Benchmark tests offer first hints of Windows 8 performance

Microsoft released a freely available developer preview of its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system last week. Our own Seth Rosenblatt has a video below offering an overview of the new OS. What we haven't seen yet is an overview of Windows 8's impact on general computing performance.

A first, rough look at Windows 8


Microsoft has promised improved efficiency in Windows 8, due at least in part to the new OS relying on fewer background operations sucking up memory and processing power. A look at the process tab in Windows 8's new task manager bears this out. With Windows 8, we see 21 operating system processes running. With Windows 7 we count 31.
That slimming down alone should help overall performance. If Microsoft has done more to improve Windows 8's operating speed in this developer build, we haven't been told about it. We'll rely on our benchmark tests to bear that out.
Caveat time. Know that the version of Windows 8 we tested is a 64-bit developer's preview build. Any test results below could very well look different from results when the final version ships. Consider our performance comparison, like the operating system preview itself, a look at a work in progress.
Our test bed is a hand-built Intel Core i3-based desktop. Specs include a 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 2105; 8GB of 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; an Intel DZ68D8 motherboard; a 500GB, 7,200rpm Western Digital SATA II hard drive; and a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card (for 3D gaming tests).
Application tests

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

110 

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

111 

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

83 

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

87 

Multimedia multitasking (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

380 

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

403 

Cinebench 11.5
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Rendering multiple CPUs

Rendering single CPU

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

3.01 

1.24 

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

3 

1.24 

We wanted to test the Windows 8 preview not just for its performance but also to check its compatibility with our current suite of benchmark applications, and unfortunately both 32-bit and 64-bit Photoshop CS5 crashed every time we tried to load an image file. That's unfortunate, since that test can be a good indicator of memory performance.
Instead, our iTunes/QuickTime multimedia multitasking test was the only case where we saw Windows 8 make a noticeable impact on speed. We welcome any speed improvement, and it shows that at least in this build, Microsoft appears to be on the right track for providing some noticeable application performance benefits, at least where memory utilization plays a role. We'll have a better idea once (or if) we can test out 64-bit Photoshop CS5.
Gaming tests

Metro 2033 (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

2,560x1,600 (very high)

1,920x1,00 (very high)

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

10 

18 

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

10 

18 

Far Cry 2 (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,920x1,200 (very high)

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

98 

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

26 

Crysis (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200

1,280x1,024

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 (64-bit)

51 

58 

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

42 

44 

In addition to our CS5 difficulties, we were also unable to run 3DMark 11, and we had difficulty with Far Cry 2. The latter wouldn't run our lower-resolution test, and the scores between the operating systems on the higher-resolution test are wildly divergent. Our problems with both programs could be because of the operating system, the individual applications, the graphics card drivers, or a combination.

For the games that did work, we were most impressed by Windows 8's handling of the original Crysis. That game is notoriously hard for PCs, in part because it's a known system-memory hog. We'd expect a Core i3-based desktop with 8GB of RAM and a decent midrange graphics card to handle Crysis reasonably well, but even at high resolution, the Windows 8-based test bed showed impressive frame rate gains over the Windows 7-based system. Crysis is not the most relevant title anymore, but the fact that this build of Windows 8 makes easy work of this memory-chewing game suggests again that Microsoft's new OS does indeed bring with it some noticeable benefits to memory efficiency.

For newer games, don't take the Far Cry 2 scores seriously. We show them only to demonstrate the disconnect between operating systems with that game. The Metro 2033 results are more encouraging for gamers. We ran that test in DirectX 11 mode with full detail and at the highest resolutions we could muster on a single display. We didn't expect to see much of a performance boost between operating systems, but at least for this game, and with this OS build, Windows 8 doesn't seem to have lost a step on more-demanding 3D workloads. It's not surprising that we had some problems with certain programs in Windows 8, and it's reasonable to expect that most issues will be resolved as Microsoft and application developers update their code. What we did not necessarily expect is the noticeable performance boost between operating systems to applications and tasks that depend on system memory.

Take an early tour of Windows 8 (photos)

Most of the talk about Windows 8 thus far has centered around its new Metro touch interface and its potential as a cross-platform operating system. We're also interested to see how the mouse-driven interface develops over build iterations, because right now it feels too heavily touch-centered. But even if Windows is undergoing an interface identity crisis, based on what we've seen in our testing, computing traditionalists should look forward to the streamlining Microsoft has achieved in Windows 8's memory utilization. Let's hope Microsoft can hang on to those performance gains when it ships final code.

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Derelict NASA satellite falls back to Earth

NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, out of gas and out of control after two decades in space, plunged back into the atmosphere early Saturday, heating up, breaking apart and presumably showering chunks of debris along a 500-mile-long downrange impact zone.

But NASA officials could not immediately confirm where or exactly when the satellite came down, saying only that re-entry occurred during a two-hour period.

"NASA's decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23, and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24," the agency said in a statement released more than three hours -- two complete orbits -- after the predicted impact time.

"The satellite was passing eastward over Canada and Africa as well as vast portions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans during that period," NASA said. "The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty."

U.S. Strategic Command predicted the defunct UARS satellite would re-enter the atmosphere off the west coast of Canada. (Credit: William Harwood/MacDoppler Pro)

The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., reported that UARS entered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, according to NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs, but the "precise time and locale aren't yet known."

Given the trajectory of the bus-size, 6.3-ton satellite, experts said it was unlikely any falling remnants would result in injuries or significant property damage. But there was no immediate confirmation as to how much debris might have reached the ground or where the debris "footprint" might be located.

The centerpiece of a $750 million mission, the Upper Atmosphere Research satellite was launched from the shuttle Discovery at 12:23 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) on Sept. 15, 1991. The solar-powered satellite studied a wide variety of atmospheric phenomena, including the depletion of Earth's ozone layer 15 to 30 miles up.

The long-lived satellite was decommissioned in 2005 and one side of its orbit was lowered using the last of its fuel to hasten re-entry and minimize the chances of orbital collisions that could produce even more orbital debris. No more fuel was available for maneuvering and the satellite's re-entry was "uncontrolled."

As with all satellites in low-Earth orbit, UARS was a victim of atmospheric drag, the slow but steady reduction in velocity, and thus altitude, caused by flying through the tenuous extreme upper atmosphere at some five miles per second.

UARS' final trajectory as it neared the discernible atmosphere proved difficult to predict. The descent slowed somewhat Friday, presumably because the spacecraft's orientation changed. As the day wore on, the predicted impact time slipped from Friday afternoon to early Saturday.

"As of 10:30 p.m. EDT on Sept. 23, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 85 miles by 90 miles (135 km by 140 km)," NASA said in a 10:50 p.m. statement. "Re-entry is expected between 11:45 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, and 12:45 a.m., Sept. 24, Eastern Daylight Time (3:45 a.m. to 4:45 a.m. GMT). During that time period, the satellite will be passing over Canada and Africa, as well as vast areas of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. The risk to public safety is very remote."

The final update from U.S. Strategic Command, which operates a global radar network used to monitor more than 20,000 objects in low-Earth orbit, predicted entry around 12:16 a.m. EDT Saturday above the Pacific Ocean just west of Canada. But the prediction was uncertain by plus or minus two hours and at orbital velocities of 5 miles per second, just 10-minutes of uncertainty translates into 3,000 miles of uncertainty in position. Nick Johnson, chief scientist with NASA's Orbital Debris Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told reporters last week he expected most of the satellite to burn up as it slammed into the dense lower atmosphere at more than 17,000 mph. But computer software used to analyze possible re-entry outcomes predicted 26 pieces of debris would survive to impact the surface in a 500-mile-long down-range footprint. "We looked at those 26 pieces and how big they are and we've looked at the fact they can hit anywhere in the world between 57 north and 57 south and we looked at what the population density of the world is," he said. "Numerically, it comes out to a chance of 1-in-3,200 that one person anywhere in the world might be struck by a piece of debris. Those are obviously very, very low odds that anybody's going to be impacted by this debris."

For comparison, some 42.5 tons of wreckage from the shuttle Columbia hit the ground in a footprint stretching from central Texas to Louisiana when the orbiter broke apart during re-entry in 2003. No one on the ground was injured and no significant property damage was reported.

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Android and ARM elbow in on Wintel alliance

Michael Angiulo (left), corporate vice president of Windows planning, hardware, and PC ecosystem, and Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows, boasted that Windows 8 works on computing devices using either Intel or ARM chips. They spoke at Microsoft's Build conference this week.

(Credit: Microsoft)

For many years, the market for personal computing equipment was dominated by the Wintel "duopoly." But no more.

In practice, Wintel wasn't so much two companies scheming together as it was a marriage of convenience pairing two dominant technologies: Microsoft's Windows operating system and Intel's x86 processor family.

It wasn't an exclusive relationship. Microsoft always had Advanced Micro Devices and flirted with chip designs such as MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC in the early days of Windows NT. And Intel encouraged other operating systems, notably Linux. But the marriage stayed largely intact as the two product families yielded much of the PC industry's profit, and the companies' fortunes remain closely linked today.

But now the companies are eager to grow beyond Wintel. Two major conferences this week--Microsoft's Build for showcasing Windows 8 and the hardware-focused Intel Developer Forum--show just how important the effort is. Microsoft and Intel, which as allies haven't made so much as a blip in the mobile device market, are trying to become relevant there through partnerships with companies that already have a mobile presence.

Why are they moving to an open marriage? In a word, Apple.

First with its iPhone and then with its iPad, Apple is pioneering categories of mobile computing where Intel and Microsoft are weak. Consumers are buying millions of the products even with newer models on the way, and Apple is socking away gargantuan piles of cash.

On the operating system side of the equation, Google has built Android into a viable smartphone competitor to Apple's iOS. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Windows Phone still lags and Windows 8 for tablets won't arrive until 2012. On the processor side, virtually all mobile devices, including all of Apple's, use chips based on ARM's designs.

Seeing each other's competitive weaknesses, Intel and Microsoft are leaping into the arms of each other's rivals.

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini shared the stage with Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin, to announce a "continuation" of the two companies' "strategic alliance." As evidence of how swimmingly Intel and Google get along, Intel showed off an Android tablet running on a next-gen "Medfield" chip designed to compete with ARM in tablets and phones.

"We're going to collaborate very closely to make sure Android is optimized the best it possibly can be for the Intel architecture," Rubin, who is Google's senior vice president of mobile, said on stage. "Going forward, all future releases of Android will be optimized everywhere from the very low levels--at the kernel, taking advantage of memory management and all these great features of the low-power IA [Intel] architecture, all the way up to multimedia, 3D graphics--everything that's part of a system-on-a-chip today."

Andy Rubin, Google's senior vice president of mobile, pledged a tight alliance to make Android work well on mobile devices with Intel's x86 chips. He spoke at the Intel Developer Forum. (Credit: Intel)

Added Otellini, "Every time we collaborate with Google, good things come out of it. I'm excited and have high expectations around this."

At the same time, Windows division president Steven Sinofsky spent a lot of time at the Build conference in Anaheim, Calif., touting Windows 8 running on ARM processors. The freebie tablets for Build attendees used Intel chips, to be sure, but Microsoft spent a lot of time talking about how new-era programming methods to build Windows 8 "Metro"-style apps will produce software that can run on either ARM or Intel systems.

"Everything we showcased today at Build also runs on the ARM-based Windows PCs being created by ARM partners and PC manufacturers," Sinofsky said in a blog post Tuesday. "Windows 8 running on ARM will ultimately be available with ARM-based hardware that you can purchase...The new development tools enable you to start today to build Metro-style applications that will seamlessly run on x86 (32 and 64 bit) or ARM architectures."

ARM isn't a single chip--companies including Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Motorola, and Apple all make their own varieties--but Windows "allows this uniqueness to shine through," Sinofsky said. For easy cross-platform programming, Microsoft likes the two approaches--first, the combination of HTML5 and related Web technologies and second, its own Silverlight software. But new developer tools will make it possible even for programmers who use the lower-level C and C++ languages to build cross-platform Metro apps, he added.

New complexities
Notice a trend here? The cross-platform world is a lot more complicated. PC makers will have more engineering choices to make and more component supply headaches. Software developers will have more building and testing to do.
Some of this complexity is the product of the horizontally integrated PC industry. There's nobody in charge, and multiple companies have influence over the processors, memory, storage hardware, graphics, batteries, screens, software, and overall design.
That can lead to a market fluidity that can be healthy, for example when it's time to alter course. But it also means a lot of potential confusion for customers.

In the Apple world, by comparison, there are plenty of component suppliers, but it's clear that one company is the boss. Apple has some complexities--for example, the split between Mac OS X running on Intel-based Macs and iOS running on mobile devices. But overall, the company's tightly integrated products simplify choices for programmers and customers. That means they won't get to buy, say, an iPhone with a hardware keyboard or a less expensive Mac Pro Lite, but it also means they won't be faced with a choice of 30 different laptops when they walk into Best Buy or 20 different Android phones at Carphone Warehouse.

Ideally, customers won't have to worry about which chip is in their electronics gadget du jour. But in practice, it will be a factor. Legacy Windows apps, for example, won't arrive on ARM, and it's not clear yet how much ARM's advantage with low power consumption will take a toll on processing power.

Complexity isn't all bad, though. When markets have vibrant competition and customers are willing to change course, then incumbent powers must genuinely improve products rather than complacently rely on momentum to prop up their businesses. (At least, until the incumbents squash the upstarts with patent-infringement suits.)

Wintel, WARM, and Andrintel
The Wintel alliance lives on, of course, even as partnerships open up. Even though Microsoft is serious about ARM and Intel is serious about Android, a large industry remains devoted to traditional PCs, and a large number of people will continue to buy and use them. When Intel wants to make USB 3.0 a reality, it seeks help from Microsoft. When Microsoft wants chip features for virtualization or multimedia, it talks to Intel. And from a logistical point of view, there's a mature network of partners that know how to work together to build a PC.

In short, while a lot of the new market growth may be with tablets and smartphones, it would be wrong to think of Wintel as headed for divorce. But if Intel and Microsoft are successful in their attempts to penetrate the new markets, Wintel will have to make room for WARM and Andrintel.

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Windows 8 Developer Preview: Come and get it..!!!

The new Windows 8 Start Screen (Credit: Microsoft)

Those of you interested in taking the current flavor of Windows 8 for a spin can now download and install the Developer Preview edition.

Being demoed at Microsoft's Build conference this week, the Developer Preview is a prebeta version showing off the operating system at its current stage. Though technically designed for developers, no registration is required, so anyone can download and install it.

The Windows 8 Preview is being offered in three different packages--a 64-bit version with various developer tools, a 64-bit version of just the operating system, and a 32-bit version of the OS.

All three come as ISO files--image files of the contents of a CD or DVD. Since each of the packages is several gigabytes in size, you'll need a DVD if you want to burn the files to a disc.

In Windows 7, you can burn the ISO file to a DVD by double-clicking it to open the Windows Disc Image Burner. For older operating systems, you can use a tool such as ISO Recorder to burn the file.


Since this is a prebeta version, you'll want to install the OS on a spare PC or in a virtual environment so that it doesn't interfere with your production or work machine.



What's next after the Developer Preview?

Speaking at the Build conference yesterday, Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows division, confirmed earlier reports that Windows 8 will next segue into one beta version, followed by one Release Candidate. Assuming all goes well, we can then expect the final RTM (release to manufacturing) edition sometime after that.
Sinofsky didn't reveal a specific timeframe for the beta or Release Candidate. However, the company has been expected to launch the beta at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

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Windows 8 to tap heavily into Windows Live

Windows 8 will integrate directly with Windows Live. (Credit: Microsoft)

Windows 8 will let users more easily and seemlessly bridge the gap between online and offline by directly tapping into Microsoft's Windows Live service.

In an Inside Windows Live blog posted yesterday, Chris Jones, vice president for Windows Live engineering, shared some of the features and benefits of the new Windows Live integration in Microsoft's upcoming OS.

Right off the bat, Windows 8 prompts you to log in with your Windows Live ID. If you allow it to do so, Windows Live can then automatically store your Windows profile, settings, and other key files in the cloud. This gives you the ability to synchronize those settings with any Windows 8 PC in which you're logged in, ensuring that you retain the same preferences from one PC to another. Microsoft is also promising the same synchronization between PCs and mobile devices running Windows Phone 7.

Windows 8 will also integrate more smoothly with SkyDrive, Microsoft's online storage site. Documents, photos, and other files that you create locally can be saved to SkyDrive, accessed from any PC, and even shared with other people that you designate. Microsoft will reportedly still limit SkyDrive users to 25 gigabytes of space for most files but offer unlimited storage for photos or Office documents.

The new operating system will further rely on the new Metro UI to let you access and share different information, whether it's online or offline. Booting into Metro will show you tiles for key services, such e-mail, calendar, and contacts. The e-mail feature can connect to multiple accounts, such as work and home. The Calendar can also display appointments for work and home as well as those of friends, family, or colleagues with Windows Live accounts.

People is Microsoft's new address book, which ties together all your contacts, including those from Facebook and LinkedIn. And the new Photos app in Windows 8 can show you photos from your local PC, another PC, SkyDrive, and other services.

The company is also opening up Windows Live and SkyDrive to developers who want to incorporate those services into their own applications or devices.

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Rare Look Inside Microsoft's Redmond Office

You've seen what the offices of Blizzard and Google look like, now here's a sneak peak at some parts of Microsoft's Redmond campus. The "grounds comprise over 300 acres, with about 40 buildings housing nearly 14,000 offices."

Common employee areas such as the Meeting Rooms building are situated throughout. The cafeteria has an al-fresco dining area with a rocky waterfall. One Microsoft Way also serves as a tourist attraction.

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