Feature Articles

Are you Ready for Windows Vista?

By Vincent Chang - 15 Apr 2007

The Average Joe - Mid-range System Performance

The Average Joe

Moving on to our mid-range system, we were reasonably sure that many users will have existing PCs that are of this caliber, namely a decent single core processor like our Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 1GB of system memory and a popular and formerly mid-range graphics card like the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT. Such a system would have been considered good a couple of years back and while the world has moved on, it is nevertheless a decent system that should last a few more years with timely, astute upgrades when needed. Windows Vista seems to agree too, with this system scoring a very good 4.0 on the Windows Experience Index. The processor was yet again the weakest link for this system, probably due to its single core nature.

We set out to replicate a typical system that has been around for a couple of years and surprisingly, it still manages a very decent 4.0 in the index.

Installation was painless, with Vista automatically detecting the hardware and installing drivers for them. Once the system was connected to the Internet, the latest drivers for the onboard Realtek audio controller and the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT were downloaded and installed. This entire process took between two to three minutes and was certainly an improvement over Windows XP. We did however install the official ForceWare driver pack from NVIDIA since we needed the NVIDIA Control Panel, which was not included in the default Vista installation.

With a decent system, the Windows Aero effects were apparent straightaway. Our Gadgets were all present and we had a bit of fun playing with the Flip 3D effect. Applications were quick to open and close and multi-tasking performance definitely went up a notch. We were finally enjoying the full Windows Vista experience.


Mid-range System Performance

Before, for the low-end system, we had noticed Windows Vista taking quite some time to boot up but things have improved for this system. In fact, both operating systems were quite comparable in the time taken to start up and shut down, with the Vista system just a tad faster shutting down. Application start up timings was markedly improved from the low-end system, with Open Office more than twice as fast. It was also faster than the Windows XP installation, though Windows XP was still the faster operating system when it came to launching Paint.NET and the Firefox browser. The difference however was very minor and well within the margin of error in our measurements. More emphatically, gaming continued to disappoint on Vista, as it fell behind the performance of Windows XP in Quake 4 by around 30%. We'll have to reassess that with more matured drivers in the future, but for now, that's how it stands.

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