Does Windows 7 really give a performance boost over Windows Vista?

[Prepared]

Now that Windows 7 is released by Microsoft, for World of Warcraft (WoW), is there really a performance improvement over Windows Vista? Awhile ago when Windows 7 was in Beta, many posted improvements to their gaming experience with multiple windows of WoW running.

In looking at the fine print from Microsoft, awhile back they claimed there was going to be a major improvement in performance in Windows 7 over Vista. However, now that it has been released, I can't find any specifics on how Windows 7 is better in performance over Vista from Microsoft.

The thing is, even if they said it was better I wouldn't necessarily believe it until I heard it from users that were actually experiencing a performance improvement. So I'd like to ask the community that runs software similar to the way I do which is multiple windows of WoW (I run up to 4 in each computer) to find out if it is really worth the upgrade to Windows 7.

NOTE: The ONLY reason I would want to upgrade is if there is a performance improvement in running multiple windows of WoW. I don't care about any of the flashy changes they've made in the operating system. I don't care about the security improvements they claim. I'm running Vista with all the latest security updates and I'm happy with the way the operating system works as a whole. However, sometimes during intense battles in Wintergrasp, Alterac Valley or in Dalaran, the graphics lags some on all of my systems.

I have one older duo core laptop with Windows XP 32bit that has 256mb of ram on the ATI Video card. The laptop is the Fujitisu N6420 and it can run 3 instances of WoW better than one of my desktops that run Windows Vista 32bit. The desktop is the m9060n from Hewlett Packard with the Quad CPU Q6600 3gb ram and the nVidia 9800GT. It has a base score of 5.5 in the Windows Experience Index. Both systems have a completely pared down environment with only Octopus and WoW running. This leads me to believe that Vista is worse in performance with graphics applications over Windows XP. Someone told me that Windows 7 gets back to the performance that Windows XP had.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone that has experience with performance improvements in Windows 7 over Windows Vista when running multiple copies of WoW on the same computer that has been upgraded. I'm looking at getting the Windows 7 family pack but don't want to do the upgrade if there isn't a performance improvement with running multiple WoW instances.

Thanks.

[burningforce]

tried xp, vista with service packs and windows 7. I prefer windows 7 due to the sleek look and peformance boost that I got over vista. its not a huge performance boost, I might add, but you can defiently feel it being smoother.

I do not know the ins/outs of windows 7 and what was changed from vista, but like i said things just feel a little more snappy.
but before you go out and buy windows 7, have you tried optimizing vista and turning off some services that thrash hard drives and run in the background?

I turn off "windows search", this indexes every file on your computer that you use or change so when you search in windows vista/7, searches will be quick. I do not need this so i turn it off.
another one which I think might be windows 7 only, but you can check vista, is "super fetch". having this enabled causes a lot of hard drive thrashing (starting/stopping, etc) so i just turn it off.

check to see if there is no scheduled defragging taking place. you can check this in the windows defrag section and click schedule. and change your power options to performance mode.

[Eggy]

I wish I could say I got a performance boost with win7 over vista, but fact of the matter is it's the other way around. No matter how I configed win7 I would see a performance hit with it. Tried running it on multiple occasions.

[Smoooth]

I'm not sure on the performance of win 7 but it seems to be the most polished of the windows so far. I never run into any bugs or crashes with it. I'm still running the beta and this may be the first windows that I actually pay for.

[defactoman]

I run windows 7 and love it. Performance boost? welllll i'm not running any benchmarks but it feels the same.

[Kromtor]

I ran benchmarks between XP and Vista and saw a 15% boost in XP. Haven't tried Win7 yet, no need since XP still works fine.

[Eggy]

I went from 60(capped) FPS on my main toon, and 20 FPS on my slaves, to being barely able to hit 30 on my main, and god knows on my slaves when I tried out win7. Trying to use flight points in nothrend was a total lag fest under win7. Once i turned down gfx from ultra to medium(No shadows) and my slaves gfx all the way down to bare minimum i was getting my "normal vista" fps.

Happy Fur? On another note, I'm pretty sure it varies from the amount of toons you run and what hardware you got installed, so this all doesnt mean squad.

[Sajuuk]

I went from 60(capped) FPS on my main toon, and 20 FPS on my slaves, to being barely able to hit 30 on my main, and god knows on my slaves when I tried out win7. Trying to use flight points in nothrend was a total lag fest under win7. Once i turned down gfx from ultra to medium(No shadows) and my slaves gfx all the way down to bare minimum i was getting my "normal vista" fps.

Happy Fur? On another note, I'm pretty sure it varies from the amount of toons you run and what hardware you got installed, so this all doesnt mean squad.

Was this an upgrade install or fresh install?

[Los]

Why is windows 7 better then xp?

[Dramoth]

Just before I start talking about windows 7 and performance, I will give you guys the spec's of my machine that I 5 box on.

ASUS P5B deluxe WIFI-AP mb
Intel Q6600 Core 2 Duo running at stock speed
8Gb ram
2x nVidia Geforce 8800GTS (684Mb video ram) in SLi mode
3 monitors (2x19" and 1x22")
2x320Gb SATA I hdd's
2x1Tb SATA II hdd's

My multi-box wow's are all setup on one of the sata 2 drives and the copy of wow that I use for solo boxing is on one of the 320's.

I tried 5 boxing on XP with 6Gb of ram installed but because it is a 32bit OS, it only saw the first 4Gb's and the video cards are taking approx 1.5Gb of ram out of that.

It was damned slow and gluggy with that setup.

I tried Windows 7 RC1 32bit with the same sorts of results. Very slow and unresponsive when 5 boxing. 3 boxing wasnt a problem.

When I stepped up to Windows 7 RC1 64bit and added in another 2Gb of ram is when I started noticing things start jumping. I still lose the 1.5Gb but my effective usable ram is not 6.5Gb and I have noticed that the games are running a bit smoother. The only problem that I have is that with my monitor setup, the two 19" monitors are analog (DB15) and the 22" is DVI which are running in different resolutions (1400x900 and 1650x1080) which does tend to screw up the frame rates. I will be looking at going to 3x22" monitors at some point in the future with a multi-monitor stand that lets me rotate the 2 side monitors into portrait mode.

But in terms of performance, I have found that windows 7 is a lot smoother than vista or xp and will happily run wow on my desktop easily as well as on my laptop.