CPU benchmarks
| OS - Sandra 2009 SP4 memory bandwidth (agg.) | ||
|---|---|---|
| GB/s, higher is better | ||
| 7 Home Premium, 64-bit | XP Pro SP3, 32-bit | Vista Home Premium SP2, 64-bit |
| 5.19 | 5.62 | 5.44 |
Aggregated memory-bandwidth is a little down on Windows 7.
| OS - HEXUS.PiFast to 10m places | ||
|---|---|---|
| Seconds, lower is better | ||
| 7 Home Premium, 64-bit | XP Pro SP3, 32-bit | Vista Home Premium SP2, 64-bit |
| 35.22 | 34.92 | 35.27 |
But there's not much in it in the number-crunching HEXUS.PiFast test.
| OS - 7zip internal benchmark | ||
|---|---|---|
| MIPS, higher is better | ||
| 7 Home Premium, 64-bit | XP Pro SP3, 32-bit | Vista Home Premium SP2, 64-bit |
| 5108 | 5183 | 5148 |
7zip - a freeware file compression and decompression application - also shows similar performance across the three operating systems.
| OS - CINEBENCH multi-CPU render | ||
|---|---|---|
| Marks, higher is better | ||
| 7 Home Premium, 64-bit | XP Pro SP3, 32-bit | Vista Home Premium SP2, 64-bit |
| 5844 | 5236 | 5843 |
The first clear difference is shown in multi-core-aware CINEBENCH. Vista and Windows 7 perform around 11 per cent better than XP, but the main reason for the improvement lies with the use of a 64-bit build for the two newer operating systems.
| OS - Sandra 2009 SP4 cryptography (aggregated) | ||
|---|---|---|
| MB/s, higher is better | ||
| 7 Home Premium, 64-bit | XP Pro SP3, 32-bit | Vista Home Premium SP2, 64-bit |
| 246.3 | 198.3 | 245.33 |
The same is true in the (aggregated) cryptography benchmark.
Consistency
We run the benchmarks three times and then take an average. Looking back at the raw numbers, Windows XP SP3 provides the most consistent results of the trio, deviating less than 1 per cent from run to run. Windows 7's single-application performance varies by an average 1.4 per cent across the benchmarks. Vista's worst, however, with an average spread of 2.1 per cent: not helped by the behind-the-scenes activity.
