OS Mobility Explored

Gateway NV58 (Intel) - Futuremark

Performing a few quick system/graphics benchmarks, let's see if there are any major differences between the Windows operating systems. As always, Vantage requires Vista/Win7 so XP gets a "0" on those tests (which is not to say XP fails - it's just the way we have to do things with our graphing engine).

The 3DMark results aren't quite as close this time, other than 3DMark05. XP trails in 3DMark06 by around 19%, and Vista leads in 3DMark03 by about 13%. Unlike the NV52, 3DMark Vantage scores almost twice as high as Vista with Windows 7 on the NV58, so perhaps Intel has invested some extra effort into improving their Windows 7 drivers. Of course, 3DMark Vantage barely worked on the NV58 and Vista, where it failed repeatedly to run anything other than the Entry test suite, so improving on that result shouldn't be too hard. Hopefully it's not simply a case of app detection and driver hacks to improve the score, though it looks rather suspicious. Anyway, we all know 3DMark isn't a game and as such you should take the above results with a grain of salt. PCMark05 also has XP in last place, but the 2D Transparency test again skews the results, so look at the table below. Meanwhile, PCMark Vantage again shows Windows 7 being Windows Vista, this time by 15%.

As with the NV52, the PCMark05 composite score muddies the waters and makes it look like Vista is superior to XP and Windows 7. This time, 2D Transparency is 32 times faster on Vista than XP and 17 times faster on Windows 7. That score alone is able to drop Windows XP to the back of the pack in overall score, but it leads in virtually every other category. The 3D Pixel Shaders result favors Windows 7 and Vista over XP and Win7 is the fastest, potentially giving support to the idea that Intel has improved their graphics drivers under Win7. On the other hand, Win7 trails in the Physics and 3D test by 38% relative to XP and 51% compared to Vista. Maybe the 3DMark Vantage result is just a case of driver optimizations.

As before, we calculated our own composite score among the operating systems, with and without the 2D Transparency result. We didn't weight any of the tests, and our average of the 11 tests puts Vista at 278% faster than XP and Win7 139% faster. Remove the 2D Transparency score from the average and XP suddenly jumps up to 11% faster than both Vista and 7, which end up in a tie. We're not trying to say that 2D Transparency is worthless, but it does account for deflated PCMark05 scores on Windows XP.

PCMark Vantage gives the lead to Win7 by 15%, with individual results ranging from a tie in Gaming to a 48% lead in Music. Unlike the NV52, the TV and Movies suite doesn't show a major difference, nor do the Communications and Productivity suites, but HDD and Memory show a larger benefit to Win7 on the NV58. Ultimately, PCMark Vantage still confirms that Windows 7 is faster overall than Vista, even if the only area that appears to benefit by a large amount (i.e. regardless of platform or hardware) is the Music suite.