Windows Vista Benchmarks

15FEB2007

 

Unless you've had your head in the sand you've heard (or seen) that Vista is slower than XP. I thought I would run a few benchmarks too see just how much slower it is.

As you'll see from the results below, Vista stripped down with no apps installed can't come close to the speed of an XP machine with a full compliment of apps (except the ZA Firewall was disabled). To make it even more significant, the drives that XP is installed on shares space with Suse 10.2. It has 5 partitions on the OS drives vs. 1 for Vista.

 

My Conclusion (no big shocker here)

Vista is slower there is no doubt. If you add in the outrageous cost and the annoyance factor there is only one conclusion for me.

As it stands right now, Vista is a pig.

A pig with lipstick and a wig, but a pig nonetheless.

 

I'll let you look at the benchmarks and decide for yourself. Then gimmie a shout and tell me what you think about Vista. ( vista@tweakhound.com )

 

 

A few notes:

 

The OS's

 - Vista Default is just that, a default install fully updated.

 - Vista Tweaked is the above + the tweaks listed here. No UAC, No Defender, etc.

    The overall scores improved but this area (tweaking) still needs work.

 - XP Tweaked is my machine just as I run it with all the apps.

 

The Machine

Mobo	Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
CPU	3.4GHz Northwood
Memory	2GB Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2PT
Video	ATI Radeon x1600 Hauppage TV card
Sound	Audigy 2 ZS Plat.
Network	Onboard Intel Pro 1000
Hard Drives	1st setup - 2 x 74GB Raptor (raid 0) I dual boot XP and SuSE from the above.   2nd setup - Vista, 2 x 74GB Raptor (raid 0)   2-120GB WD JB's(raid 0) Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB
Other Drives	LG DVD burner Floppy
OS	XP Pro SuSE 10.2
other	2 - Vantec MRK-200ST-BK (for swapping the drives) MX1000 mouse USB 10-1 Card reader Samsung SyncMaster 930b monitor

 

 

PCMark2005 Benchmarks

Rant about PCMark...

I haven't run PCMark in quite some time. The newest version of PCMark requires you to run the "new style" start menu and setting appearance adjustments to "best appearance". IMHO this clearly interferes with the tweaks in that the scores for both Vista Tweaked and XP Tweaked would/should be higher if this was not so. That really pis, ahem, ticks me off.

 

PCMark2005 Benchmarks

Main Test Results   Vista Default   Vista Tweaked   XP Tweaked System Test Suite 3748 PCMarks % difference - 3.39 3875 PCMarks % difference - 7.12 4151 PCMarks Detailed Test Results System Test Suite HDD - XP Startup Vista Default Vista Tweaked XP Tweaked 15.98 MB/s 16.0 MB/s 16.58 MB/s Physics and 3D 95.11 FPS 96.37 FPS 127.43 FPS Transparent Windows 1086.46 Windows/s 1429.94 Windows/s 405.19 Windows/s 3D - Pixel Shader 84.53 FPS 85.11 FPS 89.18 FPS Web Page Rendering 1.32 Pages/s 1.22 Pages/s 2.15 Pages/s File Decryption 58.04 MB/s 61.08 MB/s 66.25 MB/s Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 450.21 FPS 453.59 FPS 1046.78 FPS HDD - General Usage 11.15 MB/s 10.82 MB/s 11.55 MB/s Multithreaded Test 1 / Audio Compression 1287.87 KB/s 1317.17 KB/s 1401.0 KB/s Multithreaded Test 1 / Video Encoding 200.41 KB/s 203.49 KB/s 202.35 KB/s Multithreaded Test 2 / Text Edit 54.22 Pages/s 55.74 Pages/s 67.68 Pages/s Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Decompression 15.38 MPixels/s 15.02 MPixels/s 15.49 MPixels/s Multithreaded Test 3 / File Compression 2.94 MB/s 3.23 MB/s 3.14 MB/s Multithreaded Test 3 / File Encryption 14.59 MB/s 17.74 MB/s 18.36 MB/s Multithreaded Test 3 / HDD - Virus Scan 38.84 MB/s 37.91 MB/s 39.1 MB/s Multithreaded Test 3 / Memory Latency - Random 16 MB 7.32 MAccesses/s 7.16 MAccesses/s 8.19 MAccesses/s

 

 

Sandra Lite Benchmarks

 

selected Sandra Lite benchmarks
		Vista Default	Vista Tweaked	XP Tweaked
File Systems	Drive Index (higher is better)	123 MB/s	132 MB/s	134 MB/s
	Random Access Time (lower is better)	11 ms	6 ms	6 ms
Cache & Memory	Combined Index (higher is better)	7151 MB/s	7302 MB/s	7502 MB/s
	Speed Factor (lower is better)	20.1	20.0	18.8
Percentage Difference (in order top to bottom)		n/a	7.31	1.5
			45.45	0
		n/a	2.11	2.74
			.5	6.47

 

 

A View From Task Manager / Performance

 

Vista Default Task Manager	XP Tweaked Task Manager

 

 

XP Tweaked installed applications
Program	Version
7-Zip 4.42
Acronis Disk Director Suite	10.0.2117
Acronis True Image Home	10.0.4871
Adobe Help Center 2.1	2.1
Adobe Photoshop 7.0	7.0
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0	5.0
Adobe Reader 8	8.0.0
Adobe Shockwave Player	10.1.4.20
Anapod CopyGear (remove only)
Anapod Explorer (remove only)
ATI - Software Uninstall Utility	6.14.10.1016
ATI Catalyst Control Center	1.2.2545.38916
ATI Display Driver	8.33-061220m-040997C-ATI
Audio Conversion Wizard 1.8	1.8
AutoUpdate	1.1
AVG 7.5
Calculator Powertoy for Windows XP	1.00.0001
CCleaner (remove only)
CleanCache 3.5
CmdHere Powertoy For Windows XP	1.00.0001
Cool Edit 2000
Creative Audio Console
dBpoweramp [Calculate Audio CRC] Codec
dBpoweramp FLAC Codec
dBpoweramp Monkeys Audio Codec
dBpoweramp Mp2 and BwfMp2 codec
dBpoweramp mp3 (Fraunhofer IIS) Codec
dBpoweramp Music Converter
dBpoweramp Ogg Vorbis Codec
dBpoweramp WavPack Codec
dBpoweramp Windows Media Audio 10 Codec
DH Driver Cleaner Professional Edition	Version 1.5
DivX	6.0
Download Accelerator Plus (DAP)	8138 (Build 214)
EVEREST Ultimate Edition v3.50	3.50
Ext2Fsd 0.31a	0.31
Hauppauge WinTV2000
HoverIP v1.0 beta	1.0 beta
Image Resizer Powertoy for Windows XP	1.00.0001
Intel Matrix Storage Manager
Intel(R) PRO Network Connections
IrfanView (remove only)
IsoBuster 1.9.1	1.9.1
iTunes Library Updater	1.2.2
iTunes	7.0.2.16
IZArc 3.6	3.6
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 10	1.5.0.100
jv16 PowerTools 2006
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1	1.1.4322
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0	2.0.50727
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0	3.0.04506.30
Microsoft Calculator Plus	1.0.0
Microsoft Network Monitor 3.0	0.0.0.0
Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007	12.0.4518.1014
Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003	11.0.7969.0 - Office 2003 SP2
Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007	12.0.4518.1014
Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders Backup	1.10.0.0
Microsoft Photo Info	1.0
Microsoft Tool Web Package:WntIpcfg.exe	1.0.0.1
Mozilla Firefox (2.0.0.1)	2.0.0.1 (en-US)
Mozilla Thunderbird (1.5)	1.5 (en-US)
Mp3/Tag Studio 3.5 (beta 16)	3.50.16
Nero 7 Ultra Edition	7.02.4712
NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder	1.00.0000
PerfectDisk	8.00.048
PowerDVD
PrintFolders 2.21	2.21
QuickTime	7.1.3.170
ReNamer	4.21
Roxio Content 9	9.0.021
Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 Suite	9.0.088
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
SyncToy	1.4
Tweak UI
WebFldrs XP	9.50.7523
Winamp (remove only)
Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool (KB892130)	1.5.0530.0
Windows Imaging Component	3.0.0.0
Windows Installer 3.1 (KB893803)	3.1
Windows Internet Explorer 7	20061027.150806
Windows Media Encoder 9 Series	9.00.2980
Windows Media Format 11 runtime
Windows Media Player 11
Windows Media Player 11
WinPoker 6
XQDC X-Setup Pro 8.1.110	8.1.110
ZoneAlarm Pro	7.0.302.000
Zune Desktop Theme	1.0.5341.0