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Test Results

And now we take a look at the test results in a nice, purdy chart. Every game was set to maximum settings. All sliders were pushed all the way to the right. This means that some games have a lower natural framerate than others.

The minimum reflects the lowest FPS from all samples, and the highest reflects the highest FPS from all samples. The average is the average of the three tests of the same resolution. The better scores are bolded. Fractions are rounded to the nearest 10th.

m= minimum FPS
M= maximum FPS
A= average FPS

	m: 19 M: 101 A: 70.8	m: 8 M: 83 A: 63.9	m: 22 M: 91 A: 56.2	m: 11 M: 70 A: 34.8	m: 30 M: 113 A: 62.2	m: 60 M: 107 A: 78.3	m: 10 M: 83 A: 41.3	m: 18 M: 96 A: 56.1
	m: 30 M: 36 A: 33.3	m: 26 M: 30 A: 29.1	m: 33 M: 37 A: 36	m: 21 M: 32 A: 31	m: 7 M: 26 A: 24.1	m: 10 M: 22 A: 19.8	m: 31 M: 36 A: 34.8	m: 17 M: 33 A: 29.2
	m: 86 M: 96 A: 91	m: 83 M: 118 A: 99.9	m: 61 M: 98 A: 85.2	m: 74 M: 116 A: 95.6	m: 69 M: 74 A: 72.7	m: 67 M: 83 A: 75.7	m: 86 M: 94 A: 91.2	m: 58 M: 81 A: 75.1
	m: 68 M: 146 A: 106	m: 102 M: 110 A: 107.3	m: 71 M: 142 A: 104.3	m: 122 M: 136 A: 131.9	m: 60 M: 111 A: 73.8	m: 53 M: 58 A: 54.5	m: 73 M: 147 A: 108.5	m: 73 M: 136 A: 105.3
	m: 25 M: 37 A: 30.7	m: 23 M: 30 A: 27.3	m: 12 M: 22 A: 16.2	m: 10 M: 16 A: 14.1	m: 28 M: 35 A: 33.5	m: 16 M: 27 A: 24.8	m: 13 M: 17 A: 15.9	m: 12 M: 20 A: 18.1
	m: 32 M: 86 A: 57.9	m: 45 M: 101 A: 66.5	m: 38 M: 77 A: 61.7	m: 39 M: 97 A: 74.8	m: 29 M: 56 A: 43.5	m: 34 M: 77 A: 55.1	m: 35 M: 50 A: 41.3	m: 82 M: 117 A: 112.1
	m: 41 M: 61 A: 54.9	m: 26 M: 61 A: 44.7	m: 30 M: 77 A: 57.6	m: 12 M: 63 A: 45.9	m: 14 M: 54 A: 37	m: 26 M: 50 A: 37.7	m: 24 M: 50 A: 34.4	m: 27 M: 56 A: 39.9
	m: 48 M: 97 A: 72.1	m: 61 M: 99 A: 88.4	m: 52 M: 98 A: 76.1	m: 15 M: 99 A: 80.1	m: 39 M: 91 A: 68.9	m: 86 M: 98 A: 95	m: 40 M: 89 A: 59.8	m: 54 M: 99 A: 89.8
	m: 23 M: 32 A: 27.3	m: 14 M: 62 A: 37.2	m: 17 M: 39 A: 28.5	m: 9 M: 50 A: 30.8	m: 17 M: 32 A: 25.9	m: 21 M: 31 A: 26.8	m: 15 M: 38 A: 30	m: 17 M: 45 A: 33.1

Taking the AVG score from the above data, we can now determine a few things. The biggest difference we see comes from LotRO at full screen 1920x1200. It comes to a whopping 171.4 percent faster on Windows 7. That, however, is a simple anomaly as every other result is within a much smaller threshold.

In Favor of Windows 7 (Majority)

Even though Win7 won the majority of the avg scores, it wasn't by many. 5 to 4 wins are marginal.

1024x768 Windowed - Windows 7 has 5 games faster by an average of 16.94%
1024x768 Full Screen - Windows 7 has 5 games faster by an average of 14.67%
1920x1200 Windowed - Windows 7 has 6 games faster by an average of 16.67%
1920x1200 Full Screen - Windows 7 has 6 games faster by an average of 49.58% (largely affected by the LotRO fluke)

In Favor of Windows Vista (Minority)

Windows 7 may have won the majority of comparisons, but not by much. It's worth taking a look at the results that favored Vista.

1024x768 Windowed - Vista has 4 games faster by an average of 15.13%
1024x768 Full Screen - Vista has 4 games faster by an average of 29.5%
1920x1200 Windowed - Vista has 3 games faster by an average of 30.73%
1920x1200 Full Screen - Vista has 3 games faster by an average of 14.5%

Conclusion

We see Windows 7 narrowly winning the majority, but as to why, it's only conjecture. Age of Conan plays better all around on Vista, but if LotRO's your game, you're better off with Win7. I looked for patterns between older games and newer games and came to a dead end there too.

What’s interesting though, is that even though Windows 7 won by a small margin, it’s actually a pretty impressive win. The OS is only a few weeks old, and we haven't seen many, if any, take advantage of it yet. Things like drivers and code optimization haven’t been done yet. The test rig was also one that relies heavily on optimization, particularly since the video cards are new and they’re running in Crossfire. DDR3 is also the variable that not many have set up, let alone optimized yet. The fact that it was able to weigh in at all against an OS that’s already had two service packs is a victory in itself. As time goes on drivers will be updated and games will be optimized and then, I’m quite confident, we’ll see these numbers really swing over to favor Win7.

But, I'm sure you have your own conclusions to draw from this test. Did I miss something? Let me know in the forums.