Long post, but the complete information on XP vs Vista vs 7
You have to be careful what you are implying. When you are speaking in your own perspective, you gotta take into account that other people's systems might not be the same as yours, or they may not even see speed differences.
But if you already have a very fast computer, you won't even notice a difference between the two, or even coming from XP. Some German game reviewer group did benchmarks between Windows 7 vs Vista Ultimate, the differences were negligible, at almost less than 1-5% speed differences.
Case 1:
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The main 4 system specs are a: (if you don't get this, this is basically one of the fastest desktops you can build right now)
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
- Asus Rampage Extreme (Intel x48, BIOS version: 0501)
- 4GB DDR3 RAM
4 video cards tested:
- ATi Radeon HD 4870 X2 (750/1.800), 2x 1,024 MB
- ATi Radeon HD 4870 (750/1.800), 512 MB ATi Radeon HD 4870 (750/1.800), 512 MB
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 (576/1.242/999), 2x 896 MB Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 (576/1.242/999), 2x 896 MB
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 (648/1.476/1.242), 1.024 MB Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 (648/1.476/1.242), 1,024 MB
Benchmarks:
Case 2:
Overclockers.com - Windows XP vs Windows 7 - Benchmarks
System specs:
- Abit I7 motherboard
- Intel Prescott running at 3.0 GHz
- 2 GB RAM
- Nvidia GeForce 7600
If you have an older PC, like say 4-5 years old, this similar to what you will see jumping from XP to 7:
Benchmark:
Case 3: (Business/productivity orientated perspective)
Windows 7 build 7048 vs. Windows 7 beta 1 vs. Vista vs. XP performance shootout - which is best? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com
System specs (They used two):
- AMD Phenom 9700 2.4GHz system fitted with an ATI Radeon 3850 and 4GB of RAM
- An Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz fitted with an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS and 1GB of RAM
Benchmarks (one for each desktop):
In these benchmarks, the tally is done differently, lower #s are better, compared to higher was better in the previous two.
Basically, if you don't understand what it is saying, it is like this:
Super fast cream of the crop desktop:
XP > Vista: No really big gripes
XP > 7: Similar as above
Vista > 7: No noticeable differences to the human eye (except GUI related)
Older, not too many generations behind desktop (~2.5-4 years)
XP > Vista: Kind of slow
XP > 7: A bit faster than Vista
Vista > 7: Sort of faster
Really really old PC that's outdated (5+ years)
XP > Vista: Slow, but everyone has different definitions of slow
XP > 7: Slow, but everyone has different definitions of slow
Vista > 7: Slow, but everyone has different definitions of slow
32 bit vs 64bit: The better your PC, hop onto 64bit. The slower/older your PC, stay 32bit.
That's basically it in a nutshell.
