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Windows XP vs Vista

Application performance
While our sample size of only two laptops shouldn't be used to make definitive conclusions about the performance of Vista, the results from our mainstream application testing provide some telling possibilities. For starters, both laptops' Apple iTunes encoding and Multimedia multitasking performance tests results didn't change significantly going from XP to a clean install of Vista. (Even more of a curiosity, Apple reports that the versions of iTunes and QuickTime--both of which are part of our Multitasking multimedia test--we tested with are not officially Vista-compatible. They worked fine for us, however.) The Dell's XP performance on the Photoshop CS2 image-processing test was only marginally faster than its Vista performance. Under the right circumstances, it appears that it is possible to get the same application performance--or close to it--on Vista that you get on XP.

The midrange ASUS' Vista upgrade results tell a slightly different story. The ASUS' Vista clean-install performance on all four application tests consistently outperformed the ASUS' Vista upgrade performance. So does this mean that you'll see better application performance if you do a clean install of Vista instead of upgrading to Vista? Not necessarily. With the exception of the Multimedia multitasking test results, the Dell's Vista upgrade results were statistically identical to that of its Vista clean-install results. The Dell used the latest available Vista drivers, while the ASUS used almost all generic drivers. The difference in the ASUS' Vista upgrade versus Vista clean-install performance could be primarily a function of the drivers. It's possible that during the Vista upgrade, not all of the ASUS' XP drivers were updated to their Vista versions; when Vista was installed cleanly on the ASUS, there were no legacy XP drivers to potentially muck things up.

ASUS W7J application tests (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Windows XP Professional

Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade

Windows Vista Ultimate new install

Apple iTunes encoding test

243

298

249

Adobe Photoshop CS2 image-processing test

379

495

444

Microsoft Office productivity test

776

1379

1281

Multimedia multitasking test

1346

1965

1314

Note: All Vista testing done with default drivers, except for graphics driver, which was downloaded from Nvidia's Web site.

Dell XPS M1710 application tests (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Windows XP Professional

Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade

Windows Vista Ultimate new install

Apple iTunes encoding test

177

179

178

Adobe Photoshop CS2 image-processing test

225

242

243

Microsoft Office productivity test

863

1597

1585

Multimedia multitasking test

870

856

937

Note: All Vista testing done with drivers downloaded from Dell's Web site.

Taking the plunge
Should you upgrade to Vista? Should you do a clean install or is it OK to upgrade to Vista so you won't have to reinstall all of your programs? These are good questions that don't have easy answers. Before you consider upgrading your current system to Vista, make sure that it can run Vista satisfactorily. Then you should make sure that all your important programs--those you use regularly--are compatible with Vista or have Vista update patches available, or you should be willing to take the risk that they might not behave properly on Vista. All of the programs installed on our test systems continued to function properly after we upgraded from XP to Vista--even those that weren't officially branded as Vista-compatible. Make sure that there are Vista drivers available for your computer or at least for all the major subsystems of your computer, such as the motherboard chipset and the graphics engine. You'll be less than thrilled if you upgrade your system only to discover that there aren't Vista drivers available for your sound card. Look before you leap.

If you are considering giving your system a Vista transplant so soon after Vista's public release, then you are what is commonly referred to as an early adopter. The same could be said for someone who's just looking to purchase a new system with Vista. Given that most manufacturers are selling systems with Vista installed on them as their standard configuration, you might become an early adopter even if you don't want to. For now, battery life and gaming performance are definitely areas where you'd likely sacrifice performance for the pleasure of running Vista. With the right programs and drivers in place, however, the potential for comparable mainstream application performance is at least already here today. The rest will hopefully come with driver updates.

System configurations:

ASUS W7J
1.66 Intel Core 2 Duo T5500; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 528MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7400; 100GB Fujitsu 5,400rpm SATA/150

Dell XPS M1710
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7600; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 666MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX; 100GB Hitachi 7,200rpm SATA/150

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