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Re-Testing Vista w/2GB RAM, Office 2003 | |
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| Time: 02:29 EST/07:29 GMT | News Source: WinBeta | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum | ||
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exo.blog: Many of our members have requested that we re-test Vista SP1 with 2GB of RAM instead of the 1GB we used in our original tests. Analysis: By providing Vista (SP1) with an additional 1GB of RAM (that's a total of 2GB for those of you keeping score) we managed to achieve a "whopping" 4% improvement in OfficeBench throughput. | ||
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| #1 By 12071 (124.168.186.163) at 11/28/2007 6:05:50 AM |
| Unfortunately presenting this sort of information is going to end up falling on deaf ears. There are plenty of us out there that already knew it... we see the shocking performance that Vista has to offer, oh yes the entire "wow" factor every day... and those with blinkers and rose colored glasses on will continue to disregard any information which says that Vista is a performance pig... because in their eyes it's perfect! |
| #2 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at 11/28/2007 7:50:45 AM |
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All I can say is what I have experienced on my own system day to day. I find Vista to be more stable and faster in day to day applications than XP was on the same system. Now my system is a pretty beefy one and I never had any problems with it. I can boot back into XP on the same system and it just feels slower - from startup times, to normal application use. Even games are now pretty close in performance with the latest Nvidia drivers.
Of course Vista is going to use more resources than XP. Just as XP used more than 2000 and 98. If everyone is so concerned with just how fast the system runs why aren't you all running DOS and booting up in 3 seconds? What is the point of faster processors and more RAM if the OS and apps don't take advantage of it? Plus there are reviews like this talking about gaming on XP vs Vista. http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/ This is from September but even there conclusions is that with the latest driver releases Vista performance is ontrack to be as good/fast as XP. If XP was that much faster than Vista you would certainly see it in extremely intensive applications like gaming. But really the differences are minor if there at all. I am not totally defending Vista because I believe they have some work to do on it. I just think it is easy to pick a few benchmarks to prove what you want to believe when the reality is more complicated. |
| #3 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at 11/28/2007 7:52:22 AM |
| #1: Nobody says Vista is perfect. There is no perfect OS. Since I don't use my Toshiba A135-7404 notebook (with 2-GB of DDR2-667 at a cost of $55) to run benchmarks, I don't see a problem with it. Characters appear on the screen as soon as I type them in Office 2003 or any other program. It comes out of standby in 3 seconds without readyboost. It surfs the web as qucikly as XP can since the speed is limited by the available bandwidth of my cable ISP. Why does anyone care? Use what you want to. I'll use what I have. |
| #4 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 11/28/2007 8:07:28 AM |
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#3
I think that you nailed down the issue: there is not an absolute and final truth about Vista; I have personally seen performances, booting time etc. etc. results being different even on boxes with the same specs. What I am puzzled with is how this issue polarized so many people here, sometimes I think I am reading posts on Slashdot instead of ActiveWin. |
| #5 By 79018 (74.70.9.133) at 11/28/2007 8:49:18 AM |
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I agree with "#2 kaikara", Vista runs faster then XP on my system and I have only 1.5gb of ram. I did added a faster video card. there are some issues but nothing major.
There's a lot of FUD posted about Vista. I'd love to see MS do an AD with Vista running on a Mac. |
| #6 By 13030 (198.22.121.110) at 11/28/2007 9:49:39 AM |
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I had to put this to rest as well since my experience with Vista betas was unimpressive.
Several weeks ago, I updated my main dev machine at home to dual boot into XP and Vista. It's an older AMD 64 chip with 2GB and a very high-end graphics card. I have not seen any noticeable difference between the performance of one OS over the other. Both installs use Office 2007. With that hardware, I'm not sure how they are experiencing a 1.8 magnitude slow down with Vista. |
| #7 By 1474 (138.162.8.57) at 11/28/2007 11:41:06 AM |
| Vista's great speed is not a selling point in a business, it's will Vista run my stuff I have now and how much. I loaned one to the Office Assistant, HRO and the Owner; in about a week I get the order back to build, why ? One, it runs the stuff they have now (97% of the time), if not it needed a upgrade anyway; Two, as part of the production process along with Office 2007 it is soooo cool and fast; Three, security - you can really lock down a Vista box. |
| #8 By 23275 (71.12.191.230) at 11/28/2007 11:47:54 AM |
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Until the balance of hardware benefits from mature drivers [same is true of mature code in applications], Vista requires more attention to detail and something of a plan.
It is pretty simple and practical. One can make a fantastic Vista system quite easily, but it helps if that system comes from shops that have worked with it for years [all the way back to PDC/Longhorn days]. It does not take anything exotic, but Vista does benefit from a plan and people who understand it and the hardware/supporting drivers used by it. The days when one could simply blow on an OS are long over. The new OS is more complex, and subtle. It requires some thought and some planning and buckets of testing in order to achieve a great balance of components. Main Boards are the most important part to consider and so little is written about that. The high end ASUS boards have been the best and produce the best results. 8600GTS cards were better for months - than 8800GTS cards - until only recently and with newer drivers. Achieving a great Vista build is not hard at all, but it does require work. ....you should have seen the rounds of testing to build laptops for it... it made the desktop side seem simple. The Windows ecosystem is massive these days and there are so many choices. Not all mixes produce great results. The right mix, and there are a lot of them, result in a Vista install that thrills end users and network admins at the same time. We have to examine what each user has in their rigs - doing so will reveal the patterns associated with great experiences and bad ones, too. |
| #9 By 92069 (70.191.193.12) at 11/28/2007 12:16:52 PM |
| i have an "old" dell e521 amd 3800+ 0HK980 mainboard, vista runs very fast. i didnt need experiance or understanding of "ecosystems" to get there, just common sense |
| #10 By 23275 (71.12.191.230) at 11/28/2007 12:31:13 PM |
| #9, Good for you. Very few people have what you have - common sense, or they refuse to exercise it. Achieving success as you have is difficult to reduce to a process others can repeat with any measure of certainty - that is where planning, based upon experience and testing configurations across the ecosystem I mention is useful. |
| #11 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 11/28/2007 1:13:51 PM |
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#8: " It requires some thought and some planning and buckets of testing in order to achieve a great balance of components."
That's all well and good for businesses - they have to do it anyway, but for home users, this is out of the question. A home user should only have to remove crapware from a new system purchased from Best Buy (even this is a crime). |
| #12 By 72426 (69.239.146.99) at 11/28/2007 1:17:30 PM |
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Just a heads up to anyone putting any credibility in these tests.
1) The original tests were 'specifically' made to skew the results towards XP. (Office 2007 vs Office 2003 etc) 2) Users running the 'exact' same tests are finding XP and Vista within a second or two of each other with Vista sometimes on top. 3) The authors of this test are specifically using benchmarks from Vista when background 'initial' optimizations are taking place. They are doing this so they can continue to claim Vista is significantly slower because they have a stake in 'XP' remaining popular. 4) If people 'really' believe Vista is slower than XP, then why in the MOST demanding applications - 'games' - Vista and XP are identical in performance now? (Check out the firingsquad link from the poster above.) 5) This company is putting their reputation on the line over these tests, and users and other tech journals are already calling them into question. And when the truth gets out and hits the fan, this company's credibility will be toast. Vista and XP with 1GB of RAM are identical in terms of performance. With often Vista being faster due to the advanced caching of Superfetch. This post was edited by anthonyspt on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 13:17. |
| #13 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 11/28/2007 2:25:06 PM |
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#8:
Besides the "Cicero pro domo sua" aspect of your statement when "Mr. John Smith" goes in a big store and buy a system tagged "Windows Vista" or a device tagged "Certified for Windows Vista" he would expect, and rightly so, to power and boot the system, period. Even the idea of uninstalling all the crapware usually stuffed in a new system is beyond the average computer user ability or willingness. Does Vista allow this? Buying an upper end computer I would say so, although there could be exceptions. Is Vista "perfect"? No, as everything human made cannot be. Is everybody having a negative opinion about Vista part of a conspiracy to put MS down? Of course not; it is a computer operating system not an article of Faith. |
| #14 By 23275 (71.12.191.230) at 11/28/2007 8:52:57 PM |
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#14, Not really... Vista is very complex and the potential role for good small builders and integrators with a focus on selling hardware as a service [I do not mean the leasing of hardware, but real services baked into systems], is greater than ever.
I do assert that Vista can run well given pretty much any mix of compatible hardware, but that is not the end of it. One can have not just a good, but excellent Vista experience "IF" systems are built to address individual needs. I do reason that small specialty builders are the way to go for most small businesses and SOHO users and certainly for enthusiasts. I don't think big-box, or large OEMs can come close to delivering what these categories of people want and need. You are quite right about the OS and what it isn't [an article of faith] - that is not my point - what is so very important is what people "DO" with a personal computer. In that context, a PC can, and perhaps should be, an intensely personal companion. That is a mix of hardware, software and services, which do more when then are integrated according to a plan. In simplest terms - a PC should be more than a box and Vista, as complex as it is, lends itself to very fine tuning and customization. Nice use of, "Cicero pro domo sua" though... just not applicable. |
| #15 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 11/29/2007 6:49:35 AM |
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#15 I agree that the number of people who could be categorized as "enthusiasts" is growing but, compared to the global computer market, they still represent a niche market, a very lucrative one but in percentage a small one.
I also have no doubt that Vista could be an "excellent" experience when "tailored" to the need of a specific individual but this is true for anything "tailored"; wear a suit bought in a store and a hand made by a Savile Road bespoke one, big difference! The problem is that Microsoft built is fortune being a "Ford" and not an "Aston Martin" in the software field. Said that I stated and repeated that MS could and should create a separate line of OSes for "enthusiasts"; an OS with very steep hardware requirements, limited backward compatibility etc. but, at the same time, featuring ground breaking GUI, functionalities etc. The best part of this idea is that something like this could probably be done utilizing what the R&D of the company continuosly develop but, unfortunately, most of the time does not reach commercial production because of legacy issues. Can you imagine the boost a OS like this could be for companies like yours? |
| #16 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/29/2007 9:33:46 AM |
| I know I'm getting pretty sick of constantly hearing that Vista is some delicate flower that needs special tweaking and massaging just to work right, and only if you install it on the perfect combination of hardware as provided by some Microsoft partner. It all sounds like apologia to me. |
| #17 By 23275 (71.12.191.230) at 11/29/2007 12:31:48 PM |
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#16, Non one is saying that at all.
What I am saying is that Vista can deliver a good experience on about any combination of capable hardware - it can also deliver an amazing experience if a build is tailored for specific needs and built according to a plan. There are a great many companies and people doing that. This has been true of personal computers for many years. The same way that when a person takes a rooted/baked home PC and then attempts to blow Vista over the top of a fractured install - it makes a mess of it. #15, You are quite right - there should be an OS for enthusiasts that just pulls out all stops - like the one you have shared here many times. Not gonna happen, but it needs to. |
| #18 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 11/29/2007 3:53:37 PM |
| #17: I must have misinterpreted all of your replies to anyone who complained about a problem with Vista then. |
| #19 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 11/29/2007 4:11:26 PM |
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This is the link to a very interesting article about windows in "Windows":
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070511/taking-the-windows-out-of-windows/ |
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