Windows 10 vs. 8.1 vs. 7 Performance: Microsoft's latest OS put to the test

[Steve]

After running the beta for months, I installed Windows 10 on launch day with the impression that it was relatively fast and stable, though it remained to be seen precisely how fast it was compared to Windows 8.1 and the beloved Windows 7.

That's what we plan to find out today as we test various aspects of the operating system including boot up and shutdown times, file copying, encoding, browsing, gaming and some synthetic benchmarks.

Read the complete article.

 

[Adhmuz]

As expected it's faster by such small margins that it's not at all necessary to upgrade in the name sake of performance. Until the advantages of DX12 present themselves...

 

[treetops]

Id like to see windows xp 64 bit just out of curiosity. Thanks for the article.

 

[Squuiid]

And here are details on how to remove Windows 10 built-in apps, including the mentioned Xbox app.

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/remove-default-windows-10-apps-using-powershell/

https://thomas.vanhoutte.be/miniblog/delete-windows-10-apps/

 

[Steve]

And here are details on how to remove Windows 10 built-in apps, including the mentioned Xbox app.

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/remove-default-windows-10-apps-using-powershell/

https://thomas.vanhoutte.be/miniblog/delete-windows-10-apps/

Thanks, the link was provided in the review though.

 

[noel24]

Also, Classic Shell for Win7/8 works in Win10 (which reinforce my belief 10 is just a 8.1 rebrand, unless creators worked on compaibility but didn't wanted to advertise it). Unfortunately, no UltimateWindowsTweaker yet. And definetely gonna wait for official or unofficial tool to restore old M$ Update. And few other design choices and quirks that M$ made, that would take my precious time to figure out, repell me from upgrade, until probably DX12 only games.

Also, forgot to mention, Flash. And You cannot get rid of it. When I was hoping this powerhog bag of malware backdoors will die of natural causes, those c*cksuckers reinforce it. Don't have it on Win7, don't need it.

Don't double post. Please use the edit button.

 

[Cryio]

The boot/shutdown/resume/hibernate times would've been more dramatical had you used only an HDD, like a lot of people still do these days.

 

[Steve]

The boot/shutdown/resume/hibernate times would've been more dramatical had you used only an HDD, like a lot of people still do these days.

How would they be more dramatic? Wouldn’t the trends remain the same? Why would one OS handle mechanical drives better than another? Also I don’t believe there are more new systems being sold with mechanical primary hard drives opposed to SSDs.

If you are running a hard drive you don’t need to worry about which OS is faster. You need to wake up and get yourself an SSD NOW!

 

[psycros]

"The best version yet" despite a cluttered and unattractive UI, widespread driver problems (conveniently ignored) and an unwarranted expectation that this will all be ironed out in later patches. Also, if you have to install a third party overhaul to make something tolerable then that product is a FAILURE by definition.

 

[noel24]

How would they be more dramatic? Wouldn’t the trends remain the same? Why would one OS handle mechanical drives better than another? Also I don’t believe there are more new systems being sold with mechanical primary hard drives opposed to SSDs.

If you are running a hard drive you don’t need to worry about which OS is faster. You need to wake up and get yourself an SSD NOW!

I cannot agree. You're probably talking about those boxes on our desks, but most PCs sold are basic laptops, sold with HDD and no extra bay for SSD, not that owners would want or know how to replace it. I admit they will hardly ever come to this site to read Your review, so its basically for Us, but SSD didn't have their breakthrough yet. We need 250-320GB SSD at the price of similar HDD to make manufacturers switch. I think Cryio has some point there if M$ worked out ways for Win10 to access the data on HDD, compress/decompress, at least I believed they promised something like it. In this regard I would be interested if and how the new system will improve my family/friends experience on lower spec hardware.

 

[AdamBoltGC]

Also, forgot to mention, Flash. And You cannot get rid of it. When I was hoping this powerhog bag of malware backdoors will die of natural causes, those c*cksuckers reinforce it. Don't have it on Win7, don't need it.

But you can disable flash player easily in Edge Browser

 

[Steve]

How would they be more dramatic? Wouldn’t the trends remain the same? Why would one OS handle mechanical drives better than another? Also I don’t believe there are more new systems being sold with mechanical primary hard drives opposed to SSDs.

If you are running a hard drive you don’t need to worry about which OS is faster. You need to wake up and get yourself an SSD NOW!

I cannot agree. You're probably talking about those boxes on our desks, but most PCs sold are basic laptops, sold with HDD and no extra bay for SSD, not that owners would want or know how to replace it. I admit they will hardly ever come to this site to read Your review, so its basically for Us, but SSD didn't have their breakthrough yet. We need 250-320GB SSD at the price of similar HDD to make manufacturers switch. I think Cryio has some point there if M$ worked out ways for Win10 to access the data on HDD, compress/decompress, at least I believed they promised something like it. In this regard I would be interested if and how the new system will improve my family/friends experience on lower spec hardware.

The performance trends will be the same when testing with a hard drive. The load times will just be inflated due to the use of a slower storage device.

As I said if you have any idea about computer technology then you will ensure you are using an SSD. It is the greatest upgrade that can be made to any system in over a decade.

I would be surprised if Microsoft invested in developing a dying technology.

 

[noel24]

The performance trends will be the same when testing with a hard drive. The load times will just be inflated due to the use of a slower storage device.
As I said if you have any idea about computer technology then you will ensure you are using an SSD. It is the greatest upgrade that can be made to any system in over a decade.
I would be surprised if Microsoft invested in developing a dying technology.

I agree, just pointing out that there's a possibility for an empirical test here.

But you can disable flash player easily in Edge Browser

I don't want it disabled, I want it dead, so I don't have to ever again come across sluggish, broken web page powered by it.

 

[Scorpus]

"The best version yet" despite a cluttered and unattractive UI, widespread driver problems (conveniently ignored) and an unwarranted expectation that this will all be ironed out in later patches. Also, if you have to install a third party overhaul to make something tolerable then that product is a FAILURE by definition.

Driver problems will be solved eventually if the hardware isn't obscure and is actually used by more than a handful of people. Especially for GPUs which is the most important driver in a system (typically)

I think you're in the minority here anyway as most people see Windows 10 as a pretty decent upgrade over Windows 8.1 and even Windows 7

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

The boot/shutdown/resume/hibernate times would've been more dramatical had you used only an HDD, like a lot of people still do these days.

How would they be more dramatic? Wouldn’t the trends remain the same? Why would one OS handle mechanical drives better than another? Also I don’t believe there are more new systems being sold with mechanical primary hard drives opposed to SSDs.

If you are running a hard drive you don’t need to worry about which OS is faster. You need to wake up and get yourself an SSD NOW!

It sounds like Kingston is paying you.

 

[thorpj]

Surprise surprise, Xbox gets its grubby hands on Windows, and causes problems...

 

[vergilangleos]

I think this article is not finished yet , using such a powerfull PC for benchmarking OS is not fair !
here we're talking about gaming , it's about Windows ! a software for my office pc , my laptop , my Tablet and ...
I think when we use a mid range system the differences between these 3 OS will be Greater

 

[gregzeng]

The best feature of all the Windows operating systems is the greatly improving auto-repair of the partitions. All my ten (10) multi-booting operating sytems on my notebook share the NTFS-compressed data partitions, including on my many external drives. The Linux operating systems each boot from their EXT4 partitions.
With so many different operating systems and "computers" accessing the same data files, the Windows 10 auto-repair has evoluted to be better than previous operating systems.

On my Dell XPS-15 notebook (2013) the Samsung 850 1TB replaced the original mSATA 128MB drive very easily. I choose to boot all my 8 Linux operating systems (10 GB partition each), and my main Windows 10 system (40 GB partition) from the SSD. For emergency booting, I can boot one Windows operating system from the slow terabyte spinning drive.

In the comments, there are some SSD misunderstandings. My very small physical-sized mSATA SSD is much better than any other full sized SSD or spinning drives. Like other SSDs, less power used, light weight, overheat tolerance, etc. Best of all, no defragmentation needed at all, and all SSDSs are extremely quick copy, move, indexing times.

 

[Steve]

I think this article is not finished yet , using such a powerfull PC for benchmarking OS is not fair !
here we're talking about gaming , it's about Windows ! a software for my office pc , my laptop , my Tablet and ...
I think when we use a mid range system the differences between these 3 OS will be Greater

It won't be. We tested a low-end system with Windows 7 and 8, there was no difference and Windows 10 is no more demanding. As long as you have 4GB of memory the performance will be the same as what we have shown.

 

[vergilangleos]

I think this article is not finished yet , using such a powerfull PC for benchmarking OS is not fair !
here we're talking about gaming , it's about Windows ! a software for my office pc , my laptop , my Tablet and ...
I think when we use a mid range system the differences between these 3 OS will be Greater

It won't be. We tested a low-end system with Windows 7 and 8, there was no difference and Windows 10 is no more demanding. As long as you have 4GB of memory the performance will be the same as what we have shown.

maybe you're right , but windows Aero Vs Metro in low ends systems can effect the performance .
optimizing windows for tablets and touch screen devices is something more than just changing UI from buttons to tiles

 

[Nobina]

Just what I wanted to see. I expected a little more performance boost from Windows 10. In my case it's sometimes slower than 8.1. I guess it depends on hardware. Will we see Edge/Chrome/Firefox comparison in the future?

 

[Freak Power]

There is something seriously wrong with this review. My Windows 7 takes 3 seconds to wake up from sleep. Overall looks like there is really no performance advantage of Windows 10 over Windows 7. I don't know what you are guys looking at but especially in gaming it is just marginal error. This review is a proof that there is no a reason to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, not a single reason in trade for giving up control over your OS, spyware Windows 10 is full of. I wouldn't be surprised if one of these days antivirus software installed on Windows 10 detects Windows 10 system files as having malware behavior and tries to delete them.

 

[zaku49]

The sleep/wake times must be wrong...

My system boots up from sleep within 2-3 seconds on Windows 10/7.

I wonder if Allow hybrid sleep was turned off?

 

[amstech]

Thanks for doing the review; I haven't checked on any of this yet and its nice to see Windows 7/8//10 compared. After looking at the results though it looks like it will be hard to make a case for a Windows 10 upgrade at this very moment.
I think this big rush for Big M to release Windows 10 so quickly was due to a large amount of consumers avoiding Windows 8 devices/laptops/computers, both for personal and business. W8 just passed XP in early July right? Our CDW rep said their Windows 7 downgraded devices still outsell Windows 8 devices 3:1 (talking about Windows 8 Pro here to).

 

[zaku49]

I am sure we're going to see improvements as the system matures but other than DX12 there isn't going to be a major reason for people to switch over...