In Betanews tests involving Web browsers running on both operating systems on the same computer, the speed increase was definite and measurable

By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 28, 2009, 3:59 PM

If you've been testing the final Windows 7 Release Candidate on your own physical platforms, and you wonder what's giving you that feeling that it's just a bit peppier, a tad zippier, it's not an illusion. Betanews tests all this week, concluding today, comparing all the major stable release and development Windows-based Web browsers, running on exactly the same physical computer with fresh Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 RC partitions, confirmed what our eyes and gut feelings were telling us: On average, most browsers ran 11.9% faster in Windows 7 than on the same machine running Vista SP2, with most speed gains falling right around that mark.

Internet Explorer 8, for example, runs 15% faster in Windows 7 than in Vista SP2, in multiple tests whose results were within one another by a hundredth of a point. Using our performance index as a guide, if you consider the relatively slow Internet Explorer 7 in Vista SP2 as a 1.00, then in a fresh test of IE8 on the same platform, the newer browser in Vista SP2 scored a 2.03 -- performing generally better than double its predecessor. But in Windows 7, the score for IE8 rises to a 2.27.


Original article here