(WCPI): Windows 7 More Efficient than Vista or XP

While Windows 7 may have weight issues, there’s no disputing it’s a very responsive OS. Microsoft has gone to tremendous lengths to ensure that the end-user experience with Windows 7 is a positive one. So it comes as no surprise that, upon reviewing processor-related system metrics data from our network of over 23,000 Windows IT sites, we found Windows 7 to be quite efficient “under the hood.”

An analysis of the latest WCPI numbers shows that Windows 7 systems are, on average, making more efficient use of the processing resources available to them. For example, on our Peak CPU Saturation calculation, Windows 7 systems scored an average index value of 90, vs. 93 for Windows XP. Meanwhile, Windows 7’s immediate predecessor, Windows Vista, turned in a disturbingly high index score of 158 (Snapshot Date: 2/20/2010).

Figure 1 – Current WCPI Index Values (Interactive)

Note: The Peak CPU Saturation Index is derived by comparing the System\Processor Queue Length value against a predefined threshold – in this case, a maximum of 2 waiting ready threads per physical CPU (e.g. a quad core CPU would be flagged when the queue exceeded an average of 8 waiting threads over a 60 second sample period). This data is then further qualified by searching for sequential occurrence patterns within the raw data points in order to identify those peak utilization events that will most directly impact processor throughput.

Needless to say, this is good news for Windows 7 adopters and also confirms our own internal research into multi-core scalability under the three widely deployed Windows desktop OS. Clearly, Windows 7 is making good on Microsoft’s promise to better support key multi-core concepts, like NUMA node affinity,