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."

Comments

Trick Question

[eldavojohn]

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:

• "Yes or no, has Steve Balmer stopped beating his wife?"
• "Is Linux Just Awesome or Totally Awesome?"
• "If I were to tell you the fact that Windows 7 developers dine on human flesh at their desks to start each day anew, how would you react?"
• "How can you afford not to use Linux?"
• "Is Internet Explorer 7 slower or just less secure?"

Re:Trick Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes or no, has Steve Balmer stopped beating his wife?

Yes, I asked her last night -- he stopped around mid-June.

Please, it's a simple yes or no question. We don't need details or explanations, if the witness would just stick to the facts we could move forward.

Re:Trick Question

[Cornwallis]

Reminds me of the old Amtrak ad: "Passenger safety - fast service... take your pick."

Re:Trick Question

[Drakkenmensch]

"If I were to tell you the fact that Windows 7 developers dine on human flesh at their desks to start each day anew, how would you react?"

"That explains everything!"

Re:Trick Question

[MostAwesomeDude]

Mu.

Re:Trick Question

[Nefarious Wheel]

Yes or no, has Steve Balmer stopped beating his wife?

Yes, I asked her last night -- he stopped around mid-June.

Please, it's a simple yes or no question. We don't need details or explanations, if the witness would just stick to the facts we could move forward.

Farmer Joe decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to court. In court, the trucking company's fancy lawyer was questioning farmer Joe. "Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?" said the lawyer. Farmer Joe responded, "Well, I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule Bessie into the......." "I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'" Farmer Joe said, "Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road..." The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."

By this time the Judge was fairly interested in Farmer Joe's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule Bessie." Joe thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well, as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the Patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and looked at me. He said, "Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her - how are you feeling?"

I'd give the attribution but I forgot where I found this. Apologies to the author, wherever you are.

Mp3 Locking?

[should_be_linear]

Can I play mp3 *and* copy files on Windows 7 ? I have old Quad-Core system only.

Re:Mp3 Locking?

[Tubal-Cain]

"I don't want to start a holy war here

what is the deal with you Windows fanatics?

You're off to a bad start.

In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work.

I hope you are calling Firefox "Netscape" out of habit. I really don't want to know what you are doing using the actual Netscape browser.

I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Windows 7 box over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems."

It's shiny. And it's not Vista (at least in name).

Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Productivity

[gnick]

Exactly what I was thinking - For most Windows users, the user is a major bottle-neck. By simply responding more quickly to them and allowing them some time to react (even if the system isn't fully ready to react to their next input), you can certainly improve performance. While there are a lot of users that do care about encoding time and Office benchmarks, most users just want IE and Outlook to let them start typing quickly so that they can forward on the latest news regarding Bill Gates paying people for testing their new e-mail system or letting their voice be heard by voting on "Am I Hot or Not?"

Bad benchmarks for productivity.

[zippthorne]

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.

Worse than that.

[khasim]

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.

Re:Worse than that.

[MBGMorden]

But most users DO include the interface response time in their opinion of which is "faster"

Indeed, and that's a pet peeve I have with Linux. I use Linux - a lot. Heavily on servers at work (but generally CLI only there), and then at home I have a Linux Mint desktop that I use in addition to my Mac and Windows systems.

I love the concept of OSS, and for someone who when they were growing up saw a compiler as something that cost hundreds of dollars, the whole concept of having such a nice development environment is just amazing.

That said, while actually going from point A to point B probably isn't any slower, the interface just makes the system feel draggy. All the little pauses and and graphical oddities when moving a window around just take their toll, but the actual OS is fine (as obvious when I try to do something like say, compress video or something, where the Linux system holds it's own quite nicely).

Hopefully Wayland will take off and help in that regard. Mac OS X has shown what a slick, responsive UI can do for a Unix-like backend. It just sucks that it's tied down to only a subset of available hardware.

Re:Worse than that.

[MBGMorden]

I'm using Gnome with Metacity. The problem isn't the window manager itself though. That effects the general menu system and window decorations and such. For instance just opening/closing tabs in Firefox (an operation independent of your window manager) feels much slower in Linux because you hit close and there's a bit of "clunky" period for a fraction of a second where you see everything happen that you shouldn't. The tab lingers for a brief instant after pressing the button, then disappears, the tab listing blinks out for a split second and updates, and the window content blinks quickly and then updates again. In Windows or Mac the same operation is much more seamless. I hit close, and everything instantly appears right. While there probably isn't much appreciable time difference involved between the start and finish of the operation, there's a clunkiness that gives the appearance of a slower system.

BTW, I've used fast window managers before. My favorite used to be WindowMaker which I programmed in heavily. However, I've gotten past that phase. My computer is many times faster, and Windows and Mac give me a fairly responsive UI with all the menus and such of a modern system. Shaving off that functionality (which I do want) to supposedly regain performance that I'd already have with another platform isn't a viable option.

Re:Worse than that.

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

Realistically though, how could a change in operating system really affect the speed of video encoding, unless the process scheduler is absolutely abysmal (which I'd think it wouldn't be by this point). Since the tasks listed aren't part of vista. As someone who isn't flabbergasted by the concept that a CPU can't crunch numbers faster than itself, this isn't particularly interesting. It just shows that the Windows team is actually optimizing the important parts of the system they have control over.

Re:Worse than that.

[chazd1]

Having worked in marketing and well as puely technical roles it is clear as a bell what is going on here.

When new product uptake isn't up to projections the marketing dept. has a few options. One of the options in its arsenal is to "relaunch". Windows 7 is clearly a "relaunch" of Vista. With all the development time and Money put into Vista don't think for a second that they can develop yet another code base in a fraction of the time. It is the same product with a different name.

Relaunches are used when there is a perceived problem in the marketplace and the engineering dept.says the product is sound.

Faster interface = improved productivity

[Sockatume]

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.

A Con!

[CopaceticOpus]

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.

If it feels faster, you're getting more done

[bugnuts]

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.

Re:Perhaps this alpha releases uses Vistas kernel?

[jcr]

they update all the eye candy first to get the drooling masses interested

Frankly, I don't believe the drooling masses exist. The only people I see pretending to be drooling over MS's second-rate eye candy are the pundits that they're bribing with cash and free equipment, and they really don't sound convincing.

-jcr

Even More Importantly...

[frankie]

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*!!!