Reviews - Windows 7 - Part 7: Performance and Final Verdict

[HEXUS]

In the seventh and final part of our Windows 7 review, we examine performance before reaching a conclusion.

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[jimbouk]

Excellent round up Hexus. Vista will have left a bitter taste in many consumers' mouths (especially budget laptop users), I think as you say Windows 7 is the OS Vista should have been.

On a personal note I'm glad I skipped Vista and Win7 is going well for me

[Ferral]

It has been great reading the parts drip fed to us over the past few. All round great review, start to finish. I was waiting with bated breath on the performance side of things, Directx 11 should speed up my gaming and system a bit on my laptop. Should have it in the next week or so hopefully, depends on how quick the HP upgrade service is.

Simple excellent

[latrosicarius]

Windows 7 should be a service pack to Vista.

[TheVoice]

Windows 7 should be a service pack to Vista.

It doesn't constitute what a service pack is so no, it shouldn't.

[CK_1985]

Excellent review guys, you've really excelled yourselves

[shadowmaster]

(I've said this another thread, but I'll put it here as well)

Just installed it on my new SSD, which as expected took no time at all. Everything is running smoothly but the only problem I have is that windows is stating that I only have 2.6gb of ram usable even though I have 4gb installed? (I've installed the 64bit version and I've updated my bios)

EDIT: Solved it, turned on memory remapping in bios and its now showing all 4GB

[Barrichello]

Windows 7 should be a service pack to Vista.

No it shouldn't, not all of us rushed out to get Vista

[Hunkulus]

It should certainly be a lot cheaper...

[menthel]

I had vista from the start and have upgraded to W7. No complaints from me. Vista was good but W7 is much better, especially on my netbook!

[spoon_]

It should certainly be a lot cheaper...

Well I couldn't agree more, improved Vista for sooo much money.

Windows 7 = Vista SP3 for many users with hefty price tag...

[baius]

"Windows 7 is excellent" (article). I'm compelled to agree.

A bonus on my HP 2133 is that Aero is enabled!? The graphics @ 2.0 should have prevented me from using Aero - I thought; and in fact Aero is a little sluggish on Via graphics.

Word 2007: I don't think Windows 7 is quite as fast as XP. Word 2007, on an 80 page document, drags noticeably. It didn't in XP. (Although the document was smaller, then.)

Startup: Additionally, boot up time is much slower. I just counted (using Vista's clock on my desktop) and it was 1min5sec. Compared to XP's boot time (30s-40s), that's awful.

Windows Explorer: Very, very fast; but then again so was XP. I think Windows 7 has the edge though. Anything I want to do in an Explorer window or the Start Menu happens as fast as my fingers can issue the commands, whereas there was occasional wait-time with XP. (I must have fast fingers.)

Everything else: ON par with XP; and that's a compliment.

[shadowmaster]

Currently my boot time is about 20 seconds (13 seconds if you dont count the bios startup). Pretty damn fast compared to xp which was about a minute for me, then again I was using a normal hd for xp so it would not have been that slow.

I have to admit so far I'm liking windows 7, its smooth, slick and with an ssd it only took me about 15 minutes to get my pc up and running fully again (and that includes installing the drivers/updates). Vista was not bad, but this is what it should have been.

[baius]

Thanks for your reply, shadowmaster. I'm using a SSD in my 2133. Ultimately, you can't get over what is a truly rubbish CPU. (Well, maybe linux would, but still...)

I included the BIOS startup in my timings - perhaps I should have said.

XP used to load in about 10-15 seconds on my 2133 - excluding BIOS.

Edit: Oh, and I assume you're referring to one of the fully-fledged desktops in your signature.

[shadowmaster]

Thanks for your reply, shadowmaster. I'm using a SSD in my 2133. Ultimately, you can't get over what is a truly rubbish CPU. (Well, maybe linux would, but still...)

I included the BIOS startup in my timings - perhaps I should have said.

XP used to load in about 10-15 seconds on my 2133 - excluding BIOS.

Edit: Oh, and I assume you're referring to one of the fully-fledged desktops in your signature.

Yep windows 7 is on my main computer. Actually just got my stop watch out, and it takes exactly 40 seconds from pressing the power button to being able to open internet explorer instantly. Not exactly the 20 seconds but it feels almost 4 times faster then xp, which due to my bad time guessing skills probably took 2 minutes to boot.

[jordan427]

It should certainly be a lot cheaper...

I disagree. For £70 - assuming you buy Home Premium - you get a very good OS that will probably serve you for the next 5 years. Coupled with updates, services packs and MS support (haha) I think it's a good deal.