Some tests of Vista performance
PC World reports on some performance tests that they have done with Vista. The article reports:
Our main findings:
- Vista is generally slower than XP, but it’s better at multitasking on dual-core PCs.
- Your PC should have 1GB of RAM at the bare minimum.
- Aero won’t slow you down if you use a discrete graphics processor and enough memory.
- Apps run slower on the 64-bit version of Vista, but adding RAM closes the gap.
Anyone thinking of installing Vista on an older or a low-end machine might consider this finding:
Microsoft typically claims increased performance for each new Windows version–but nearly every one requires a somewhat faster system to perform as well as its predecessor did. Our first Vista tests, though, showed some mixed results, and one very encouraging development.
Overall, our test apps did seem to run slower with Vista. On less-expensive or older hardware, the difference was pronounced. Our two low-end systems–an inexpensive 1.8-GHz Sempron 3400+ desktop PC from Dell with integrated GeForce 6150 LE graphics that rely on main system memory, and an aging 3-GHz Pentium 4 desktop from ABS using an ATI Radeon 9600 ProE card–ran our Photoshop test in Vista 23 percent and 13 percent slower, respectively, than they did in XP. Our results in the multitasking test and in the game Far Cry showed drops of 5 to 17 percent.
The article does make the encouraging conclusion:
Looking back at our value-PC charts, most systems from two years ago–$1000 models carrying Pentium 4 processors of around 3 GHz or Athlon XP CPUs of around 2 GHz–would do just fine as Vista machines after a simple RAM boost. And dual-core desktop PCs appear to be great candidates for Vista upgrades.
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