Iii years ago we were benchmarking Microsoft'southward and so latest operating organization, Windows eight. At the fourth dimension we were neat to brand sure Windows 8 performed as well equally Windows 7, which was a huge upgrade from 2006's Windows Vista.

In the terminate, we determined that Windows viii was on par with 7 and at times a fraction faster, leading us to this decision in our functioning review:

"Looking beyond benchmarks, Windows eight appears more polished than Windows seven, even if you program to live on the desktop and aren't too fond of the Kickoff screen, full general usage is smoother and appears to be faster on Windows 8, which I found well-nigh noticeable on our somewhat underpowered Athlon Two X4 organization. If anything, information technology's a great commencement. At present the Metro/Modern style will take to prove itself every bit a cross-platform OS that marries desktop, laptop and tablet PCs."

It's obvious now that the 'Metro' Start screen was an ballsy failure and in my opinion it was the but real issue with Windows 8, equally I thoroughly enjoyed using the operating system with Classic Beat out installed.

Fortunately, Microsoft learned from its mistakes and addressed some of Windows 8's shortcomings in Windows ten, which we believe is the best version yet, if only for its improved looks and functionality across devices and course factors.

After running the beta for months, I installed Windows 10 on launch day with the impression that it was relatively fast and stable, though it remained to be seen precisely how fast information technology was compared to Windows 8.1 and the love Windows 7.

That'due south what we plan to find out today as we test various aspects of the operating organisation including kick up and shutdown times, file copying, encoding, browsing, gaming and some synthetic benchmarks.

Test Arrangement Specs

All iii operating systems were tested using a fresh install with all the updates applied and and so our test software installed. The exact aforementioned hardware was used for each configuration with the only difference being the OS used.

  • Intel Cadre i5-4670K (3.4GHz - iii.8GHz)
  • Asrock Z97 Extreme6
  • 8GB DDR3-2400 RAM
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 980
  • Crucial MX200 1TB
  • SilverStone Essential Gilt 750w
  • Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit, Windows 10 Pro 64-flake

Boot, Sleep & Hibernate Functioning

Using BootRacer nosotros measured the time it took for Windows to kicking. Windows eight.1 delivered the best result taking just four seconds opposed to six seconds on Windows 10, from the Windows logo to usable desktop.

Manually measuring kick time with a stopwatch delivered similar results, though in realistic terms I struggled to find existent differences, with the three operating systems just ane or two seconds apart from each other on a fresh install.

Surely these results volition vary depending on hardware used, configuration and state of the operating arrangement afterwards months of use, patching and tertiary political party apps taking its inevitable cost. Nosotros know our hardware was identical for all three Bone configurations, so with this setup Windows 10 does appear slightly slower at booting.

Here nosotros measured the time information technology takes for the system to wake upwardly from slumber. The exam stops the moment the desktop is loaded and we induced sleep with a custom shortcut.

Windows seven takes quite long to wake from sleep -- 17 seconds on average. Windows 8.ane is considerably faster taking just 12 seconds, though Windows 10 was able to improve on this shaving off an additional ii seconds.

Editor's annotation (Update): Many readers have pointed out how tedious these wake up from sleep times are compared to your laptop where either version wakes up almost instantaneously. The reason is that we ran all tests in a desktop PC, where Windows defaults to Hybrid Sleep. Hybrid sleep is a combination of slumber and hibernate meant to prevent users from losing piece of work in case of a power failure.

The wake upwardly from hibernation results are like to wake from sleep. Hither Windows ten took simply 21 seconds, while Windows 8.1 was slightly slower taking 23 seconds and so Windows 7 at 27 seconds.