Why switch from Vista to Win 7?

[djglenn]

Ok, its as simple as this…if I am going to switch to Win 7 I will take part in the pre-order which begins next week!

However I am one of the few who actually likes Windows Vista, which I have had very few problems with. I have installed the beta release of Win 7, and yes it looks nice, but for all of my 30mins of playing around see no real huge leap over Vista.

The only tangible benefit that I see to switching to Windows 7 is the future release of DX11, which I will most likely desire at some point (yes I am aware that I will need a new GPU).

Apart from this, is their any other tangible benefit to switching to Win 7 Home Premium which will sting me £50 through the pre-order system?

ALL comments are welcome.

Thanks.

[0iD]

In my opinion, it's worth pre-ordering Win7 for the financial benefit primarily. However, like you, I'm perfectly happy for the most part with the way Vista works, the only minor niggles being the speed of copying & searching, so I will be sticking with Vista for now. Plus it's a pain at not being able to upgrade & having to do a fresh install.

[Grey M@a]

I am with you two on this, I paid £110 for the Vista Ultimate OEM 64bit and I will be sticking with it. As you say there is very little on offer for me to upgrade. The cost isn't an issue but with DX11 being in Win7. I will make the move to Win7 when I build the next PC in 2 - 3 years time. Vista has worked flawlessly for me for the last 18 months I have used it, not a single issue with games, software or drivers so I am perfectly happy to stick with it for the foreseeable future.

[chadders]

The way I see it, Vista x64 runs happily for me, everything works - why not just wait and see what happens to pricing of Windows 7.

Personally I'll see what happens "supply vs demand" and pricing.

Of course if you must have everything that's shiny and new from day one that's your choice.

[nightkhaos]

I will personally be making the switch. The proformance overhead of 7 is slightly less than Vista, and for me this is enough to justify the change.

Of course this may not apply to everyone.

[djglenn]

I will personally be making the switch. The proformance overhead of 7 is slightly less than Vista, and for me this is enough to justify the change.

Of course this may not apply to everyone.

Tbh, I am a retailers dream and tend to buy new shiny things even when I dont need them. So I probably will pre-order Win 7. However I am not sure what you mean by "The proformance overhead of 7 is slightly less than Vista". Does this mean that Win 7 uses less of the system resource to function?

[nightkhaos]

Tbh, I am a retailers dream and tend to buy new shiny things even when I dont need them. So I probably will pre-order Win 7. However I am not sure what you mean by "The proformance overhead of 7 is slightly less than Vista". Does this mean that Win 7 uses less of the system resource to function?

Yes. And I'm sorry for my improper use of English. I can spell performance.

In my experience, under the same control conditions (i.e same software, same drivers, same hardware, same period from format) Windows 7 will use less RAM and CPU when idle than Windows Vista. I would benchmark and show you my statistics, but that would be time consuming, and no one will likely care.

[Barry]

Windows 7 blow vista away when its run on a laptop.

[Terbinator]

Vista x64 works fine for me - Windows 7 x64 just works better.

[djglenn]

Yes. And I'm sorry for my improper use of English. I can spell performance.

In my experience, under the same control conditions (i.e same software, same drivers, same hardware, same period from format) Windows 7 will use less RAM and CPU when idle than Windows Vista. I would benchmark and show you my statistics, but that would be time consuming, and no one will likely care.

No need to benchmark, as I will believe you. However what is the main benefit of this for someone like yourself? Your PC is a complete Monster...surely the RAM / CPU useage difference between Vista / Win 7 is not noticable?

Thankyou however as I didnt realise it was less system intensive.

[Splash]

It's my understanding the DX11 will be patched into Vista incidentally, so probably not worth upgrading if that's your *only* reason to do so.

[Terbinator]

It's my understanding the DX11 will be patched into Vista incidentally, so probably not worth upgrading if that's your *only* reason to do so.

I don't know. They havent patched DX10 into XP.

[nightkhaos]

No need to benchmark, as I will believe you. However what is the main benefit of this for someone like yourself? Your PC is a complete Monster...surely the RAM / CPU useage difference between Vista / Win 7 is not noticable?

Thankyou however as I didnt realise it was less system intensive.

You're right, on my main machine the difference is negilable, but take my laptop, (I have a small install of Windows on it as well as Leopard). Less resource usage equates to less energy usage. Less enegry usage equates to longer battery life.

And consider this, I bought my desktop for performance, and if Vista uses to much resources when ticking over at idle, it will annoy me because I spent good money on my machine.

[Grey M@a]

I don't know. They havent patched DX10 into XP.

Because XP is now EOL and will recieve no more updates unless big corps pay for it. Vista however they have said they will port DX 11 at which point Window's 7 is vista with bells on.

Either way it's what works best at the end of the day. I will probably leave Windows 7 for when I upgrade the shuttle to a newer i7 or whatever the latest cpu will be in 2 - 3 years time.

[Splash]

I don't know. They havent patched DX10 into XP.

...because Vista had a wildly different graphical engine under the hood to XP, whereas Win7 is built on the Vista core. DX11 is a superset of DX10.1, so there's no reason it couldn't be patched in and this article suggests strongly it'll be patched in, and I seem to recall it being announced at Gamefest 2008 that it would indeed be patched into Vista.

[Grey M@a]

...because Vista had a wildly different graphical engine under the hood to XP, whereas Win7 is built on the Vista core. DX11 is a superset of DX10.1, so there's no reason it couldn't be patched in and this article suggests strongly it'll be patched in, and I seem to recall it being announced at Gamefest 2008 that it would indeed be patched into Vista.

Also DX11 is not a mass release, its a few additions to 10.1 to make coding certain aspects easier and updating the shader model etc from what I have read Either way it's another way for the likes of ATi and nVidia to release more of the same GPU's with the odd change for DX11 to rip our wallets apart. To be honest DX10 still hasn't become the main stream with the odd game using it outright PC wise.