Feature Articles

Are you Ready for Windows Vista?

By Vincent Chang - 15 Apr 2007

Test Setup

Test Setup

In order to find out how Windows Vista performs on a variety of hardware, we have simply assembled three systems based on commonly available components off the shelf (of their respective class and timeframe). There will be a low-end system that approximates the minimum specifications listed by Microsoft, though we did have a slightly faster processor. The mid-range system will hopefully represent a typical system that is around two years old by now while the high-end PC will be among the fastest systems now, with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a GeForce 8 graphics card supporting the new DirectX 10 API found in Vista. Below is a table listing the various components found in our three different systems:

Test Configurations
Systems Low-End Mid-Range High-End
CPU AMD Athlon XP 1.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz)
Motherboard MSI KT4 Ultra (VIA KT400) Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro2 (Intel 865PE) Intel D975XBX
Memory 2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3200 (400MHz DDR) 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS3200 (400MHz DDR) 2 x 1GB DDR2-800 Kingston HyperX
Graphics/Drivers NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 128MB
  • ForceWare 96.86 for Windows Vista
  • ForceWare 93.71 for Windows XP
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB
  • ForceWare 97.46 for Windows Vista
  • ForceWare 93.71 for Windows XP
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
  • ForceWare 100.65 for Windows Vista
  • ForceWare 97.92 for Windows XP
Hard Drive 80GB, 7200RPM IDE 80GB, 7200RPM IDE 80GB, 7200RPM SATA
Windows Experience Index Score 2.1 4.0 5.4

All these systems will be installed with Windows Vista Ultimate Edition so as to create and assess the complete Vista experience. Essential updates and drivers were downloaded and installed automatically by Vista where applicable. We then put these systems through their paces by running staple applications that cover a range of frequent tasks by a typical user. Hence, we have an office productivity suite like Open Office and an image/graphics editing tool like Paint.NET. There's also a 3D gaming benchmark using Quake 4 and of course, throughout, we will document our user experience for the systems, including the average time taken for startup/shutdown and the overall responsiveness when it comes to switching and closing applications. The following applications will be used, along with a brief description of how we conducted the tests.


Windows Vista Test Applications

  • Windows Mail (Default email application in Vista - Time taken to start the application)
  • Open Office 2.1 (Time taken to open a 6MB text document)
  • Paint.NET (Time taken to open 20 raw images - average size of more than 1MB each)
  • Firefox 2.0 (Time taken to start application with 10 tabs)
  • Quake 4 (High Quality, Resolution of 1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing)

Since we need something concrete to compare our Vista experience with, we also installed Windows XP on these test systems (default drivers from the given motherboard CD were used) and basically ran the same applications and tests on it with the exception of Vista's Windows Mail, which we replaced with Outlook Express instead. Although Windows Mail is the successor to Outlook Express, it is not the same application so for this particular test, so we will use it solely as a gauge of how the default email application performs in both operating systems and not as a direct apples to apples comparison. Again we will document our experiences here and you can judge for yourself how these applications perform in both operating systems.

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