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AnandTech's Windows Vista Performance Guide

anandtech.com — An exhaustively comprehensive look at Vista (21 pages!). The big question that almost everyone is going to want answered is pretty simple: should you upgrade to Windows Vista now or wait awhile longer? It's a question we hope to answer by the time we finish this article, so without further ado let's take a look at some of the new features.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 1, 2007

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  • SourWorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+34http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=21

    direct link to the conclusion ... in case you think like me.
  • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -11/+40Hell, I'm waiting until XP is sunsetted or some app I really want requires Vista. Everything I read about it, especially the draconian upgrade requirements and DRM, tells me to stay away. I hung onto 98 as long as I could for the same reason: I like my OS simple and using as few resources as possible.
  • enzomedici, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21
    I'm running on Vista right now. I'm sure there will horror stories, but the upgrade on my thinkpad when as smooth as could be. Zero issues. I'm actually shocked because I was expecting the worse.

    Vista is stable, looks better and seems to perform much better too. I'm not sure why it took MS 5 years though.

    So far, so good though.
  • archer75, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23Then pay up. I have owned a G4 and a Intel Mac Mini.

    I have also run every release of Ubuntu starting with breezy.
  • Eldorian, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19I'll probably get dugg down for this...

    But I installed Vista Ultimate on Tuesday on my laptop, and I actually really like it so far.

    I honestly don't recommend getting an upgrade though, it's a pain in the ass. Getting a clean install or having it installed on a new system will do nicely. But so far I haven't run into any problems.
  • archer75, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22anandtech is one of the few review sites I trust.


    I'm running vista, have been for months and love it.
  • flag564, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18What exactly is this thing with people that have XP whom seem bent on telling the world that they will never buy Vista.

    I heard this same dog and pony show back when XP was released. People just couldn't imagine that they would ever leave 2000 or 98 just to use Windows with the "Fisher Price" interface.

    All these people that are saying this now will have it on their PCs by the end of the year, and they will pretend like they never said they would never use it.
  • Netmindstorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12And a summary of the conclusion: "it depends"
  • Kahnza, on 10/12/2007, -22/+32ALWAYS wait until after service pack 1.
  • pathy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Problems with Creative drivers?!

    You jest!
  • WileEPeyote, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12@ajck

    I have used both of those and prefer Vista, but that is just a preference and nothing more.
  • estvir, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16Yeah, you can't actually like Vista without either:

    a) Be a Microsoft employee
    b) Be paid to promote their software

    But of course, you can blindly support OSX and Linux without being labelled as an Apple employee or a kid who has secret love for Linus.
  • Kanna, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I'm using Vista just to spite all the haters on digg.
  • Tempest811, on 10/12/2007, -13/+20You must not have read the article...there was less than a handful of benchmarks where vista did not perform considerably better than XP. Ill bet you just read the last few sentences of the conclusion....where the SP1 was mentioned. The reviewers, as well as many users like myself, had their hopes up and have their fingers crossed that SP1 will introduce some innovations or features worth writing home about...
    Their conclusion was lackluster and indecisive whereas their results clearly pointed to Vista being a worthy OS performance-wise.
    For the time being, though, it clearly outperforms XP (in the non-gaming realm) and there is no significant reason (besides gaming) NOT to purchase it now. I have it and find it is better than XP in almost every aspect.
  • JeffH, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Yeah. DVDs have nasty DRM and aren't as stable as VHS tapes. I think everyone should just use VHS tapes. Or even better, use the vastly superior Betamax tapes. There's also some open-source technology tapes people should use instead of DVDs.

    Bad analogies ftl.
  • Starfinder, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Hmm.. I'm running Vista Business and I must say I like it quite a lot.. I have always regarded VISTA as a virus (during the beta period) but getting the final version of the business edition really surprised me in how well it performs.. I very much like the new support for running DX apps on dual monitors..

    I also find the networking to be a lot faster than on XP. Im running a 5 computer setup at my home, where one computer acts as file server (running 2003 server).. With XP I could often wait quite some time before my large lib's would load into the app using them on XP - with VISTA its like its on the same machine...

    I don't have any fancy test results to show you - only thing I can say is that I use LAN-networking a lot, and with VISTA it seems to run a lot faster for me than XP ever did..
  • sathias, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9@Chompy

    I wouldn't worry about those two particular issues. There are already workarounds for the upgrade problem, and the DRM only affects you if you are running DRM-protected content, ie HD video. Which, incidentally, will have to satisfy the same protection mechanisms if it is viewed in any other OS. It just stuns me that this is being made into such a big issue for Vista in particular.

    For me the main reason not to upgrade is the immaturity of drivers, more than anything.
  • revenge7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You can do a clean install with an upgrade version.
  • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is the most competent article I've ever read on Vista, definetely digging this.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4[quote]For the time being, though, it clearly outperforms XP (in the non-gaming realm) and there is no significant reason (besides gaming) NOT to purchase it now.[/quote]

    There's no reason not to purchase Vista (if you have brand new hardware), but there is also no reason to purchase it because it doesn't offer anything particularly compelling at this point.

    Now also don't lie to us and try to claim that Vista works "great" on older hardware because the lack of drivers on Vista is well-known. *SOME* hardware works with Vista, with other things you could be completely out of luck.

    Lastly, don't forget the software you will need to upgrade along with Vista. Such as the security apps and system utilities you were using in XP. That's another couple of $100 to add to the cost.
  • msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Vista does not boot 3x faster than Ubuntu. Thats a flat out lie. I did a full system format today, so I started with a blank disc basically. Installed Vista Business Edition (it was free from school), and then installed Ubuntu Edgy. I have a 2ghz dual core AMD and 2 gigs of RAM, and a sata 3gb/s 7200rpm drive (just saying so people know the machine speed). From the grub menu, it took Ubuntu 40 seconds to get to the point of typing in a password in GDM, it took Vista 32 seconds to get to the login screen. This is after fully updating both.

    I can't say there was anything that motivated me to install vista other than curiousity. I wasn't displeased with it, but I'm currently typing this in linux. I don't play games on my computer, so there isn't anything I need windows for, and Beryl walks all over anything Aero can do. UAC did bother me, but that can be disabled. Other than the user rights/DRM issues (which anyone geeky enough can bypass) and that it took them 6 years to release it, I haven't encountered anything blatantly wrong with Vista. Maybe install size? A lot of bloat there, but it doesn't affect system speed.

    If anyone is curious, my machine with a 7600 gfx card scored a 4.8 in vista. No clue what that means.
  • Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Your check's in the mail, thanks. However, due to ***** tax, you owe me $138.02... so it's more of a bill than a check.
  • SSCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I remember back when XP came out.
    I was totally against it. I liked 98. It felt perfect.
    Then after a month or so, I happen to end up with a computer with XP.
    And I can't stand going back to 98.

    I'm sure Vista will evolve just like XP did.
  • Soulhuntre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Illustrator and Firefox install without any problems on the 3 Vista machiens I run here.
  • archer75, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10Ubuntu has always been rather unstable on my systems. I don't know why. And it's such a battle to get the kind of functionality that I have in windows in ubuntu. I just don't even want to bother with it.
  • WileEPeyote, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Yeah, my mom doesn't trust the DVD player I bought her either. Insists on buying VHS movies and watching that.
  • SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Have you installed the latest Creative drivers? They only came out of beta something like yesterday; if you installed them before then you'll have the beta drivers.
  • Fhionnlaoch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5It's been 5 years. The minimum five years ago was 256mb.

    I think the problem with the upgrade shock of consumers is that a lot of computer companies have and continued to put in the least amount of ram possible. Instead of the standard 256 mb with XP, now the manufacturers are going to put in 512 mb.

    I know I'll probably get digged down for this, but MS requiring so much ram is a good thing, as it forces the manufacturers to keep up.
  • msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Doesn't sound like Vista's fault if Creative puts out ***** drivers. I don't like MS any more than you do, but place blame where it's appropriate.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10ubuntu didn't even recognize my ethernet port.
  • msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's not like Microsoft blindsided anyone with the Vista release. It's been hyped for months, advertised for a year and known about for the better part of a decade. Any company as large as Creative has no excuse for not having driver support for Vista. Week of release hotfixes indicate poor management and direction at creative.
  • Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sweet. Thanks for summarizing it for me so I don't have to read all 22 pages. Makes sense now.
  • Kahnza, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6lol 21 pages for an inconclusive ending? That sucks.
  • msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I installed Business today as well, and I'll admit that I like it considerably more than XP. The gui is nicer, the color scheme isn't as cartoonish, and they've obviously did a lot of work on application prefetching (heh, it's "snappier", to abuse the phrase). One thing I was hoping that it'd have was mounting to the desktop. I love how OSX and Linux drop an icon on your desktop when you plug in a USB drive, and you can unmount it from that too. XP and Vista have that crappy little tray icon.

    As for a dislike, UAC is painfully annoying, and was one of the first things to get disabled. I also had to adjust to their new start menu. Definately cleaner, but a little less intuitive. I totally hate that they're trying to hide the system structure from me like OSX does. I don't care if it's possible for me to muck something up, I want to browse a hierarchal file structure, not just view my account's documents. Also, some things are ostensibly out of the way. I added a new user, so from their main launch window, I clicked "Add new user", which brought me to another page, where I had to click "Add new user" yet again...which brought me to another page which, surprisingly, when I clicked "Add new user", I actually got to a user creation tool. Felt like I was chasing a rabbit down it's hole. I'm sure there's an easier way if you know how, but the way that's most apparent at first glance is exceedingly difficult.
  • archer75, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4My X-Fi has been working fine so far.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9i've been using it since the public beta, i've got a slight eye candy fetish and i like to play games

    vista is the perfect OS for me
  • kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3you won't lose features if you get premium or ultimate
  • estvir, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Wow, I'm trying to figure out how you managed to turn your PC on.

    There is the 'Classic' view available for the control panel and there is the search box, so with either of those you can find anything you want in 2 seconds. Also, if you have half a brain you can figure out the new control panel.

    How do you get treated like a criminal ?
  • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is from an enthusiast site, for people who build their own machines. I'm sure people are interested to know what Vista will do with the hardware.
  • JeffH, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7OMG!

    EVERYONE AVOID VISTA! Creative released ***** drivers, so Vista is trash. Please go switch to Ubuntu or get a Mac, because it would make my life 1000x better hugs and kisses.
  • grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"you have never used Ubuntu, or Mac OSX for any length of time"

    "And I bet you have not run Vista for any length of time either."

    When will some people learn that every OS*1 has good points and bad points and different points (neither good nor bad, simply alternative workflows). Vista has a lot of good points. It has some well publicised bad points too. Someone saying they have used Vista for months and love it does *not* mean that OS X is bad. Can we all not just enjoy the fact that OS companies are driving each other to enhance their products. It means we as consumers win.

    *1. I think we can safely exclude ME here.
  • justnick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Damn taxes get you every time.
  • millerbrad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@JD52

    3GB is what they recommend if you multitask your ass off. When's the last time you were editing 104 digital photos in Photoshop all at once?

    1-2GB is what most people will be using.
  • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Why would you need Run... on the start menu? The search box duplicates the functionality.
  • archer75, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4No, ATI and Nvidia drivers are teh suck. It will improve with time.
  • Starfinder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"notepad" loads slower then.. It seems like its trying to "find" notepad before launching the app.. It should just go $windir$/notepad when I type notepad.. thats the diffrence.. :)
  • culbeda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"No, Vista's content protection is always on to prevent hardware tampering, or cracking."

    And you plan on hacking the hardware HOW often?

    A good 20 questions with MS' lead programmer for video:

    http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/windows-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx
  • grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You most certainly need to! .... If your usage pattern means that you regularly to open 104 digital camera images in photoshop then try and launch word.

    Didn't think so. For the rest of us, 2GB is sweet, 1GB performs like 512MB on XP. Don't go buy Vista to put on your 4 year old PC.
  • WileEPeyote, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Well, I am hardly rich and have the hardware to run Vista. In fact it runs rather smoothly. In some applications I get much better performance than I did with XP.

    As for the price, well you can get a new machine with Vista installed that is better than the specs I am running for $409 from Dell.
  • Tempest811, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3the pot called the kettle black
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