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

[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.

[Coltimar]

On Vista 64x, SP2, with all eye candy turned off (it looked like Windows 2000) I ran 8 copies of wow on my box at once. I did a fresh install of Windows 7 64 (7600 beta build) and ran 10 with no tweaks.

Both versions were Ultimate.

[jak3676]

Keep in mind that both Vista and Win7 will spend several weeks "learning" your computing habits. Once windows has learned your habits then it tries to keep some of those programs, dll's, etc in RAM. So if you want to load and test you will have lower performance than you will a week or two later after running the same things.

I'll keep looking for the link, but I read a bit about this when bith Vista and the Win7 beta were hitting all the review sites.

A lot of the Win7 speed-ups aren't something you'll notice in-game either. Just simple things like a faster flash time on the UAC pop-up and better boot times are nice and make your computer "feel faster", but if you benchmark a series of steps most reviews I've seen say that XP = Win7 > Vista in terms of actual speed on machines with good hardware. (for older hardware their can be a bigger difference between all the OS's especially for underpowered, older, integrated gfx).

Other than the 32-bit vs 64-issue, I doubt anyone will be able to benchmark a noticable performance difference between XP, Vista and Win7 in terms of WoW multiboxing. You'll get more of a performance gain/loss by tweaking some of the different services that are running.

[heyaz]

One question about upgrading to Windows 7 - is it possible to use the upgrade version (which is like $100 cheaper) to do a clean install? I wonder if it can detect my existing Vista install before I blow it away.

Otherwise I guess I'll just get the full version... upgrading windows is fail

[Dramoth]

One question about upgrading to Windows 7 - is it possible to use the upgrade version (which is like $100 cheaper) to do a clean install? I wonder if it can detect my existing Vista install before I blow it away.

Otherwise I guess I'll just get the full version... upgrading windows is fail

I think that it will find your existing version of vista, but I am not to certain about whether it turns around and wants to do a clean install or whether it does the whole upgrade bit.

It could be that the upgrade path is limited to the version of vista you are currently working with and the version of win7 that you are trying to upgrade to.

Personally, I will be going to linux next year when the RC licence runs out and just install vmware and run multiple copies of XP in virtual machines.

Hopefully by then, I will have upgraded to an i7 920 process with 32Gb of ram with triple SLi cards

Should be a lot of fun then I think

[Bollwerk]

I just did an "upgrade" from Vista to Win 7 from inside Vista. It actually worked more like a clean install than an upgrade. It didn't wipe my hard drive, but it did move all relevant directories from Vista into a "windows.old" file structure. It moved directories like Users, Windows, Program Files, etc. I was actually kind of hoping I wouldn't have to reinstall everything, but I did. I suppose it is for the best though, since it gives you the peace of mind of a clean install without worrying about losing your data.

FWIW, you CAN do a clean install with an upgrade copy, as long as it detects a version of Windows already installed.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Im planing to go to win7 64 bit (upping my machines to 8G each from 4G and maybe getting a 1G video card for each). That should extend the life of my cpu/motherboard for awhile at least until cytaclisum. I am really happy with my 3.2 ghz athlons X2 and see no reason to change untill 24G i7 boards are proven to run 24G commonly, with 4G ram sticks, at some reasonable price.

Probably take a week or four to sort everything out and Ill give some results when done.

I got 3 copies from the pre sale for $50 each (home premium version) and you can get the home version now 3 upgrades for $149, so thats all I need for my 6 computers. Hopefully the "win XP compatability mode" won't be needed as its not in the home version.

No doubt you can (and should) do a clean install even if you just have the original disk to put in the cd rom of your xp/vista. I am very sure. Thats how it worked with xp iifc. I am very sure you can do a clean install with an upgrade copy no need to buy the full version and waste your money.

[dbhgnh]

Keep in mind that both Vista and Win7 will spend several weeks "learning" your computing habits. Once windows has learned your habits then it tries to keep some of those programs, dll's, etc in RAM. So if you want to load and test you will have lower performance than you will a week or two later after running the same things.

I'll keep looking for the link, but I read a bit about this when bith Vista and the Win7 beta were hitting all the review sites.

A lot of the Win7 speed-ups aren't something you'll notice in-game either. Just simple things like a faster flash time on the UAC pop-up and better boot times are nice and make your computer "feel faster", but if you benchmark a series of steps most reviews I've seen say that XP = Win7 > Vista in terms of actual speed on machines with good hardware. (for older hardware their can be a bigger difference between all the OS's especially for underpowered, older, integrated gfx).

Other than the 32-bit vs 64-issue, I doubt anyone will be able to benchmark a noticable performance difference between XP, Vista and Win7 in terms of WoW multiboxing. You'll get more of a performance gain/loss by tweaking some of the different services that are running.

I got 3 copies from the pre sale for $50 each (home premium version) and you can get the home version now 3 upgrades for $149, so thats all I need for my 6 computers. Hopefully the "win XP compatability mode" won't be needed as its not in the home version.

[zanthor]

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.

What makes you think you lose 1.5gb of ram to your video cards on a 64 bit OS?

[Dramoth]

What makes you think you lose 1.5gb of ram to your video cards on a 64 bit OS?

Because I know for a fact that there is 8Gb of ram in the machine(installed it all myself ), but when I look at windows I see 6.5Gb usable ram.

I have found somewhere on the net that windows and/or the bios will assign a big chunk of your main ram to cover as interface between the video ram and the rest of the computer.

In my case, I am losing about 1.5Gb of main ram. I am starting to think that it might actually be the motherboard thats causing the problems.

Might look at alternate MB's and see if that improves the amount of ram I have left at the end of the day/