Windows XP vs Windows Vista vs Windows 7 using 512 MB

Ed Bott has a good benchmarking review of how Windows 7 handle 512 MB of memory when compared to Windows XP and Windows Vista. I had recently posted about a touchscreen 6000 MHz UMPC with 512 MB running Windows 7 nicely, so it shows that Windows 7 is indeed a step forward in terms of performance on low-end systems. Good news for all you netbook advocates out there ( I’m not one of you, sorry ! ), and bad news for all the Linux zealots as they’ve got competition now. The interesting thing about Ed’s benchmarking is that he used the x64 edition of Windows 7 Beta, x86 version of Windows Vista and don’t know which version of Windows XP.

To keep it fair, he updated all the operating systems with any critical and recommended updates available for them. No third party software was installed apart from Firefox on Windows XP. All these operating systems were testing in a virtual machine. Here are the memory and disk usage results:

XP Vista 7 Comparison Here’s a graph with numbers normalized with XP = 100:

Windows 7 uses less RAM and disk space than Vista

Although the comparison between x64 and x86 version of different operating systems doesn’t seem fair, it does tell a story of how improvements have been made from Vista to 7, and how much of a resource hog Vista was. I wouldn’t take these numbers as the final benchmark, as it’s just a Beta, which Microsoft themselves discouraged users to benchmark. We can hope these numbers to only improve if Microsoft sticks to its game plan with Windows 7. interesting times ahead.

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Technology enthusiast, Internet addict, photography fan, movie buff, music aficionado.

38 comments

  1. I would stic with Vista… not to dull n not too fancy… it works awsome than y need to change hun?

  2. I would stic with Vista… not to dull n not too fancy… it works awsome than y need to change hun?

    1. I think u mean other Win OS…
      personally I’d rather linux but if I have to choose a windows system… XP

  3. What should be the minimum requirement of the laptop to run win 7 on it? i have core 2 duo with 2 mb ram….what will be the performance of my sys. if i upgrade to win 7 ? any thoughts???

    Thanks in advance

    1. you said 2mb(its 2gb). It needs slightly more ram in laptop cause of having more drivers. 1gb would suffice to run os and some applications.

  4. Tarun
    # 11 Jan 2010 Monday 2:52 pm

    What should be the minimum requirement of the laptop to run win 7 on it? i have core 2 duo with 2 mb ram….what will be the performance of my sys. if i upgrade to win 7 ? any thoughts???

    Thanks in advance
    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    huh? 2mb ram? lol

  5. Hello
    I used win xp ,vista & 7 for 7 i had a lot of problens regarding drivers.
    Look my audio,display or any driver dosen’t work.
    Can someone help.I know my system may be old or something,but this is too much.
    I May switch back to XP.
    Please Help.

    1. I wouldn’t expect a really old system to be totally compatible with Windows 7. Plus, it’s the hardware manufacturer’s fault if they haven’t provided/updated drivers for Windows 7 compatibility. Sorry to hear about your bad experience with 7.

  6. i have 2 gb ddr2 ram
    p4 and 2.26 ghz (motherboard -zebronics)
    im confused that between using xp or win 7 ?
    i want better perfomance

  7. ftw!! pc players and xbox 360 players ($)($) save money with xbox wait are we talking about os’s oh well i have a vista #32 but i like tinkering with it but im gonna put win 7 in soon but apart from vista mostly is that vista is alot more resourcive than win7 also that win7 looks much more neat than vista

    also xp is not good the only good things about xp is that its good for burning, gaming and its good on really small laptops but if theres someting better about xp that win7 and vista doesn’t have please tell me i want to know

  8. Performance:
    vista = 1/5
    xp = 4/5
    7 = 3,5/5
    ubuntu = 4.5/5
    fedora = 4/5
    Osx = 3/5

    well, i am using ubuntu fedora and xp atm :) i deleted vista cause they sucked..

    Also. my sisters netbook runs in xp and it was faster than my vista laptop T_T

  9. looks like alot of ppl dont understand how win7 works here :P
    win7 uses more ram the more ram you have, i have 6GB ram, my win7 uses about 1.1GB idle newly installed, dont mean its slow its fast like hell! and thats the point to why it uses more ram.
    win7 is 99% as fast as XP (xp wins sometimes win7 windows sometimes) the only reason i use win7 is that it can search thru my full 1000GB drive, and my 500gb OS drive in less then one secound and find well w/e file i now search for. xp never been able to do that :P

    1. Surely Xp could do it if you properly configure some file indexing service.

  10. I love my XP and so do a lot of my friends. I even ordered a Sony laptop with XP in the after market because I liked it so much. Not everyone wants every bell and whistle on their computer. My husband has a Vista laptop and I wish we did not. It is frustrating finding things and not very intuitive. Even my husband asks me to do some of the functions since he can't getthe hang of it.
    Please bring back an upgraded version of the XP or I start to use my MAC for every day use.

  11. My experience with XP has been good for the most part as opposed to Vista which has been a nightmare. Here in Greece they call it Svista (svista in Greek means “wipe them off”). As far as Windows 7 is concerned I just removed this operating system from a brand new Packard Bell laptop and replaced it with XP. There is a slim chance I may use Windows 7 – service pack 10, after a couple of years if it will prove itself in the field.
    I regret the fact that you are forcing your new products down our throats.
    I regret the fact that I have to pay for your defective software and then throw it down the drain. I wish I had the option to purchase my EASYNOTE MH36, without the Windows 7 OS installed, at a lower price.

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