WYP
News Guru
Introduction
With the recent news Windows 7 approaching the beginning of the end of its life cycle and Windows 8 is phased out in favour of the updated Windows 8.1 I decided to run a little test, to find out which of the two most modern Windows OSes performaned the best.
Many of us enthusiast refuse to upgrade from Windows 7, while most new system builders simply having no choice but to go for Windows 8.1, is either side losing out here? For the best performance should the old Guard on Windows 7 upgrade, or should the newcomers on Windows 8.1 consider searching for an increasingly rare Windows 7 liscence key? Lets find out.
Test Setup
Intel i5 4670k
Gigabyte Z87 G1-SNIPER
Sapphire R9 290
Team Extreem DDR3 2133Mhz 12GB
Samsung 830 128GB SSD
CoolerMaster Silent Pro 1000w
Custom Water Cooling loop
Modified Silverstone RV03
Windows 7 & 8.1
AMD Catalyest 14.7 Drivers
Test Procedure
While conducting this testing all components will be ran at stock speeds and both Operating Systems will be ran on the Same Samsung 830 Drive from a fresh/clean instal.
The only things that will be installed on the system will be the AMD 14.7 Driver, the programs that I will be using to test and every update that Microsoft automatically downloaded and installed, this is to leave no possible bload ware or any other performance reducing programs to be present.
System Benchmarks
Cinebench
We will start with Cinebench, a benchmark which from my experiences can have it’s scores drastically altered by even the most minor of backround applications has scores which are nigh identical on both Windows 7 and 8.1. This could mean that under the hood both operating systems perform very similarly, but lets see a few more benchmarks.
wPrime
wPrime shows a similar story to Cinebench, both have nigh identical performance numbers with only .6 and .02 second difference between 1024 and 32 times respectively.
PCMARK
Again in PCMARK we have the same story almost identical scores, with not even 50 PCMARKs between each OS. I think we can conclude that performance is the same throughout, but first we will need to see if this also applies to gaming.
3DMARK
We will start the gaming tests with 3DMARK, and yes you’ve guessed it nigh identiacal performance. Windows 8.1 came out slightly ahead in the Fire Strike Benchmarks, but 7 maintained a slight lead in all others.
CATZILLA
Moving onto Catzilla the differences are again non existant, it simply has to be said that performance wise these tests these operating Systems are identical.
Gaming Benchmarks
We will finish with a few in-game benchmarks, here regardless of the game or resolution the Games perform identically regardless of OS. Even when trying AMD’s Mantle, a beta API, neither OS can even beat the other by more than .1 of a FPS.
Conclusion
The conclusion here is simple, when comparing the performance of these Operating Systems neither reign supreme, not even a single scenario can give either a solid win over the other. It is almost like both are the same thing underneath, which we know isn’t true.
The only advice that can really be given here is buy the OS which you are most used to right now if you are building a new system as performance wise they are nigh identical in all tests. In my opinion there is no sense learning a new OS if there is literally nothing to be gained by it at present.
I did not conduct boot time testing and I do not plan to, simply put if you want a faster boot time buy an SSD. Any seconds saved on a boot with a different OS is easily cancelled out by the time taken to learn how to use it. Who cares if your boot time is a second faster if you trip around on the metro for a minute afterwards, or if you otherwise cannot easily navigate the OS. This test was about performance, where I have conclusively proven there are no differences.
Thank you all for reading this and Good night.
(also I know the images say 8 not 8.1 and some have data numbers missing, I will fix this tomorrow.)
With the recent news Windows 7 approaching the beginning of the end of its life cycle and Windows 8 is phased out in favour of the updated Windows 8.1 I decided to run a little test, to find out which of the two most modern Windows OSes performaned the best.
Many of us enthusiast refuse to upgrade from Windows 7, while most new system builders simply having no choice but to go for Windows 8.1, is either side losing out here? For the best performance should the old Guard on Windows 7 upgrade, or should the newcomers on Windows 8.1 consider searching for an increasingly rare Windows 7 liscence key? Lets find out.
Test Setup
Intel i5 4670k
Gigabyte Z87 G1-SNIPER
Sapphire R9 290
Team Extreem DDR3 2133Mhz 12GB
Samsung 830 128GB SSD
CoolerMaster Silent Pro 1000w
Custom Water Cooling loop
Modified Silverstone RV03
Windows 7 & 8.1
AMD Catalyest 14.7 Drivers
Test Procedure
While conducting this testing all components will be ran at stock speeds and both Operating Systems will be ran on the Same Samsung 830 Drive from a fresh/clean instal.
The only things that will be installed on the system will be the AMD 14.7 Driver, the programs that I will be using to test and every update that Microsoft automatically downloaded and installed, this is to leave no possible bload ware or any other performance reducing programs to be present.
System Benchmarks
Cinebench
We will start with Cinebench, a benchmark which from my experiences can have it’s scores drastically altered by even the most minor of backround applications has scores which are nigh identical on both Windows 7 and 8.1. This could mean that under the hood both operating systems perform very similarly, but lets see a few more benchmarks.
wPrime
wPrime shows a similar story to Cinebench, both have nigh identical performance numbers with only .6 and .02 second difference between 1024 and 32 times respectively.
PCMARK
Again in PCMARK we have the same story almost identical scores, with not even 50 PCMARKs between each OS. I think we can conclude that performance is the same throughout, but first we will need to see if this also applies to gaming.
3DMARK
We will start the gaming tests with 3DMARK, and yes you’ve guessed it nigh identiacal performance. Windows 8.1 came out slightly ahead in the Fire Strike Benchmarks, but 7 maintained a slight lead in all others.
CATZILLA
Moving onto Catzilla the differences are again non existant, it simply has to be said that performance wise these tests these operating Systems are identical.
Gaming Benchmarks
We will finish with a few in-game benchmarks, here regardless of the game or resolution the Games perform identically regardless of OS. Even when trying AMD’s Mantle, a beta API, neither OS can even beat the other by more than .1 of a FPS.
Conclusion
The conclusion here is simple, when comparing the performance of these Operating Systems neither reign supreme, not even a single scenario can give either a solid win over the other. It is almost like both are the same thing underneath, which we know isn’t true.
The only advice that can really be given here is buy the OS which you are most used to right now if you are building a new system as performance wise they are nigh identical in all tests. In my opinion there is no sense learning a new OS if there is literally nothing to be gained by it at present.
I did not conduct boot time testing and I do not plan to, simply put if you want a faster boot time buy an SSD. Any seconds saved on a boot with a different OS is easily cancelled out by the time taken to learn how to use it. Who cares if your boot time is a second faster if you trip around on the metro for a minute afterwards, or if you otherwise cannot easily navigate the OS. This test was about performance, where I have conclusively proven there are no differences.
Thank you all for reading this and Good night.
(also I know the images say 8 not 8.1 and some have data numbers missing, I will fix this tomorrow.)
