Benchmark Software For Windows 7 Rollout? 215
tdisalvo writes "We are doing a Windows 7 rollout and I will have to compare major PC vendors. I am looking for vendor-neutral tests that will give me the data I need to present an educated opinion to my CIO. Clear, pretty charts are nice since it is for C level execs, and we need to make it understandable for nontechnical as well as technical people. More specifically, I am looking for something that will clearly show how the same processor performs (better or worse) with a particular build, motherboard, RAM, power supply, etc. My plan is to get very similar machines from major vendors and see which one's build has the highest independent benchmarks. Something with which I could test multiple computers and report on the differences in score would be ideal."
As usual, free is an advantage.
Multiple software produces the best result (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Multiple software produces the best result (Score:5, Insightful)
What a waste of time and effort. Firstly some machines will perform better on some benchmarks than others. Secondly there are costs, availability, configuration, reliability and many other factors to evaluate. Its hard to believe you are going to look at a few percent performance differences (if that much). After all, PCs are practically the definition of a commodity market. You might be better off picking the machines with the best paint jobs. You ought to get a job at the Pentagon where they specialize in meaningless power point slides.
Re:Multiple software produces the best result (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I have to agree with this, came here to say the same thing. Benchmarks have their uses, but chances are the real world difference between similarly-built machines is not going to be significant. Let's be honest here: Unless you're doing a roll-out to a bunch of coders or CIA Photoshop experts, chances are most of these PC's are going to be running a web browser, a groupware client, and a document/spreadsheet editor like 75% of the time.
Choosing a PC vendor based on price, reliability, and service is going to be far more useful and have a far greater RIO than picking the one that scored 5 points higher on 3DMark or whatever. There have to be much better uses of your time.
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Relax, the article's just a puff-piece.
Most likely Microsoft noticed they hadn't been getting value for their advertorial dollars, and rushed this one into the queue to get their name on the Slashdot frontpage for a few hours.
The story's certainly not interesting enough to be voted up on its own merits.
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Uh, what article? What story?
This is ask.slashdot.org. There is no article.
The Wrong Question (Score:2)
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Ummm... I agree with your general point, but the time spent rendering a 1080p video file isn't likely to be an interesting data point. A 30 second clip should probably render in exactly 30 seconds, regardless of machine horsepower. I could see measuring system resources while rendering the 1080p video clip however.
When my company last went through a round of desktop upgrades (6 months or so ago), they got a half a dozen evaluation units from the various hardware vendors and then had a bunch of hardware g
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You've described transcoding, not rendering.
They're different tasks. Unless you're doing 3d imaging, rendering is typically the act of transforming a compressed video to uncompressed video and playing it back. Which should be lockstepped with a realtime clock source since you want the video playback to render in realtime. Actually when rendering video if you find yourself drifting behind realtime, you want to drop frames - that's why video playback turns into a slideshow if it can't keep up (and yes I kn
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not at all, only that you aren't likely to find something that will give you output exactly like what you'd want to present it to a non-tech (in some cases very non-tech) crowd. Benchmarking software is pretty much all designed for techs, as techs are the only ones who generally want to know a machines benchmarks.
The results you'll get from benchmarking software will give way more detail than "C level execs" are going to want to look at and will present it in ways that will be hard for them to grasp.
A prese
Phoronix Test Suite (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't run on Windows but Phoronix Test Suite [phoronix-test-suite.com] would give you a good baseline for the hardware.
Re:Phoronix Test Suite (Score:5, Informative)
"Runs On Linux, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, Windows 7, & BSD Operating Systems"
according to the link you posted
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Well, you were right up until about (IIRC) a month ago.
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PTS is also available as a Linux LiveCD, so you can do a rough cut of preliminary testing without even having to spend an hour installing/updating Windows to the same image!
Might be possible to set up similar for Windows using BartPE, but the driver situation usually sucks.
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but the driver situation usually sucks.
http://driverpacks.net/docs/miscellaneous-guides/driverpacks-base-bartpe-guide [driverpacks.net]
Not so much anymore.
My question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this really necessary for a Windows 7 rollout with corporate desktops? Most machines are already overpowered for the average user using Office and what not.
I'd think the cost per machine for good 3-4 year warranties would be more important. At least, it has been in my experience.
I could see doing something like this just for developer machines, but general roll-out? I dunno. Seems like you'd just compare pricing and go with the one that makes the most budget sense.
Re:My question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Single system is easier to manage (Score:2)
While Windows domains and management tools work fine with mixed versions, it is still the very easiest if you have all one version. Well, new systems are going to come with 7, so makes sense to go all 7 if you want to do single system.
Also it is time to start looking at an XP retirement plan for enterprises. Extended support will terminate August of 2014. So, while it isn't a crunch, it is the kind of thing to start thinking about. Better to have a plan than to wait 4 years and find out that now you have to
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That's what I was saying. I wasn't saying that he should have 17 different models, but rather that benchmarking just to end up with (corporate desktop) and (developer desktop) in the end was a waste of time.
Though in reality, most shops end up with a variety of different desktops in the end, even if they're all "Optiplex" line or what not. I don't think I've ever been in a large company where all the users had the exact same model desktop.
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah. You won't need more than 1Gig of RAM, and the slowest processor processor you can get with a Windows 7 bundle should be plenty enough for IE, Office, and Adobe Reader, which is pretty much the basics across the board in the Corporate world.
Unless you are using some software that demands more specs, than the benchmarks shouldn't be the primary concern, it should be the price.
Not to slashvertise, but we use the Optiplexes from Dell, and besides the cheap price for decent specs, the best part about them is screw-less maintenance. You will never need a Screwdriver to replace any component on a Dell desktop. I never realized how great it was until my parents wanted me to add RAM to their 5 year old Compaq's and HP's. I'm not sure if other vendors have started doing this yet, I hope so.
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 7 and your average suite of corporate crapware (anti-virus, monitoring tools, Outlook and Word, etc) will burn through 1G of memory just getting started.
If you are paying the piper to upgrade desktops and roll out a new OS, might as well kick in the extra $75 and get 3Gig of RAM.
That said, if OP is intent on comparing the performance of desktops I say forget comparing across vendors (HP, Dell, IBM) and compare configurations instead (same box with 1G vs 3G of RAM, 5400rpm drives vs 7200rpm drives vs SSDs, video cards, etc.) Then forget the benchmarks and just compare long term support contracts with the vendors, and load them up with 3Gigs of memory.
Personally I'm a fan of Dell, but that's only because I know how to navigate their support site to get the drivers I need.
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"Windows 7 and your average suite of corporate crapware (anti-virus, monitoring tools, Outlook and Word, etc) will burn through 1G of memory just getting started."
Odd. My 1GB Acer Laptop handles all of that just fine...I can only imagine a desktop would handle it even better, as their drives, CPU's and RAM tend to be faster.
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Do you just PuTTY and nothing else?
My XP machine at work is using 1.4GB with Outlook, an SQL client, and antivirus software. Open half a dozen or so Excel, Powerpoint, Visio files and you're hitting around 2GB. I'd say 2GB would be the minimum with 4GB the sweet spot these days especially if one were to consider Windows Vista/7.
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Re:My question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually, no it won't.
We're halfway through rolling out Win7 and for normal office drone use, Win7 + Office 2007 + Forefront Client security is FINE on 1gb of ram once the initial indexing process has finished.
Power users, or new machines - sure, you'd be retarded to get less than 4gb on a new box - but upgrading old machines, 1gb is enough for
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"as to way your post is so damn stupid." ...
Pure. Comic. Genius.
Re:My question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
"that sucks up effects like made"
I think I am beginning to see a common denominator between all the Win7 haters here...
FYI, rob: I have 2 laptops running Windows 7 at home that both have 1GB of RAM. They both boot in under 30 seconds and run Aero just fine. In fact, I almost think it helps that the hardware is older, thus I don't have to deal with the 85+GB drivers, just the basic one's that ship and update with 7. Sure, they won't break any records (the youngest one is 4 years old), but for netflix, Office, and Pandora, they both work beautifully...
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Win 7 will -operate- with 1 GB RAM.... sure. The difference between 1,2, and 4 GB is in number of open apps and speed of opening/navigation. Windows prefetching will not perform well on a 1GB system, and may actually disable itself, as will most of the efficient caching systems that allow multiple windows to run fairly fluidly. Firefox without prefetch can take 10 seconds to open. With prefetch it is near instantaneous. Corporate users are real negative towards IT departments that do costly upgrades,
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"older P4 desktops..."
Ah...I see where our paths diverged... My laptops have CPUs manufactured in the last decade. :p
Yeah...more RAM is always better...but the dolt in the comment I was replying to was trying to pass off 2GB as the barest minimum...which was BS.
My desktop w 6GB, running 7x64 would obviously run circles around either of my laptops. Wouldn't think of arguing *that* for a second. ;)
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Your hardware must really suck, or you didn't wait for the first boot to finish its initial index. Once indexed, a Pentium M with 1GB is FINE running office 2007 on a Windows 7 x86 SOE.
I know, because I've used that combination last week (D510 latitude) whilst waiting for Dell to repair my E6500.
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Informative)
(1) Pricing.
(2) Reliability/Warranty.
(3) Driver compatibility. Gets rid of most of the issues related to stability.
The fastest processor is useless for word processing, web browsing, and Outlook.
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exactly it. Our department typically buys Dell Optiplex (business class) machines with the cheapest processor and a minimal amount of memory (around 2GB lately). Combined with a 5-year NBD warranty and we have a machine that is a perfectly capable office machine for 5 years.
Who cares if Vendor A's machine performs 5% better than Vendor B at the same price? That analysis is a waste of time -- you'd be better off spending it researching reliability and compatibility. Any more a modern computer's hardware will fail before the system becomes too underpowered to be useful.
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Any more a modern computer's hardware will fail before the system becomes too underpowered to be useful.
Not if you cheap out. A couple years ago a department wanted the cheapest laptop possible... you know the rest.
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If you want to get some data, you can really just use xperf from the Windows Performance Toolkit. You can get great info on boot times, etc. and what is slowing them down, doing all the disk I/O, etc. using the xbootmgr tool that comes with it as well. I'd real
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Is this really necessary for a Windows 7 rollout with corporate desktops? Most machines are already overpowered for the average user using Office and what not.
Very true. Corporate desktops are often frustratingly insanely slow, but this is usually not related to the basic power of the machine (i.e. due to doing stupid things on inadequate networks or similar). Unfortunately it is probably easier to believe the logic that "your computer is slow, so you need a faster computer" than "I need $100k for a new network infrastructure".
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But that requires storage space for the extra computers, extra IT staff to manage the replacement, and a good accounting system to keep the pulled and spare computers separat
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're in a company with enough staff to merit an IT department and you don't have your spares pre-built with the corporate image and an internal update server so it can download the latest updates at LAN speeds, you are very definitely Doing It Wrong.
Absolutely (Score:2)
For anything outside media production or CAD, there is almost no point in comparing machines of similar hardware specs these days. You will find that vendor guarantee coverage and time-spans, and response times and quality are all more important in terms of TCO, at least in my experience.
Synthetic Benchmarks are Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
You haven't said what you actually do with these computers. The relevant benchmarks should look like your actual workflow, otherwise you are just drag racing.
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Best reply yet.... How amusing that it's from an AC.
Hmm (Score:2, Funny)
I haven't benchmarked in a while, but this new game came out recently. iD Software's Quake3. All of my hip friends use it to test their machines.
My Slot-A AMD Athlon rocks out like 75 frames a second! Try it out!
Phoronix Test Suite (Score:5, Informative)
Phoronix Test Suite ( http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/ [phoronix-test-suite.com] ) supports Win7 now. It also allows comparison against OSX and Linux ( http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part3&num=1 [phoronix.com] ).
It's Free, it's Open Source and has a bucketload of tests already. You can combine result sets and you can even get the results uploaded for comparison at http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/ [phoronix-test-suite.com]
Creating your own tests is nice and easy too.
(Full disclosure - I am one of the project members).
Authority (Score:5, Insightful)
Questions:
A. Do have the authority to make the decision?
B. Are you tasked with giving him your "expert opinion" on the matter?
C. Are you tasked to actually educate him enough about a technical decision that he has no technical skills to currently evaluate an answer?
Answers:
A. Evaluate on the specs you know are important on the job, give him a specific brand, and say "trust me, buy these"
B. Evaluate on the specs you know are important on the job, give him a specific brand, and say "trust me, buy these"
C. You're boned.
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C. is the best if you know what your doing. ALL his information comes from you and source you supply.
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Actually, if you're going to be blamed if it doesn't work out just right, endorse an option you KNOW they won't go with. That leaves you in the (enviable) position of being able to say "Well, I recommended $VENDOR_X but you shot it down" should things not work out going forward, rather than being the chump who suggested the failing equipment.
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I've heard of that trick being used before. In fact, IIRC the last time I heard of it being used the person using it discovered - to their shock and horror - the executives did go for the recommended option.
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Well, there's certainly that risk. :-p
Hence the wise man hedges his bets and picks something he actually likes first!
Pointless... (Score:5, Informative)
This is pointless. Really. All the machines will test within a few percent of each other. It's not like a Dell is significantly faster than an HP (especially if the software image is the same).
If the machines have different CPU/Chipsets/Video Cards, that's a different story, but a PC -is- really just the sum of its parts.
Tell the C-level execs that the best value would be to skip the benchmark and go right to the bidding, let the vendors undercut each other for an extra month.
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Just tell the C-level execs a car analogy.
Re:Pointless... (Score:5, Funny)
Even better. Get the bidding war going yourself. Make it clear that the winner will be the bidder that will kickback the largest cut. Recommend their hardware to the c-level exec.
The Real Question is (Score:5, Insightful)
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Office users aren't looking for the absolute greatest performance
1) They're looking for a machine that boots quickly. An SSD will help there but may be too little bang for the buck...just avoid 5400 RPM drives.
2) They want to open every application at once and leave them on for days without paging warnings. 3GB in a 32 bit system. But really, get a 64 bit system if all your apps support it. If you're going Core i processors, get 6 GB of memory to optimize the three channel memory. You'll pay an extra $
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The Dell 6400 and I believe 6500 series laptops have the SSD option. We have several of the Platter and SSD versions of the 6400 series laptops and, yeah...the difference is *more* then just noticeable.
For around $100 more per unit, we're increasing the performance of the system more than any RAM, CPU or GPU unit could ever hope to accomplish. Boot times go from over 30 seconds to under 20, apps not only respond faster UI wise, but *functionality*-wise as well (Win7 blows the doors off of XP in UI respons
Re:The Real Question is - the EULA (Score:2)
LoB
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They shouldn't, but they do. Middle management (that's what a C-level executive used to be called, right?) likes to think they know everything about everything, but they are influenced by all of the same marketing hype that fools the average consumer - they think they need something based on fancy names, rather than taking a more practical approach. If the machines in question are for general business use, this talk of pe
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Barking up the wrong tree (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Personally I'd want stability, reliability, and top notch support."
I can get you all that on a 386. are you SURE performance doesn't matter?
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Who, may I ask, is offering "top notch support" for 386 systems??
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FTM, find me a 386 system whose parts will still be reliable in five years.
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Performance amongst available current hardware offerings DOES NOT MATTER, no.
I386 PCs have not been available for about 20 years, so bringing them into the picture is irrelevant.
Company contracts might steer you (Score:2)
Does your company have any contracts with a vendor now? If so you may not have much choice. But I would factor in 5 year (or greater if they offer it) warranty. This way the machines are covered against hardware failure for that time. Since not replacing these machines for a while sounds like an idea, go a bit bigger to cover you for the long haul.
You didn't say what this is for. Regular office apps, cad apps, number crunching apps, etc. The intended use of the machines really effects hat you should be look
Me, I'd recommend anything Win7 logo'ed... (Score:2)
...but do include Gig ethernet and a big fat pipe to the 'net.
The sooner the employees get their porn downloaded and get back to work, the higher the productivity on that little dual core.
PC Mark Vantage office productivity benchamk (Score:2)
depends on the user use cases (Score:2)
What type of workers do you have? It makes a huge difference if you are rolling out just business desktops that do nothing other than an office suite, email, web, and DB queries, versus whether you have folks doing CAD, Engineering, Scientific or Creative applications. For the former, any modern computer will probably be more than enough, for the later some users will need the most powerful computer you are willing to pay for. For instance many 3D applications can make use of a huge number of cores for r
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Also forgot to add, that many users (DB, spreadsheet, standard office documents, and creativity, scientific, technical) would benefit from dual monitors for productivity.
Just make shit up (Score:2, Funny)
Corporate America Strikes Again (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's what you do.
You go to techbargains.com slickdeals.net techdealdigger.com techdeals.net etc.
CTRL+F DELL
Note specs and prices.
Do this for a week.
Then next week, jump on the first deal that meets or beats the best deal from last week.
Then order up a bunch of machines.
If the number you're ordering is an issue, just call Dell, ask for the supervisor, and then get X machines at the quoted price after agreeing to upgrade them all to the 3-year, NBD warranty.
Corporate will love the price.
Whoever manages the machines (you?) will love the NBD warranty for when a PSU fails, or a fan starts getting noisy. (When, not if.)
You won't have had to do any real work.
Everyone wins.
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so if he tells his boss the truth, he will look incompetent. if he wastes thousands of man-hours and thousands of dollars doing testing he knows is pointless and then wastes hours of executive time presenting that "there's not actually much difference between commodity hardware", then he did what he was told, but he still wasted everyone's time.
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Most of them have their heads so far up their asses with regard to "you can't manage what you can't measure" that all they really care about is numbers.
Now of course this is fundamentally flawed in more ways than one. And I am sure there are high-level execs that are moving away from this.
Last we did a competitive evaluation... (Score:5, Insightful)
We ended up going with Dell, just because they were cheaper, their driver download pages are modestly less unpleasant, and their "ImageDirect" tool is actually pretty handy.
Unless you have particular reason to believe otherwise, exhaustive benchmarking will be a waste of your, and the exec's time. The only exception that I can think of would be if you were advocating for something unusual but potentially interesting(ie. Most corporate desktops are brutally I/O bound, straining under the load of A/V, constant patches and updates, and so forth. SSDs would make them fly, comparatively. Particularly if your company actually has a lot of expensive people running around, a "number of minutes from cold boot to productivity" benchmark could be eye-opening.)
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We ditched Dell for lenovo thinkpads.. A bunch of executives came from other companies that had used them when they where owned by IBM.. Damn was it a big mistake. yes, they are more solidly made. We have less repairs. However, replacing a motherboard (and because of the USB layout on the T400 laptop, you will be replacing lots of motherboards) take 4 times as long as the Dells, we counted 44 screws! Of course, you can only replace the motherboard when you get a new one. Enjoy waiting a week or more, f
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We did the same thing, for similar reasons.
What the execs didn't seem to appreciate was that for a comparable laptop, Lenovo charge about 25% more than Dell.
If you're a huge company, you can get discounts on the order of about, oooh, say 25% - but we're not a huge company, we just hired some people who probably wanted to go from being a relatively small fish in a huge pond to being a big fish in a much smaller pond.
Oh, and if you've got an account manager with Dell you can also get discounts.
Waste of time.... (Score:2)
Real Simple with Our Revit Application (Score:2, Interesting)
For this, performance is unimportant (Score:2)
What you will see is marginal differences. Other aspects, like component quality, noise levels, support, etc. will be important, the slight performance differences will be completely unimportant.
I would strongly suggest that you are trying to optimize an entirely unimportant parameter and are overlooking several very important ones. Rethink what you actually want.
Here's how C-level execs think... (Score:3, Informative)
So, here's how the C-level execs think... Say you have 1000 employees, each saving 3 seconds/day in bootup time. 1000 employees * 3 seconds/day = 3000 man-seconds/day. 3000 man-seconds/day * (approx) 225 work days/year = 675,000 man-seconds/year = 187.5 man-hours/year saved! Just think of how much more productive we are due to that 5%!
Of course, that assumes that all your employees are robots and use every second of time productively. To add, by the time the OP gets all the machines, runs the benchmarks, and creates the pretty PowerPoint slides for the C-level execs, this little experiment probably cost the company a lot more than 187.5 hours... (Although you could probably shoehorn a 3-4-year NPV calculation showing a savings for this project...)
Windows software (Score:2)
I've used Passmark Performance Test before to bench Windows machines:
http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm [passmark.com]
Very straightforward for Windows dorks to install and use, and provides lots of simple graphs and an easy engine to make comparisons. I mostly used the demo version, but the commercial version didn't seem expensive.
Also, props to them for providing this handy reference:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ [videocardbenchmark.net]
Again, be sure to test in as close to the final deployed configuration as possible. I've s
You won't like the answer. (Score:2, Insightful)
There's no business/office productivity software that requires Vista or Windows 7. In fact, I'm not aware of any software of any kind that REQUIRES Windows 7.
You can run everything on XP.
Now ask yourself: "Why are we spending -any- money on upgrades?"
Two paths from this point.
1) Slap yourself, rebuild your corporate image with a nice current minimal build and give users the option to rebuild their machines with said image dynamically, at boot time. This will produce vastly greater productivity than any
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A few reasons why you should go Win7
If you have hardware that was even half reasonably specc'd in the past 3 years, Windows 7 is fine. And it is not always slower than XP. Try doing a search through your email in XP vs Win7 (you know, something that actually MATTERS in reality) and compare.
Benchmarks a plenty (Score:2)
There are plenty of benchmark tests around. For C-level executives, the ones that score the machine overall performance with a number would be the simplest. Also see what customer reviews say.
The simplest way to go (and that's what I always do) - spec out a machine according to what you need + a little extra. Go shopping among the vendors (Apple, Dell, HP, ...) and see what the prices say for the machine you spec'ed out (don't forget all the little additions you need to make to make a machine complete - dis
Make a Weighted List of Requirements (Score:2)
I hope you're not a manager... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you were merely tasked with finding benchmarks and that you're just a tech. If your CIO tasked you with picking the next platform and you decided to perform technical benchmarks, then you really missed the boat.
1. First, you need to be analyzing support you'll get. Don't get too hung up on it, but you need something better than a 90-day warranty. There are diminishing returns though, at some point it's not worth getting a 3 year or 4 year contract.
2. Next, you need a vendor that will help you with license management. Being able to audit your licenses for Office or Symantec or whatever quickly will help you. If you don't have volume licensing, now is the time your vendor should be helping you with it.
3. Usability matters a lot, but what matters almost as much is how cool your laptops are. When your marketing director, you know, the one that always wears cool clothes and would have to have his iPhone pried out of his cold dead hands, goes to a conference you better make sure he has the coolest laptop of any of the other marketing geeks. A lot of companies overlook this, but I guarantee you he doesn't want to be carrying around a Latitude E6510 clunker.
4. There's a nice price point right now around $1000 for decent corporate laptops and you'll get about 3 years out of them.
5. You need to be negotiating with your sales rep hard if you're making a purchase like this. Your rep isn't going to be able to make huge discounts on laptops like they can on server equipment or some software licenses, so see if you can get some killer pricing on servers while you're shopping for a big laptop package.
Skip the benchmarks, it's not worth your time. Anything you teach your boss about Core duo, i5, etc will be useless knowledge for him in six months when Intel introduces some new spec.
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Only thing I'd add to this is you might also want to consider if a vendor can guarantee availability of that exact model for x years. If you use a standard build you might want to guarantee that it'll work on any new hardware you buy for a few years. Some vendors pull stupid stunts like swap the brand of integrated NIC mid lifecycle which can be a real PITA. Nothing you can't work around, but Fujitsu and Dell definitely offer this on their corporate line.
Oh, and it never hurts to pick sexy
missing the point, imho (Score:3, Insightful)
Performance benchmarks for typical desktop office machines are pointless. What is FAR more important is: driver stability/support and vendor support in the case of hardware malfunction. So long as your desktops have > 1gb ram they will be fine for 7, for normal office use.
We're currently a dell shop (sigh), my baseline cut-off for Dell laptops is Latitude D510 with 1GB ram for Win7 pro x86. Desktop machines - anything with similar spec to that is fine for x86.
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Why not make it a fair test and pit it against XP x64 with AHCI drivers installed?
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Win7 x64 blows the shit off Win7 x86
Do you have anything to back this up? I've done a lot of testing of I/O intensive workloads on XP and found 32-bit XP measureably faster than 64-bit XP. I'm sure 64-bit rocks for applications that require a lot of memory, but I can't see any reason why "64-bitness" should be an advantage for any application with a working set smaller than 2GB.
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