Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 Benchmarks: Microsoft's Latest OS Put to the Test

I have a Dell XPS 15 L502x with an OCZ Vertex 4 with both systems... and believe me the difference on booting and shutting down are really big. As for gaming, I was playing (the unstable) alice madness return with the same configuration files and I had a boost of 10 frames, in heavy parts like the market or when you meet the white cat it gets 60 solid frames, that's on windows 8. With Windows 7 those parts are choppy and drops to 45 frames... so windows 8 has a better performance. That's the benefit even with the unusable metro boot screen and the non existing Start orb.

Hope it helps.

What are the versions of Win 7 and Win 8? 32 or 64-bit? Are both on clean, new installs?

Why no Win 8 IE9 and Excel 2010 tests?

There is no more 32-bit with Windows 8, it's 64-bit only.

Even if Win 8 ran twice as fast, I'd still prefer Win 7 over it.

The Metro interface is a killing "feature" to me. It kills my will to install the new OS.

And now, seeing the benches, the 1-2fps difference in the games make me happier to stick with Windows 7!

Thanks for the review - very timely and interesting. In a nutshell, beyond the boot times, performance is close enough that if you move to MS 8, it's pretty much only because you prefer that UI.

Why no AMD FX tests.

Everyone's (not talking about Matt) always mean to Tom . I like him.

Someone's a fan.

I would like to see the same tests also run but on a AMD FX processor. Just like Ike mentioned

There are still 32 bit versions available.

Why exactly? What are you expecting to see, or hoping to see?

The whole 'booting argument' is null for me. Windows 7 is up and down in under 5 seconds using standby...

The mean part of me wants to say why bother? Supposedly a limited appeal OS combined with a limited appeal platform.
The enthusiast in me says, there really isn't much difference regardless of CPU. AMD's viral marketing teams promise of massive performance gains using (Win8's) better thread scheduling was debunked some time ago....largely borne out in articles such as HH's Win8+FX-6100 article.
As for graphics based testing, you're not going to get a complete picture until benchmark/game code is optimized for the OS. Some might remember that when Win8 originally dropped, 3DMark Vantage (as well as SYSMark 2007 if I remember correctly) would not even run when used with an FX CPU

To each his own, I like the win8 UI and the best part is that it feels quicker and snappier in daily use. To be honest, why people hate win8 UI is just mind blowing to me. If I didn't have internet, I'd think that everyone loves it and will switch to it as soon as possible. Is it a "Microsoft is an evil empire and it threw this Metro in their pathetic hopes that we will like them, but we won't because we're not with the mainstream" syndrome? Is it because most people haven't tried it and don't know you can avoid Metro almost entirely? They don't know they can right-click on the bottom left screen to access the somewhat improved "start menu" ? Or maybe learning several new ways to find things on windows has overburdened the less trained minds? Anyways, sorry for flaming, it's just that I'm just a simple guy who simply loves win8 and who's nose wrinkles every time he has to use win7 again. Btw just installed win8 on an old dv6000 laptop and it feels like internet browsing speed has doubled. Recommended.

While I won't be upgrading my current systems any time soon, I do intend to get a new laptop (or at the very least, the Surface Pro when it comes out) so I'll be giving 8 an honest hands on try then. Good to see I won't be hurting performance wise.

ha! 3D Mark 11 gives Win 8 slightly less points. This can be "fixed" in the future with an agreement -under the table- I guess.

Don't start wondering if we see 500 points for Win 8 in a while.

but does all this warrant an upgrade if u already have Windows 7