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

[JetFixxxer]

I'm a fan of 8.1 and I've notice the slower boot time. I was actually against 10.

I've had more BSOD in 10 than I have had all of 8.1. I had an estimated 2-4 BSOD in 8.1 since install 10/12 and I've passed that already in 10.

I pretty MS will improve 10 as the months roll by.

 

[Savoz]

You missed the most important thing in the comparison... Battery timing for each windows on same laptop???

 

[MoeJoe]

Good point of reference but hardly a good cross-sectional representation of what to expect.
My Z97 system on sata m.2 boots, sleeps and resumes twice as fast vs. my previous 8.1 platform.

This piece is mostly using the wrong metrics.

 

[Carling]

Put Microsoft's Windows Xp, 7, 8.1 and 10 to the real test against the latest August 2015 Free Open Source Linux, Gentoo Slackel and other Free Operating system Let the American public into the real secret that there are 100 other Free open source operating system besides Apple, Google and Microsoft, of-course you wouldn't get pay for writing that article It wouldn't be in the interest of Microsoft daily brain washing when windows crashes out

 

[Carling]

In the real world out side of the States, Microsoft windows has become irrelevant and it will become more so in July 2016 when they start charging annual subscription fees for every user and they have to pay for updates/upgrades, that's why M$ is moving towards a SaaS (Software as a Service) system Over the last couple of years M$ have spent over 20 billion dollars They bought Skype, They bought Minecraft, they bought Nokia, Now it's coming to pay back time, for windows users, That's why Microsoft are forcing W10 onto Windows Xp W7 users, under the disguise of a Free upgrade, So be warned your about to start paying through the nose for everything

 

[Evernessince]

Great article steve. I would be very interested to see how well windows 10 performs on a budget system, any chance you guys have an article in the works? I think if windows 10 overhead has been reduced enough, it could translate to huge gains for entry level systems and cheap gaming rigs.

 

[SuperVeloce]

I'm a fan of 8.1 and I've notice the slower boot time. I was actually against 10.

I've had more BSOD in 10 than I have had all of 8.1. I had an estimated 2-4 BSOD in 8.1 since install 10/12 and I've passed that already in 10.

I pretty MS will improve 10 as the months roll by.

You sure it's a windows problem?
For me this was the easiest and most problem free upgrade ever. For all the desktops and laptops I upgraded. No problems whatsoever with drivers needed. Even the old Llano dual graphics laptop worked out of the box. And this one had its problems with drivers in the last couple of years.
BSOD? What? Not something that is supposed to happen on a stable setup. Haven't had any in years.

 

[harm9963]

Vista 64 AND 8.1 /10 - GAMING BENCHMARKS ALL THE SAME FOR ME, and Vista 64 /AMD 13.12 driver for my 290 // Steam account forum benchmarks /Metro ll and redux- my game tag is Hardreset , I do show comparison between OS, ON THE PROFESSIONAL FRONT WINDOWS 7 IS HARD TO KILL.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

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!

Point #1 Not a very objective statement to be telling people what they should be buying. Mechanical hard drives are still superior in the category of bang for buck. You get about 10x the storage capacity for the same price.
Point #2 Is that unless you have a severe case of attention deficit disorder for which you have been prescribed medication, waiting a few extra seconds for a system to boot isn't the end of the world.

I don't mind opinions but pretending anybody who doesn't own an SSD is asleep just isn't right. I have "only" mechanical hard drives running a Windows 7 install. And a Windows 10, *puke, gag* system running in company with a second mechanical hard disk.

Were almost at the point in technology where these kind of statements seem out of place. Did Samsung donate your company a few SSDs?

I could care less that Windows 10 is somewhat faster. It's still as ugly as hell. Windows 7 is still the pinnacle of the Windows releases in my opinion. And the sad ending to this Microsoft drama is that the future will probably be the same.

Yet, there is always hope I guess.

Great article steve. I would be very interested to see how well windows 10 performs on a budget system, any chance you guys have an article in the works? I think if windows 10 overhead has been reduced enough, it could translate to huge gains for entry level systems and cheap gaming rigs.

We already have that product. Its called Linux with Steam.

 

[Lionvibez]

Great article Steve.

But I couldn't finish reading all the comments some of them are just stupid!

I hope you refresh when SR1 and SR2 is out for windows 10 in the coming months.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

In the real world out side of the States, Microsoft windows has become irrelevant and it will become more so in July 2016 when they start charging annual subscription fees for every user and they have to pay for updates/upgrades, that's why M$ is moving towards a SaaS (Software as a Service) system Over the last couple of years M$ have spent over 20 billion dollars They bought Skype, They bought Minecraft, they bought Nokia, Now it's coming to pay back time, for windows users, That's why Microsoft are forcing W10 onto Windows Xp W7 users, under the disguise of a Free upgrade, So be warned your about to start paying through the nose for everything

Agreed. I have Windows 10 on a second computer and I don't care. I still use my Windows 7 machine daily. That should signal that something is wrong. If your prediction about Microsoft charging a yearly fee for their pathetic operating system comes true in 2016...I see Windows dying pretty fast.

If I can't bring myself to use Windows 10 while it's free, I sure as hell can't see myself using it daily as a paid service. The ONLY thing it brings is benefits of cloud services which have never really been a big deal to me.

I don't know...maybe the younger generation doesn't mind getting milked over and over and over for all of nothing new.

Software doesn't "require" a 24/7 connection to the internet and even if it did it wouldn't have to be a connection to Microsoft's servers. But if Microsoft can sell the "perception" that you can't live in a world without their services they will do just fine. That's a pretty hard sell in my opinion.

 

[steve1711]

When I first installed win 10 a week ago it took a very long time to boot from sleep - over 60 seconds. After using it for a week it now boots from sleep to desktop in 2 to 3 seconds.

 

[NahNood]

I wonder how these tests would turn out if could rip all the Store and background app stuff out of Windows 10.

 

[NahNood]

"If your prediction about Microsoft charging a yearly fee for their pathetic operating system comes true in 2016...I see Windows dying pretty fast."

MS knows that would happen, so it's just plain silly thinking MS will suddenly start charging you to keep Windows running, come on.

 

[Khanonate]

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.

If I'm not mistaken, most people here in Techspot are using SSD.

 

[lripplinger]

I upgraded my desktop to Windows 10 and it did feel snappier than Windows 7 Pro. However, it broke my audio and printer, so I had to restore my Windows 7 image backup. And I honestly don't expect there to be proper driver support. Why would Asus be bothered to provide correct Windows 10 audio drivers for my "ancient" P55D-E Pro motherboard? I noticed that drivers for Windows 10 are readily available for Haswell gen boards (think 8 and 9 series boards), but Ivy Bridge is very sketchy, and Sandy bridge and older are non existent. Same goes for my HP C6380 all in one printer. So I guess I am just saying that while your computer works great with Windows 7, don't expect a slam dunk with Windows 10, because it all depends on the drivers and your software.

 

[Julio Franco]

FYI @Freak Power, @zaku49, @MoeJoe

Editor's note (Update): Many readers have pointed out how slow these wake up from sleep times are compared to your laptop where either version wakes up almost instantaneously. The reason is that we ran all tests in a desktop PC, where Windows defaults to Hybrid Sleep. Hybrid sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernate meant to prevent users from losing work in case of a power failure.

 

[Julio Franco]

Update #2:
We have added to the initial storage results testing both AHCI (Samsung SSD 850 Pro) and NVMe (Samsung SM951) solid state storage.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1042-windows-10-vs-windows-8-vs-windows-7/page4.html

 

[cottonlane]

WELL I am sorry but I don't know where you are getting your findings from. But I personally have never come across a Sloow operating system, Windows 8.1 was far superior that this Tosh.....

 

[Paul Coddington]

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.

They sort of did announce it: one of the publically stated goals was that everything that runs on 7/8 should run on 10, or words to that effect. Personally my application failure rate on upgrade was 3/120+, 2 of which received updates on the launch date, and one of which will probably be updated soon (and was a minor utility never used that came as part of a larger suite of developer tools).

 

[Paul Coddington]

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?

It is hard to compare apples to oranges: Chrome/Firefox will continue to perform better until they implement colour management. Useless on high end monitors, and for people who are serious about monitor calibration for photography, etc. IE/Edge have colour management built-in, so they have more processing to do, yet still do very well.

 

[DelJo63]

If I'm not mistaken, most people here in Techspot are using SSD.

LOL. NEVER! SSD has life time issues, performance degradation over time and I don't need a drill on how to replace/reinstall the system.

 

[Maher AS]

The performance measurement is not a true one.

There should be a way to reflect to the hassle and the headache that Microsoft enforced people to live through with this upgrade.

My Lenovo twist was working perfect with 8.1. I was totally convinced that it was the best ever Microsoft OS.

I read this article, and with the free upgrade, and the new touch features Microsoft promised, I went through the upgrade .....

The performance suddenly became BAD, and kept going from bad to worst.

I checked almost every technical article to resolve problems, half of them never worked with me, and still waiting for answers

My tablet used to restart in 5 seconds, not 2 minutes and 18 seconds; this is until yesterday, and after 4 days of suffering and agony.

Even when I rolled back, 8.1 is never working the same ....

Some apps don't work ... most importantly Windows Update ... it still insists that I should upgrade to Windows 10 for FREE ... as this word is the catch that will convince everyone to become Microsoft Rat Lab.

I reached to a point where I signed a petition for Bill Gates to fire all executives in Microsoft and get back to behind the steering wheel of this company, because those guys are ruining everything.

Just wanted to share this with you all. Hopes you never face this

 

[MoeJoe]

Doing benchmarks on SSD tech that pushes the limits of their associated bus timing,
is a complete waste of time. It's the chipset drivers, the storage controller drivers that
are important ... not the OS per se and not synthetics.

The obvious improvements built into Win 10 that are noticable are not addressed by any
of the items tested. Figure out how to benchmark these and you have Win ! :

Memory management
Indexing management
Screen page management
etc
etc

Even DISM processing is dramatically improved.

 

[bazz2004]

At a more basic level I've spotted one big speed increase in Windows 10 over Windows 7. XP has been relegated to a virtual OS running in VMWare Player on my main computer and it has always taken an annoyingly long time to get going. In Windows 10 the boot into the virtual XP OS is extremely quick. In general I think that W10 is slightly quicker than W7 but no great deal there.