Switched to Win8, Benchmark Results Inside

[bmwman91]

Since I basically have free access to legal copies of Win8 Pro, I thought that I would "keep with the times" and give it a shot. My initial reaction to Win8 when it was released was "WTF" but that is mostly because I grew up using Windows and haven't really encountered any appreciable learning curve with it for many years. Although it is not perfect, a place like MSFT probably has teams of smart folks working on the UI experience, and I do believe that, if I were to start using a PC today for the first time, the new interface would probably be "better" in various quantitative and qualitative aspects. It never feels that way when you have to un-learn stuff, but it is what it is. MSFT is sort of backed into a corner where their bread and butter is the enterprise space where the users are generally older and wary of changes to the UI, while at the same time younger users probably don't see as much relevance in a "dinosauric" UI despite the fact that it is still perfectly good. Changing Windows to "get with the times" may appeal to the younger crowd that will someday join the workforce, but it pisses off much of the current workforce lol. Anyway...

So, I wanted to get a quantifiable idea of how Windows 8 Pro performs versus Windows 7 Ultimate, which I was running. I ran a variety of free tests to try to determine this. One obvious oversight was timing how long it takes to go from a cold boot to opening Firefox. While I did forget to time that, Windows 8 is a bit faster. I do recall Windows 7 taking ~29 seconds to go from hitting the power button to opening Firefox in tests a while back. Windows 8 is accomplishing this in about 25 seconds. In both instances this is also counting the time it takes me to swipe my fingerprint to log in.

Machine setup:


Test results:


Any difference of 3% or less is what I would consider "noise" here. So, take the light green/red numbers with a grain of salt. Differences greater than 3% are what I am considering significant.

Quantitative Conclusions:
- 3D performance is the same (expected)
- 2D performance is a little less overall
- SSD performance is mostly the same, except for 4K random R/W with a queue depth of 32 (QD32) which was significantly lower. Honestly, I don't know what a practical interpretation of this would be.
- CPU performance in Prime95 is the same
- CPU performance in Passmark is better overall, probably because Passmark is newer and makes better use of Win8's multi-threading capabilities
- Memory performance is the same (expected)
- Win8 uses slightly less RAM (surprising)

Qualitative Conclusions:
- Win8 "feels" faster, in terms of boot and program loading
- The UI is smoother and pleasant
- The Metro interface is growing on me. Initially I was wondering why they "were putting a tablet UI in a PC OS" but that's not really the case. Metro is perfectly fine for mouse/keyboard usage if you make an earnest effort to unlearn some old habits.
- The UI just feels "cleaner" overall

So, I think that I will stick with Win8 from here. There have not been any compatibility issues yet. Now, there were a couple of oddities when it came to installing the Intel chipset drivers (you want the latest INF Update Utility, the Matrix Storage / Rapid Storage drivers are no longer applicable). Once I figured that out though, everything was A-OK!

[farmall]

Are any devices on your T61P not supported natively, such as "base system device" (card reader) which 7 doesn't have native drivers for?

[jayton4]

Were the Windows 7 tests recorded a long time ago or right before the upgrade? If it was some time ago, perhaps the SSD could benefit from a secure erase with Parted Magic.

[bmwman91]

Are any devices on your T61P not supported natively, such as "base system device" (card reader) which 7 doesn't have native drivers for?

Everything worked out "out of the box" so to speak. I updated everything anyway, but there were no problems. Now, I have no idea if the card reader works because this is a T60p/Frankenpad and there is no card reader with this mobo FRU.

[bmwman91]

Were the Windows 7 tests recorded a long time ago or right before the upgrade? If it was some time ago, perhaps the SSD could benefit from a secure erase with Parted Magic.

The windows 7 tests were done the day before my switch to Win8.

Based on my experience, wiping the SSD does not seem to have any effect on performance whatsoever, which makes sense to me. Have you had a different experience?

Anyway, despite the lower QD32 random r/w benchmark, I have not noticed any difference in actual use and things generally feel faster with Win8. Oh, and the screen brightness can be adjusted continuously, rather than in 15 steps. So, you can really set the brightness to any arbitrary level. The lowest brightness setting is basically "OFF" and you can work up from there.

[TuuS]

Thanks for the feedback on windows 8. I agree I found it both annoying and insulting that microsoft would assume that the consumers always want things "new and exciting". Not everyone is an enthusiast, some people just want to check their email and browse the web and find it annoying when they are forced to relearn simple tasks. This simple fact destroyed the once hugely popular myspace website. They would force change on people and when users started to vanish they assumed they were bored so they made more change followed by more leaving... finally a major update forced a mass exodus when everyone was forced to recode their entire page or be unable to do anything at all. I agree with you that it may be a great GUI and when things slow down I'll take the time to learn it.... wait... that will never happen, so WTF is microsoft thinking??? lol

Humor aside, I know I'll need to learn and support it soon, but I'm still not happy with the changes to the GUI. I still recall a woman crying on the phone to me because she didn't know how to use Vista back in 2006. She was used to pressing the "start" button and couldn't figure out what to do because there was no start button. It's hard to believe but some people really don't deal with change very well.

Gui aside, it seems from your report that performance is only marginally better in some areas, so I don't think I'd recommend anyone forking over good money for it. I'm sure if you have a touchscreen it has some advantages, but for the average laptop I think I'll go with what makes the most sense (or cents), as in leaving as much "cents" in my bank account as possible. I also feel microsoft has gotten more then enough money from me for one lifetime so I'm more likely to wait until we start getting win8 systems in liquidation.

Thank you very much for sharing, as usual your posts are an asset to this forum and this is one of the best win8 reviews I've seen having all the important raw data and meaningful observations and didn't invoke a single "yawn" even with it being nearly 3am here.

[farmall]

Excellent to have a set of T61 benchmarks and info. Great thread.

I don't mind Windows 8 since I immediately install Classic Shell, but MSFT should have made the login screen the place to toggle between tablet and conventional interfaces depending on how the machine is being used.

Windows 8 runs well for me in a Virtualbox VM on my T61 (T9500,8GB,1TB WD 5400 rpm spinner, CentOS host OS).

[bmwman91]

Thanks for the feedback on windows 8. I agree I found it both annoying and insulting that microsoft would assume that the consumers always want things "new and exciting". Not everyone is an enthusiast, some people just want to check their email and browse the web and find it annoying when they are forced to relearn simple tasks. This simple fact destroyed the once hugely popular myspace website. They would force change on people and when users started to vanish they assumed they were bored so they made more change followed by more leaving... finally a major update forced a mass exodus when everyone was forced to recode their entire page or be unable to do anything at all. I agree with you that it may be a great GUI and when things slow down I'll take the time to learn it.... wait... that will never happen, so WTF is microsoft thinking??? lol

Humor aside, I know I'll need to learn and support it soon, but I'm still not happy with the changes to the GUI. I still recall a woman crying on the phone to me because she didn't know how to use Vista back in 2006. She was used to pressing the "start" button and couldn't figure out what to do because there was no start button. It's hard to believe but some people really don't deal with change very well.

Gui aside, it seems from your report that performance is only marginally better in some areas, so I don't think I'd recommend anyone forking over good money for it. I'm sure if you have a touchscreen it has some advantages, but for the average laptop I think I'll go with what makes the most sense (or cents), as in leaving as much "cents" in my bank account as possible. I also feel microsoft has gotten more then enough money from me for one lifetime so I'm more likely to wait until we start getting win8 systems in liquidation.

Thank you very much for sharing, as usual your posts are an asset to this forum and this is one of the best win8 reviews I've seen having all the important raw data and meaningful observations and didn't invoke a single "yawn" even with it being nearly 3am here.

I hear you on the aversion to the new GUI. In the end, there are really only a few key differences, and giving them a shot has seemed worth it. I actually like the Metro/tile screen. Basically, I removed all of the junk that came in there and use it like a glorified Start menu lol. Of course, there isn't really any hurry for anyone to switch since performance benchmarks don't really show much compelling data. I do feel like web browsing is smoother, possibly because Win8 makes better use of the GPU for 2D rendering.

[bmwman91]

Excellent to have a set of T61 benchmarks and info. Great thread.

I don't mind Windows 8 since I immediately install Classic Shell, but MSFT should have made the login screen the place to toggle between tablet and conventional interfaces depending on how the machine is being used.

Windows 8 runs well for me in a Virtualbox VM on my T61 (T9500,8GB,1TB WD 5400 rpm spinner, CentOS host OS).

Yeah, that is how I felt ever since Win8 came out. The Metro/tile screen seemed like something that ONLY belongs on a touch screen. I am sure that results vary depending on the user, but I am actually finding it to be perfectly fine for a mouse/keyboard setup too.

[gizmothegreen]

I have an x61t and win8 seems to bot only marginally faster than win7. about 3-4 seconds faster. I have an SSD.

I prefer startisback instead of classic shell, it has better integration and you can pretty much prevent the startscreen entirely, boots directly to desktop and functions exactly like the win7 startmenu

[amoul]

despite the lower QD32 random r/w benchmark, I have not noticed any difference in actual use and things generally feel faster with Win8. Oh, and the screen brightness can be adjusted continuously, rather than in 15 steps. So, you can really set the brightness to any arbitrary level. The lowest brightness setting is basically "OFF" and you can work up from there.

[bmwman91]

So I got a new X230 at work, to replace my W520 (as weird as that statement sounds). Since switching roles at my employer, I find myself traveling 30+ times per year, and lugging the W520 was sort of sucking. Since I was due for a PC refresh, I decided to run with an X230 since the HD4000 graphics are actually pretty capable, the IPS screen is great (despite 1366x768 limiting screen space) and the size/weight is much more pleasant to travel with. The X1C was a consideration, until I saw the screen on it. My coworkers had X1C's and X230's, and side-by-side, the X230's IPS screen blows the X1C's TN panel away by a mile.

Anyway, I thought that it would be fun to run the same benchmarks on the X230 to see how far technology has come since the T61p. System specs are: Core i7-3520M, HD4000 graphics, 8GB of PC12800 RAM, 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD, Win8 Enterprise, all latest drivers, latest BIOS from Lenovo. And of course a full helping of corporate imaged crapware to bog things down.

GPU
Furmark, 800x600, 120 seconds - 804 frames (3.9x faster than Frankenpad)

CPU
Prime95 8192k FFT 1 Thread Avg - 62.936ms (2.2x faster than Frankenpad)
Prime95 8192k FFT 2 Thread Avg - 69.943ms (1.4x faster than Frankenpad)
Prime95 8192k FFT 4 Thread Avg - 38.477ms (2.5x faster than Frankenpad's 2-Thread)
M35000011 Factors 61b - 2.099ms (1.7x faster than Frankenpad)
M35000011 Factors 66b - 3.371ms (1.9x faster than Frankenpad)
M35000011 Factors 77b - 3.243ms (1.9x faster than Frankenpad)

HDD/SSD
CDMx64 Seq-Rd 5x100MB - 436.0MB/s (1.7x faster than Frankenpad)
CDMx64 Seq-Wrt 5x100MB - 231.8MB/s (SAME as Frankenpad)
CDMx64 512k-Rd 5x100MB - 392.3MB/s (1.9x faster than Frankenpad)
CDMx64 512k-Wrt 5x100MB - 233.6MB/s (1.1x faster than Frankenpad)
CDMx64 4k-Rd 5x100MB - 25.0MB/s (1.5x faster than Frankenpad)
CDMx64 4k-Wrt 5x100MB - 41.6MB/s (1.05x faster than Frankenpad)
CDMx64 4kQD32-Rd 5x100MB - 316.7MB/s (2.5x faster than Frankenpad)
CDMx64 4kQD32-Wrt 5x100MB - 161.3MB/s (1.8x faster than Frankenpad)


The i7-3520M runs at 2.9GHz with 4 threads, 3.4GHz with 2 threads and 3.6GHz with 1 thread. Clocks on the HD4000 run at 1250MHz core / 800MHz memory during Furmark. So, the core speed on the GPU is ~3X faster than that of my NVS 140M, and the CPU runs 21% faster with 2 threads. The results below show that the CPU and GPU in the X230 are considerably faster, clock-for-clock. It is odd that the 2-thread case is not all that much faster versus my X9000 when the 1-thread case is much faster (obviously the 4 thread case is a lot faster than the X9000's best / 2 thread case).

If I can find some time this week, I want to run these tests on my work W520 too so that I can see how a quad core i7 and dedicated workstation GPU stack up in this.

Based on the performance of the X230, and its awesome form factor, I actually think that it is a worthy replacement for the T6x line. As much as people are scared of the new keyboard, it is actually the BEST laptop keyboard that I have ever used. Seriously, these new Lenovo island/chiclet keyboards may LOOK like the same annoying trash found on most other laptops, but it types GREAT. There is some concavity to the keys, the spacing is great and they have plenty of press depth. I am going to say that I like the new Thinkpad keyboards MORE than I like the classic ones...with a caveat. I miss having 7 rows of keys and I miss the forward/back keys that used to live above the arrows. There is also no Pause/Break key, which means it takes a little longer for me to get to the device manager, but that is no biggie.

I will probably replace my Frankenpad with an X240, or whatever hits the market next year. The Haswell platform looks like it will provide a nice boost to computing power, both in the CPU and (especially) GPU departments. I hope hope HOPE that they continue to give an IPS screen option, except maybe 1600x900. That resolution in this size of screen would be great in my opinion. Heck, 1920x1080 would be even better, although I would need some text zooming for sure! And if Lenovo does anything too terrible to the lineup by then, I will happily pick up a used X230!