ActiveWin.com - The Most Activated Windows Resource

ActiveWin

User Controls

New User

Edit/View My Profile

Active Network

ActiveMac

ActiveWin

ActiveXbox

DirectX

Downloads

FAQs

Interviews

MS Games & Hardware

Reviews

Rocky Bytes

Support Center

TopTechTips

Windows 2000

Windows Me

Windows Server 2003

Windows Vista

Windows XP

News Centers

Windows/Microsoft

Apple/Mac

Xbox/Xbox 360

News Search

XML/RSS Newsfeeds

Pocket PC Site

FAQ's

Windows Vista

Windows 98/98 SE

Windows 2000

Windows Me

Windows Server 2003

Windows XP

Windows 7

Windows 8

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 5

Xbox 360

Xbox

DirectX

DVD's

Latest Reviews

Xbox/Games

Fable 2

Applications

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7

Adobe CS5 Master Collection

Hardware

Microsoft Express Mouse

Latest Interviews

Mike Swanson

Site News/Info

About This Site

Advertise

Affiliates

Default Home Page

Link To Us

Benchmarks fail to explain why Vista falters and Server 2008 succeeds

Time: 05:52 EST/10:52 GMT | News Source: Blorge | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum

Microsoft would like us to believe that Windows Vista and Server 2008 are basically the same and use the same codebase but the two differ slightly in certain areas. It appears that Server 2008 performs better in almost every sense of the term but benchmarks have failed to pin down the exact reason why.

We previously reported that Server 2008 performed almost 20% faster in some cases than what is supposed be its closely related cousin, Vista.

The Register reports that part of the reason that Server 2008 doesn’t get the same negative press that Vista does is because it delivers features that people actually want.

Read Only Comments
Return to News

Displaying Comments 1 through 11 of 11

This is an archived static copy of ActiveWin.com.

#1 By 88850 (221.128.147.185) at Sunday, April 20, 2008 01:06:06 PM

Or probably because Windows Server 2008 doesn't fall under the Vista bashing zone. People are seeing what they want to see and don't see what they don't want to.

#2 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at Sunday, April 20, 2008 10:47:05 PM

tux: The word "falters" may not be a proper description of the issue at hand. There are many postings of test results where Vista was benchmarked against Server 2008 on the same machines, many with the exact same services running. Server 2008 always performed better than Vista. There may be an underlying reason for the results that we may never learn. The tests do lead one to speculate that Vista may not be optimized, yet. Here is one blog post with test figures: http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2008/03/windows-2008-vista-done-right.html

#3 By 17996 (66.235.18.153) at Monday, April 21, 2008 12:33:53 AM

I still doubt the validity of the results. For one, the blogger mentions enabling the "Indexing service" on Server 2008, however Indexing service is separate from Windows Search. That and calling it the "Windows 6.1 code base" (it's not 6.1, it's 6.0 SP1 -- Windows 7 is 6.1) makes me quite skeptical.

#4 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at Monday, April 21, 2008 07:08:47 AM

From the moment I installed 2008 I could see the something that Vista didn't have - eye popping responsiveness. Granted, my comparisons are hardly scientific, but based on my own perceptions, 2008 smokes Vista. You would think that with all of these sites comparing them, that someone could figure out where the Vista bottleneck is.

#5 By 25488 (69.7.160.42) at Monday, April 21, 2008 10:39:06 AM

Are these tests done with Aera enabled and the classic desktop on 2008? might try turning them off so that the desktops resemble each other and test.

#6 By 72426 (69.109.8.160) at Monday, April 21, 2008 05:58:13 PM

#2 - Most of these sites and tests are questionable at best, as #3 expressed properly.

In addtion to what #3 said, also note they are using "OfficeBench" and a test script. Why didn't they post faster FPS, faster Adobe performance, faster Vista Aero FPS, anything substantial? Because this is the only test they could get some difference... And the reason that there might be a slight difference is that Windows 2008 is optimized for scripting, as this is what is at the backbone of administration tasks and IIS7 is all scripting responsive.

So Windows 2008 maybe be optimized to cache scripting a little better or prioritize it, but that doesn't mean there is difference in the code base, nor would this have any impact on 99.9% of the applications a user would run. Also Windows 2008's server role optimizations have a greater chance of lowering the performance of single applications or gaming, etc.

As for the code base, has anyone actually ripped the DLLs and EXEs apart? From what my techs and developers can tell me, the files are identical between Vista SP1 and Windows 2008.

#4 Could this 'responsiveness' be your 'expected' results, the fact the system didn't have anything loaded, etc? Our labs cannot find a performance difference between Vista and Windows 2008 with Aero On/Off, at least not something that would be noticeable as the benchmarks flex less than 1-2% on each side.

#5 PS If you turn off Aero and expect 'better' performance in Vista you are mislead by the foolish media. Aero enables the low level GPU optimizations for processing GDI+/WPF drawing at low level, as well as enabling the shared texture composer that Vista uses. The Shared texture method that Vista's Aero/Composer uses, can even speed up games running in a Window with Aero on, as it writes the desktop and application to the GPU transparently (not double buffered like Linux or OS X's composers do).

Aero may be billed as eye candy by the press, but it also enables the best parts of the Vista drawing optimizations, as you will notice even displaying a bitmap will use 3D GPU functions to process the bitmap to be displayed faster, as well as faster text rendering, and even some GDI+ line drawing functions are optimized with the 3D engine.

So if you want the BEST performance, even on a Geforce FX 5200 video card with 64mb of RAM, is to turn on Aero and turn off transparency. However on most newer cards, the Border transparency (Glass) has little to NO performance impact, this is why Powermizer on NVidia and the ATI power saving features can turn down even the 2004 Video cards like a Geforce 6600 or 6800 to 100/200mhz or 200/300 with Aero on from a clock rate that is 650/800 as the card normally runs for games. (This is how 'light' Aero is in terms of GPU usage, as most Video cards kick down to 2D clock speeds and still do Aero effortlessly.)

#7 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at Monday, April 21, 2008 06:24:11 PM

I have to agree with the above comments. I have played around with Server 2008 on the same system that I have Vista loaded and I notice no real difference between the two. I even did some quick benchmarks and everything looks close with no major differences between them.

I am starting to doubt all the Vista/2008 numbers that I am seeing. Example there was an article posted from popular mechanics that showed Apple hardware being the fastest Vista hardware. It was strange because all the numbers seemed way out of whack from my own experience. The Asus laptop they tested took 1 minute 51 seconds to boot Vista. My XPS 1330 (1.8GHz DC, 3GB RAM, 160GB 7200RPM HD) on battery boots to the logon screen in 38 seconds when starting Vista SP1. It just seems to add fuel to the Vista bashing fire when everything in my experience has been the opposite of numbers like this.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4258725.html

#8 By 7754 (75.72.153.112) at Monday, April 21, 2008 07:46:46 PM

kaikara--likewise. I finally timed a boot of a fully-loaded (AV, all apps, etc.) OptiPlex 745 (2 GB RAM, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, Intel graphics), and it was 41 seconds from pressing power to login screen. XP would likely boot a bit faster, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over 10 seconds. Coming back after lunch, it's more responsive than XP was, and I do that far more often than I reboot.

#9 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at Tuesday, April 22, 2008 09:47:12 AM

#4: Exactly my experience. Said that I would add that other people experience could be different.
#8 Out of curiosity: have you checked the time it takes to get a full functional desktop? on my Dell XPS 720/4GB RAM the elapsed time from pressing power to login screen is usually close to yours although sometimes takes much longer, not sure why though.
What it takes forever is from login to a functional desktop, roughly 90 to 120 seconds.
To be fair I should add the the box is part of a Domain.

#10 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:19:40 AM

#9

It always takes roughly the same time for me. My laptop is part of a domain and I just restarted and logged in. From dead start to login screen was 35-40 seconds. Going from login screen to desktop will be different for everyones computer. If the system is stock from a manufacturer imagine all the crap programs starting up. My laptop has very few programs running on startup. I tried it 3 times and I am getting a usable desktop (sidebar up, all startup apps running) in about 15-20 seconds after i enter the password. This is the same experience on all the Vista systems I have setup I have never seen excessively long boot or shutdown times.

The funny thing is this is meaningless to me anyways. The sleep function is so good I use it exclusively now. From open lid to login screen - 3 to 5 seconds and then under 5 seconds to enter password and desktop back up with all running apps. I only really reboot my laptop when I want to go into Ubuntu or am doing a system change that requires it.

#11 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:27:27 AM

#10: Thanks for the info. I did a clean install of Vista 64 Ultimate. Unfortunately, thanks to HP that does not have a 64 bit version of the software for our 2840 Printer/Copy/Scanner whenever I need to scan documents I have to reboot to XP.
Of course the printer is labeled "Vista ready" (-:

This post was edited by Fritzly on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 10:27.

replica watches