon buying a new notebook complete with Windows tax, I was able to see that -- sure enough -- Vista (even SP1) was pretty slow.
I just don't know what microsoft do to their software before boxing it. Maybe they pour molasses into it.
For the average user, a lot of time is wasted waiting for the UI, or being afraid or unable to do other tasks while something "heavy" is going on (like reading email, surfing, etc.).
If the system still has the same horsepower, but I'm better able to actually multi-task without slogging through a molasses interface, then it's a huge improvement.
It's just not worth trying to type an email sometimes when it takes 6 seconds to update the UI after each keypress... maybe doing so will slow down your build in the background, but only marginally compared to the time wasted if you can't do anything at all during that time.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I would argue that the speed and responsiveness of the interface is increasing productivity in some way. Having a responsive interface is not just nice window dressing, particularly if I'm doing several things at once.
It is also possible that it is faster instead of just appearing faster. What might have been sped up is the constant factors, the smaller functions, that are usually dwarfed by the time it takes to complete an "actual" task. That is, you might not be able to encode video any faster, because while the act of opening and writing to the video file on the filesystem could have been sped up, the limiting factor is encoding speed. (I'm not saying that's necessarily true about Windows 7, but it could be.
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
I take exception to this. Obviously, if the video encoding tests were written well, there will be little speedup. But if a window environment "feels" faster, you actually DO get more done. There is less frustration in waiting, and you can generally multi-task much easier.
There was recently a discussion of a faster X server. Frankly, I get plenty done on the old "slow" X server, but if one feels faster, it will actually eliminate a lot of brainpower consumed by waiting on a context switch.
There was recently a discussion on a faster Linux boot-up, which preloaded your configuration as you're typing your password, and had lots of other fast features... But that doesn't actually speed up Linux, in terms of encoding video. It just makes it "feel" faster.
I like OSS, but I see lots of bad tags being made. Unfair comparisons are simply unfair comparisons. You can't hail a nice feature in one OS, and discount exactly the same feature on a different OS. Without being hypocritical, anyway.
At this point it probably IS Vista!
Do you think Microsoft re-writes the OS from scratch every time? No, they just incrementally change the previous version, and this happens slowly over the course of development. Since 7 is still a year or so away at this point they're just showing you mostly user interface changes with little or no changes to the core underlying os. By the time it releases there will probably be some significant changes, but right now I suspect you're mostly looking at a UI demo running on top of plain old Vista.
I keep seeing posts like "I tried out Windows 7 and it looks like all my software is 100% compatible and runs great!". Well duh, since it's the same OS you're running now.
Wait six months or so before passing judgement on this thing.
G.
Okay here is the big question.
Do many users need a faster PC?
On a clean Windows box when are you waiting on the computer?
I am not talking about games, scientist, or people using CAD/CAM.
I am talking about the average user?
Now when you are waiting how often is it an IO bottle neck?
Waiting for a program to start, waiting for a file to download or some other function like that.
The real answer is that for the most part PCs are quick enough.
Video encoding isn't something that the average users does yet. It will be in the future but right now not so much.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Improving the front end is overdue and welcome.
Under Windows 2000/XP (have not touched Vista yet) I have often wondered why the Windows Explorer takes ages to show a directory, even if the actual content at the displayed directory level is only a few dozen elements. Maybe it scans all subdirectories for whatever arcane reason?
I strongly suspect there is a lot that can be optimized there, and if Windows 7 finally got around to it, this would be a good thing.
C - the footgun of programming languages
If the UI is now snappier and more responsive so that the user feels more happy with his user experience, isn't that still good progress even if in reality the speedup is only subjective? Everything that makes the user more content using the product is good, right?
Of course a snappy UI is a huge deal. Users spend a lot of time navigating before they actually run anything. And, keeping the UI snappy even when the CPU is under heavy load is an especially important user experience requirement.
There's nothing illegitimate or sneaky about optimizing the hardware to better serve the user.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
was much work really needed when consumer computers are quickly becoming powerful enough to actually run vista smoothly?
We can thank Nicholas Negroponte for this. His One Laptop Per Child project inspired the mainstream PC industry to develop similarly low-powered, low-priced subnotebook computers called "netbooks". Windows XP and Ubuntu run better than Windows Vista on the small CPU and small RAM of these computers.
That would cut MS any kind of slack. I hate their ugly guts (and boy, all guts are ugly, but theirs...: just imagine winnt's kernel code).
That being said, if the thing is faster in the iface, its a faster experience and that is that.
Those are seconds saved.
Its just stupid to hit them for doing something better, especially if you see what they are coming from: i mean, it cant be that hard to make something feel better than, for christ sakes, VISTA.
NO SIG
I despise Microsoft, and I doubt the conclusions from the article will change, but lets let them get it past BETA before we burn them as witches.
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
One of the problems with Vista was hardware upgrades. Every new cycle of Windows requires some hardware upgrades for the new version. Unfortunately for MS, the 5 year gap between XP and Vista hurt them. Combined with MS not defining the real requirements of Vista meant that most people trying to upgrade their 5 year old machine would end up in disaster.
These are MS recommended hardware for Vista Ultimate/Business:
Compared to XP Pro requirements:
Now both requirements are really inadequate to use the OS fully. The difference is with only 3 years between 98/XP, it was easy for users to upgrade their CPU, motherboards, video cards without much infrastructure changes. For the 98/XP upgrade it was only 3 years and most users only needed more RAM. If users did require hardware upgrades (CPU, video card), these were readily available. Need a faster Pentium/Athlon in 2001? Go down to BestBuy. The 5 year gap between XP and Vista meant that some hardware upgrades were not easy or even possible. Need a faster Pentium/Athlon in 2007? They don't make them anymore. Ebay is your only real source and even if you upgrade to the fastest one, your system will be slow.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Neither.
And there's no CowboyNeal option either.
My UID is prime. Hah!
If they've sped up the front end consistently, then I would be very happy.
My primary complaint with Vista is how long UI operations take. Opening windows, dragging them around, launching applications etc. all seem to take place in something approximating geologic time.
Once I have a high-performance app open (say a game), the game itself runs pretty quickly. It's the getting there that's a problem.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Thank goodness eh? Now your worldview is secure again.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The specs you casually throw out are just astounding.
Granted I don't try to run it on crap systems
To use Dell as the brand, you mean I can't run it on a Dimension/Vostro?? I've GOT to spec Precision boxes?
with less than 2GB of RAM, either.
Granted 64-bit is *the* future, WTF is consuming all those resources? I'd guess it's some DRM/crypto nightmare, but I don't know.
Although my 7 test box only has 1GB of RAM.
Only? I've got a Thinkpad T42 running Debian Lenny and KDE4 will ALL of the eye candy on 512MB RAM with no problems. Disclaimer: 1/2 my mobile work is telnet/serial interface, so my productivity gains are faster CLI-fu and good systems topography.
All of this is to conclusively state that something is seriously wrong at Microsoft when a machine is a dog with only 1GB RAM.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Of course video encoding and the same old office build won't be affected by the OS.
What people want to be faster is booting up, logging in, connecting to networks, detecting hardware and installing drivers, and running those damn .msi installers.
The reason Windows 7 is getting good reviews is because Microsoft is bribing reviewers with free high-end laptops. If a software company handed you a $2,000 computer, wouldn't you have a few nice things to say about the operating system preloaded on it?
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I understand the article points out that they went with simply a "more responsive interface" paradigm (Web 2.0/AJAX, anyone?) and probably didn't really fix any serious problems.
I can't believe that no one here has made the obvious connection yet: Microsoft is copying yet another Mac OS feature: *TEH SNAPPY*!!!
It's a special combination of hardware and a very streamlined windows ce operating system. It works pretty good too.
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.
They'd fix Windows so it didn't need a reboot after every freakin' update. Even if you have a fast boot time (which Windows does not even come close to either) it still leaves workers twiddling their thumbs while it does it's thang. It makes it even more insulting when you keep getting the annoying reminders which eventually have the "reboot later" option greyed out, giving you no choice but to stop what you're doing for a few minutes. Even then, what happens if that latest "critical update to IE" breaks a driver and your system won't boot?
Only the "front end", not the programs run under it?
You mean, Windows 7 is only faster as an Operating System, and doesn't magically make arbitrary applications run any faster!?!? OUTRAGE!!
How exactly is changing operating systems supposed to improve video encoding performance?
Yes, I did RTFA. I see that their tests ran faster on XP. WTF?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Windows caters more to the "regular user", and Microsoft's interpretation of that is "automate everything, and run a lot in the background of the OS"
There are Linux distributions that have at least as many services running as Vista, and in my (somewhat limited) experience, they still manage to run faster. For example, I installed Kubuntu on a PC for a friend last week, and its Task Manager-equivalent had a list about as long as a Vista machine. It also has a UI that seems in the same general category of graphics complexity as Vista. The difference is that I was running Kubuntu on a 1.5GHz P4 with 768MB of RAM instead of a Core 2 with 4GB of RAM and it was performing very well.
Vista doesn't really have a lot of unnecessary services running, but even with those disabled it is still very slow (at actual work like copying files, not the UI responsiveness). I tend to side with those who blame the new DRM layer.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
The file copying slowness was actually related to something new in their networking stack which I believe was fixed in SP1. If I wasn't lasy I would try to look it up and find links for you. I use a Vista box for copying large numbers of files between servers because the copy dialog actually provides useful information, doesn't cancel on simple errors and the speed seems the same to me. (If it's a LOT of information I use a backup utility).
Ah, wait 5 minutes before posting a comment....so I got a link for you:
http://mytechweblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/slow-file-copymove-in-vista-here-is_05.html
It mainly talks about the fix and not the cause, and I remeber reading somewhere that SP1 flips that off by default.
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Don't use the eye-candy effects.
Then you'll have no effects which you've already stated are why modern UI's are all slow.
That's the thing - modern UI's AREN'T all slow.
It's not the effects - I generally keep those off anyways (why I'm using Metacity rather than Compiz/Fusion). Apple's OS X for example uses tons of effects and doesn't have the same slow feel to it. It's the smoothness and rendering that's an issue. When I do something on Windows or Mac, it either happens instantly, or there's a very smooth transition from one state to the other. On Linux it's often a bunch of blips where crazy things happen in that area and it all ends up correct at the end, but it had a klunkyness to it that created the perception of slowness.
For example, if I maximize a window: I consider it fine if the window either instantly appears at the new size (no effects), or does a smooth transition from one size to another (effects). What I don't like though is when I hit the maximize button, and I catch a brief glimpse of the window frame jump to the new size, after which the window background color expands to fill the window, and then the icons and other widgets all expand out to fill the new size of the frame.
All that stuff might occur in the same timeframe as a smooth effect would have (most LCD displays these days run at 60hz, so with 60 frames sent out to the display every second it's pretty easy to notice multiple frames doing odd things even if the actual time of the operation occurs very quickly), or on a no effects system it might have just delayed that long before updating. On the Linux system though, I'm subject to a constantly plethora of such displays.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Q: How do you like how much faster the DRM is in Windows 7?
A: I don't know because I'll never use another OS that has DRM built in.
You are welcome on my lawn.
.. not because people are laughing with you, but because they are laughing AT you.
Obvious old troll was obvious, how could you not have seen it?!
Interesting. When I used to use the dev snapshots of Beryl they were lovely and quick (AMD64-3200+ with GeForce 6800). Unfortunately either the compositor or the window manager would crash at least twice a day, so it was a bit unnerving.
On a box at work (Old P4@3Ghz, crappy GeForce 5 series) I can notice windows redraw, tabs pause before disappearing, the works. It is very annoying, although I suspect that the driver is not installed properly and I don't have root on that box. I also don't have the time to explain to our sysadmin how to fix it :(
I used to use BlackBox a few years ago. I love that snappy feeling, and a few milliseconds in the wrong place completely destroy a user interface. But at work I put up with the slow annoying rendering - because metacity is rock solid and it doesn't crash on me ever.
At home, I ditched linux the day that I decided that I wanted a unix laptop with properly working hardware support (like hibernation that works the way it should do). So I bought a mac :) I agree about the perception issue, there are exactly two ways that it can be correct: instant snappy response, or smooth transitions in-between. Any noticeable redraw/overdraw lag is too much.
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I have been using Windows 7 for 6 days. I hated vista after the second day of using it (in beta) Gave it another shot a month after it came out (still hated it), tried after sp1 (still hated it). So when I went to try Win 7 I was really hoping I wasn't going to hate it, and I didn't ... for about 3 maybe 3.5 days. It was so much faster, full motion thumbnails in the taskbar even if the app was a movie or 3d game (imagine browsing around the intarwebs with WoW in the background and not worrying to check back to the window every 30 seconds to make sure you haven't died.
Then it happened. It would often lag while there wasn't anything really running, the hard drive would chug non stop as if it was defraging (doesn't stop unless you restart). Media center wouldn't work with my 360 (wtf MS?).
I was often left wondering what in the world my computer was doing and why it wasn't doing only the things I wanted it to do.
Finally about 30 minutes ago it happened. I rebooted after installing andlinux and I got a black screen of no boot death.
I'll be going back to a custom iso of Winxp SP3 thank you very much.
...especialy when the bloggers comparison of OS performance is based on a video encoding benchmark. I'm suprised that I havent seen anyone call this bloger a clown yet. You shouldn't be allowed to publish benchmark results if you rode to school on the short bus, even if you happened to be the smartest kid on it.
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