Hardware Windows 8: Performance Benchmarks

Following my previous comments, I will be buying Windows 8 when I get home. I have a week in the half term to get used to the interface, and compared to Windows 7, £25 is a bargain for a retail OS, even if I turn out not to like it.

 

Much lower image editing and multitasking scores, confusing UI, and it's all round basic crapness means I'll be staying Win7 as long as possible thank you very much.

MS have really, really screwed up for the desktop market. All they had to do was acknowledge the fact that not everyone has a small portable device and release a non Metro version... oh, sorry.. non ModernUI version.

They didn't...

They can sod off.

 

All in one pcs with touchscreens have been on the increase for a while and there are plenty tablet / laptop crossovers coming soon and as soon as you have a touchscreen device xp / vista / 7 are all entirely useless.

Anyway, windows 8 ui is a bit like a console port of a game, either you got the right input device or you are left screaming at it not being perfect for keyboard and mouse, just like with lets say a capcom game.

As my pc doesn't have a touchscreen I'll just skip Windows 8 on it.

 

You could see if Fast Startup is switched on or off:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6320-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

For some reason I had deleted my hibernation file in Windows 7 (I think to save space) so had to re-enable it before I could switch this on. Not that it made much difference - about 5 seconds faster with my Samsung 830 (worked out to a 5 second quicker boot than Windows 7)

 

Catastrophise much?

It is a comparison of a brand new OS with one that has had a few years of optimisation behind it. It will all work out. And Windows being as open as it is, for people who don't like Metro there are several good ol'fashioned Start Button plug-ins, for you old folk who don't like change. Everybody happy.

 

Well it's here and I don't want to slag it off before it's had a chance but obviously I've taken note of all the kicks in it's teeth W8 has already received plastered all over the internet regarding how frustrating it is to use on a desktop pc. But like what Kidmod says, it's only £25 and for a limited time only. So on that note I've just been on the Microsoft website to see if it tempts me to buy the upgrade. Well I haven't even got it yet and I ended up getting frustrated with hole dam thing lol. First thing, I couldn't find an ISO to download, only an Upgrade exe program which I don't want because if I'm gonna have it I'd like to be able to burn it to a disc because I just know I'm not gonna get it all setup the way I'd like it first time round. Second thing I just hated how they refer to everything as apps instead of programs ...apps this and apps that and how your apps from W7 will be transferred over to W8 ...I ain't got no apps on my W7 luv, I've got programs!!!

I might have another blast at it tomorrow, curiosity usually gets the better of me ...just can't stand all this app crap talk.

I guess my personal stance on it is I recognise it's a good thing to move with technology to keep yourself educated but then again the bloody thing does look like an operating system with an Argos catalogue bolted to the front of it and I don't know if I could live with that.

 

I've just been playing angry birds space on my windows 8 desktop, with a touchscreen, it's just as good as, if not better than iphone/ipad version

 

A clear performance increase in games would have been the only thing to tempt me in to buying windows 8. Without that I am going to have to say "pass".

I will keenly follow its progress however - it is early doors and I would think updates to window and drivers will bring performance improvements over time.

 

The conclusion I take from the article are the following:

Windows 8 is only better at one game with a AMD graphic card and at boot times (which was promised and guaranteed since lots of videos proving the feature were avaliable through out the internet). Objectively, Windows 8 is inferior in performance than the Windows 7.
But it begs the question... Since Windows 8 has been freshly launched, in theory, it has a lot of margin to improve than Windows 7 that is an "aging" OS. True but will they make it (the improvements per se) by making it as cross all platforms OS?
I believe that the idea to make a single OS identical to all platforms will result in two things: It will never excel at none, being only average-ish at both. In theory, it works fine, it's pratical and creates a accustomization across all users. In real life, it won't.
The way Apple handles the situation it's the ideal, a OS for mobile devices - iOS, and a OS for desktop and laptop devices - OS X. It creates that sense of familiarization while being different in the way the user interacts with the OS. Apple might be all it is, one of the reasons why I don't like and don't ever consider to purchase an Apple product for myself, but credit where it's due.

The price for upgrade it's a the sweet spot, so all it's left for Microsoft is to release a patch, update, whatever they call it nowadays so as W8 has the upper hand on the W7.
In the right path they are, at least!

 

There is one thing that would definitely swing it for me. W7 isn't without it's faults and the biggest one for me is one that has been there in xp and vista too which is the hugely frustrating problem that occurs when microsoft updates and 3rd party program files favour the largest hard drive in your system over your os drive, files go astray and can cause problems like they have done for me many times and still do now.

If they've fixed this then I'm in.

 

I think I will be keeping to my Win 7 Ultimate until the next Windows. This Win 8 just looks to much like a Windows designed for portable devices....

 

There is one thing that I'm hoping someone knows the answer to:

If I buy the Windows 8 Pro digital download, will I be able to upgrade things like my CPU and Motherboard as I was able to with Windows 7 retail?

 

I dont know if other people have the same idea as me: I will eventually want/need a valid copy of windows 8, so why not take advantage of the upgrade price of only £24.99 now, and install it later. When Windows 7 was first released they offered it at £45 for a short time but even now it is over £100 on amazon.

 

I hate all the uninformed crap spouted when a new OS comes out. Who cares about a 0-5% initial drop in 'speed' - most of that will be clawed back with driver improvements, but we are back to the same old chestnuts that came up after every other new release. Newer versions of software tend to go slower because they are simply doing more - and this is quickly offset by the inevitable march of hardware improvements.

I've been running W8 (RTM) for a couple of months on my home-built desktop (i7), a year old (i5, gfx) laptop, and an older lappy (Core2). On the positive side, I think that overall, responsiveness is noticeably better, and it's breathed a little bit of life into the old lappy. In term of compatibility, I've not had a single problem with any driver of piece of software (inc the usual suspects plus all my development suites and games). It's robust and reliable, and there are the odd improved feature...

On the downside, the UI is astonishingly shocking... you have all read about it, as I had before I tried it. I figured it was just prejudice, and that I would grow to love the new style and the new way of working. The style is fine, in fact I really like it now, but the usability has sunk through the floor. I've changed the default programs for every type of file to use the 'desktop' variants in preference to the dumbed down Metro variants. ALL of them.

I understand the focus on tablet/mobile devices, but that is no reason to cripple the desktop - talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Should you upgrade? If you are on XP/Vista, yes of course. Windows 7? Perhaps if you fancy a change and are open-minded... but it's far from a 'must-have'.

Note: for $5 I've solved the biggest single problem by getting a copy of Stardocks Start8 (there are free alternatives available).

Just my £0.02

 

The Start menu can be "restored" using a free program called Classic Shell. I HIGHLY recommend it.

As for performance and daily use...
I have it running on an older Sony laptop (c2d/4gigs/ssd) and it boots/reboots FAR faster than Win 7, almost shockingly so. Coming out of hibernation though is no faster and possibly a bit slower. The ability to pause file transfers is a boon, as is the iso mounting. Functionally it works fine, but the whole UI is just wacky even on a 13in screen, everything looks like it was designed for a child, and that includes the child protective devices like hiding common things you need. It also does what it can to destroy multi-tasking as just like your phone, with each app takes over everything.

I can live with it, but only after changing to Classic Shell and dumping their start menu. I get what Microsoft was trying to do, and maybe it could work with some changes, but as it stands, the start menu is massive, clunky and jarring to open and close.

 

Start menu hack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAuvlmPbJE&feature=fvwp

 

Ignore my last post, apparently no longer works

 

Just for setting up of video folders mostly, but I also plug in a keyboard and mouse sometimes and do regular desktop things or play games, a lot of which need me to install nocd cracks. Anyway ViStart turned out to be rubbish and I switched to a better start menu program. Getting the hang of it now although it crashed while trying to load a steam game earlier and just a second ago my nvidia driver crashed and restarted, I guess MS will be patching things up when the error reports start flooding in though.

 

The media benchmarks test is now totally synthetic. To give an idea of just how old it is, it would be like testing Windows 8 with an 8800gtx - it's really really old software. If you run the same applications with the latest version, the total time taken is considerably faster, due to massive optimisations (not claiming it'll show an improvement for windows 8, just that the benchmarks are pretty unrepresentative of current software).

 

A lot of other sites benchmarking Win 8 show higher scores in most benchmarks and win 8 outperforming win 7.

The only real place I see win 8 currently showing weakness is games, but I think that to be more driver optimisation than anything.