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Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks

Many gamers ask themselves: Who wins a gaming comparison between Windows 7 and Windows Vista? PC Games hardware did the test and checked eight graphics cards, five games and two operating systems.

Heart of pixel acceleration: How fast are dealing Windows 7 and Vista with GPUs? [Source: view picture gallery]

PC Games Hardware checks the 64 bit versions of Windows Vista and the Windows 7 Beta 1 for their gaming performance. Furthermore we wanted to know how well AMD and Nvidia optimized their drivers. For our tests we used the Catalyst 8.12 and the Geforce 181.20. The system is based on a motherboard with an X48 chipset which carries an Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 running at 3.6 GHz. Due to the 64 Bit operating systems we also used four GiByte DDR2-800 RAM.

The graphics cards that had to show their performance were the Geforces 8800 GT, 8800 GTX, GTX 260-216 and GTX 285 from Nvidia as well as the Radeons 3870, 4850, 4870/1G and 4870 X” from AMD.

We ran benchmarks in Crysis Warhead, Fallout 3 (dt.), Far Cry 2, Race Driver Grid and Left 4 Dead (dt.). We tested the games with refreshed quality settings and widescreen resolutions of at least 1,680 x 1,050 up to 2,560 x 1,600 pixels inclusive FSAA and AF - additional details can be found in the individual benchmark charts.

More articles related to Windows 7:
• Windows 7: Six versions of Microsoft's operating system
• 30 days period of Windows 7 extended
• Windows 7 Release Candidate in April?

Index

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Introduction

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Crysis Warhead (DirectX 10)

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Fallout 3 (dt.)

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Far Cry 2 (DirectX 10)

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Race Driver Grid

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Left 4 Dead (dt.)

• Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks: Conclusion

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Author: Andreas Link (Feb 05, 2009)

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Hyperhorn	Re: Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks
Admin/Spambot-Killer 06.02.2009 17:58	The sad thing about security is, that programmers are too lazy/don't have time or knowledge to get programs working without an administrator account. You can work/ be online etc. as a restricted user, but you can't even run some simple games as restricted user - no matter how hard you try. It's really annoying. XP is very safe, if you log in as a restricted user.
Admin/Spambot-Killer 06.02.2009 17:58

Hyperhorn

Re: Windows Vista versus Windows 7: Graphics cards benchmarks

Admin/Spambot-Killer

06.02.2009 02:54

Quote: (Originally Posted by Unregistered)

Windows 7 is a repackaged Vista in an attempt to get rid of the bad press that Vista could never shed due to idiots who have never really used Vista and/or hate Microsoft or people who tried it early on and hated it due to rotten 3rd party drivers which have been long since fixed.

I don't want to argue, but I have to use Vista at different systems every few days and I prefer XP definetively. Vista is okay, if I try to configure it to get "XP (x64) with DX10", but this isn't Microsoft's intention.
Vista takes itself to seriously - I want an OS to run certain programs, that's it. There's no reason to rebuild the interface/look, double the memory requirements and provide additional features, which are often useless. It's not the bad press, it's the usability - that's what companies care about and the reason, why they still use XP/2K for the most part.

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