The power of the new system: Win7, Vista

Windows7 is slower than XP? It is necessary to distinguish between conditions and circumstances. After all, in the era of XP, at that time, multi-core and dual-core have not yet reached the family. Of course, now more than four core processors have begun to gradually enter the ordinary computer.

Thanks to Win7 for the multi-core delivery soon

In January of last year, I used to perform multicore/multiprocessor performance on Win7, Vista and XP on various platforms. Detailed evaluation. At the time, my conclusion was that Windows 7 and Vista could provide better scalability when scaling from single core to dual core and quad core architecture, but in my opinion, this advantage was not enough for Win7 to be heavy. Work more comprehensively replaces the more streamlined and efficient XP. Of course, it is very certain that with the development of multi-core technology and the increasing number of cores, the excellent scalability of the Windows 7 and Vista cores will help it surpass XP in a comprehensive and rapid manner in various applications.

One year has passed quickly. Let's see what has changed! This time I used a new dual quad-core Xeon 5500 HP Z800 workstation. The test results made me very happy: Win7 not only caught up with XP, but also exceeded 47% or even 178% in terms of multiple indicators. In addition, whether it is a single quad-core or dual quad-core, Windows 7 on this Z800 shows far more scalability than others. It seems that Microsoft claims to enhance Windows 7 multi-core functionality is not an empty talk.

Simply put, Windows 7 performs significantly better than XP when running heavy multitasking on advanced multicore chips. Considering that the design of PC hardware is making great strides toward multicore, this advantage should be enough for anyone to jump into the ranks of Windows 7.

The reason for Windows 7 killer

There are several factors that contribute to the advantages of Win7 on multiple cores. For example, the adoption of NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) technology has made the computing density higher. In addition, Nehalem's QPI (Quick Path Interconnect) architecture replaces Intel's many years of front-side bus architecture through memory controllers. Let the CPU directly access the physical memory.

Of course, without the support of the operating system, NUMA and QPI have nowhere to play, which is why the multi-core adjustment of Windows 7 is so important. Without it, Intel and AMD processors are even stronger. Performance improvements cannot be passed to users.

Windows 7 killer makes you smarter

Windows XP is a great operating system, which must be proven by the fact that it has occupied the throne for nearly 10 years. However, when faced with the complex multi-core support of Windows 7, XP has to admit that it is old.

In contrast, Windows 7's perspective is more nuanced, it can understand the difference between single-core CPU and multi-core CPU, NUMA design also helps it to play freely in a multi-processor environment. In summary, these emerging processor technologies make the Win7 kernel smarter, better manage the underlying hardware, and manage threads and allocate memory more reasonably.

Of course, everything must be said with evidence. Although Microsoft has said from the beginning that Windows 7 will surpass XP in a multi-core system, it is easier said than done. In fact, on my mobile workstation, in the case of dual-core, the performance of Windows 7 is far behind XP. In the case of quad-core, the performance of both sides is not too much. Fortunately, I was psychologically prepared. After using the new 8 core (16 threads) indicator, Win7 finally left XP far behind, whether it was SQL database (47% faster), MAPI workflow (fast 178%). Still a multimedia player task.

In terms of scalability, Windows 7 beat XP in the case of single-processor 4-core and dual-processor 8-core. Windows 7 performs twice as much as XP in SQL database tasks, and Windows 7 is up to 360% of XP when completing MAPI workflow tasks.

All in all, this is a major win for Windows 7, and the new operating system clearly provides strong support for multi-core processors, simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) and NUMA. Although Windows 7 did not completely surpass XP until the 8 core, the increase was enough to make people happy, which deepened my admiration for the Windows kernel development team, these guys really know how to operate the lowest hardware platform.

The Future of Windows 7 Killer

Obviously, those who use multi-core workstations will soon get the benefits of Windows 7. The list of potential beneficiaries does not end there, and the new generation of Core i7 PCs and notebook users will also enjoy a leap in performance from Windows 7's smarter code/cache management and multi-core tuning.

Regardless of how you look at the results of the test, Win7 and its basic kernel architecture have clearly pointed the way for future PC development. Obviously, Microsoft has built a powerful and highly scalable multi-core operating system based on Windows 7, and they will continue to plan the blueprint for future operating systems.