Windows 8: Double-Checking Performance On Core i7-3770K

Features
By Manuel Masiero, Achim Roos
published

After giving Windows 8 our attention last week, we're following up with one more look at performance using a Core i7-3770K processor. Are there any aberrations to note, or does Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture demonstrate the same behavior as Bulldozer?

Benchmark Results: Audio And Video

Lame and iTunes are classics when it comes to converting music files, and they're only single-threaded, giving us a sense of per-core performance.

Conversely, HandBrake, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, and TotalCode Studio tax all available computing resources, fully utilizing the Core i7-3770K.

One-second differences between Windows 7 and 8 in some of these tests are as much as we see. At least in processor-bound tasks, Microsoft's latest won't necessarily help or hurt.

Manuel Masiero
44 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1
    You are using winrar 3.98 , which isnt big on multithreading. Winrar4.2 is a huge change from the older versions, with quite aggressive multithreading. Please drop the old version and use the newer. :)
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    most of these benchmarks are basically CPU bound. Can you do a mix test that does CPU + IO activity , like an Antivirus software ? or uncompressing 10GB+ rar/7z archives ?
    That would test if Microsoft has made changes in the scheduler to balance throughput VS response time.
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Well, at least things are on an overall even scale, unlike when vista came out and was decidely less snappy than XP. But with all the other modifications MS has made, such as the nice boost to start up and shut down speeds, its still "feels" faster than 7, even if it really isnt, overall. At any rate, I still dont feel this is "Vista 2" as a lot of people were making it out to be before launch.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    Overall Windows 8 doesn't improve over Windows 7 as both OSes are evenly matched and trade off performance over each other in diff benchmarks and you would think a newer OS like Windows 8 that is suppose to use less resources then Windows 7 should have outperformed Windows 7 across the board and yet it doesn't.
    Reply
  • agnickolov
    Alas, you skipped the Visual Studio benchmark. It showed slight aberration in Win7's favor on the AMD platform, so I was curious if that remained true for Intel as well.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    TheCapuletJust because it uses less ram, doesn't mean it just pulls extra performance out of it's ass.This isn't 2005. This is common knowledge by now.
    That has nothing to do with that. The less the host soruce uses from the system the better applications programs are to be able to utilize from the systems hardware more efficiently.
    Reply
  • manwell999
    Why bother doing performance comparisons if whenever the performance drops for the new version out comes the excuse "it will be fixed in the driver". What evidence is their to say this?

    A double-check means check-check, not check-excuse. Conclusions are drawn from the data at hand, not from speculation on what might be in the future.

    Otherwise cite the manufacturers acknowledgment that performance issues are going to be fixed and hold them to it.
    Reply
  • darkstar845
    Is there a way to customize windows 8 to make it look like the desktop picture in the first page?
    Reply
  • warmon6
    darkstar845Is there a way to customize windows 8 to make it look like the desktop picture in the first page?
    no. those are 2 different images (windows 7 and 8) that's been fused together.

    now, if you want that start button on windows 8, you could look at this article and try one of the 2 solutions they give.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/2012810/another-way-to-restore-the-windows-8-start-button-and-menu.html
    Reply
  • roflmaonow
    warmon6no. those are 2 different images (windows 7 and 8) that's been fused together.now, if you want that start button on windows 8, you could look at this article and try one of the 2 solutions they give.http://www.pcworld.com/article/201 -menu.html
    I just tried out pokki, it's really good for free program. Thanks for the heads up. I do like Start8 more though.
    Reply