Is Windows 8 any faster than Windows 7?

Ron

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system is finally put to the test in a new report and we find out exactly how much faster it is compared to Windows 7. According to the report, Windows 8 booted faster and generally ran faster than Windows 7.

As PCWorld reports, both Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 7 were installed on an identical machine (3.3GHz Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB 7200-rpm hard drive, Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card). When compared to Windows 7, Windows 8 Consumer Preview booted faster, ran through the WorldBench 7 benchmark faster, and had superior performance when it came to web browsing, thanks to hardware acceleration and browser optimization. The only test that made Windows 8 look bad was the Office Productivity Measure, which utilizes Futuremark’s PCMark benchmark tool and simulates editing text, launching applications, and scanning for viruses. This test showed Windows 7 as having better performance compared to Windows 8.

Windows 8 still has ways to go but it sure looks like it is becoming the most efficient version of Windows yet. While consumers may be complaining about the new Metro interface, very few are complaining about the performance.