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Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 Torture Test

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
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And now we come to it. Windows 7. A legacy OS that's still heavily in use today. It's become Microsoft's new Windows XP, much to their chagrin. And it's not hard to see why. Imagine Windows Vista. And now imagine it not sucking at all. That's 7. Basically, after Microsoft heard all of the outcry regarding Vista, they decided smartly to double back and make a new version of Vista, but this time going deep into the OS and fixing most, if not all of the major issues users had with it. Receiving numerous enhancements to performance, security, usability, and a few fancy new features, and all while keeping most of Vista's sleek glassy look, it quickly became a huge hit, and is regarded today as one of the best versions of Windows Microsoft has released along with XP and 2000.

Alright. Enough talking. Time to make it choke on 128 MB of RAM.

The final results with VMware Workstation 15 Player:

Minimum-Recommended
CPU: 1-2 Core (3.3 GHz)
RAM: 256 MB-2 GB
HDD: 12 GB
Monitor: 800x600

(Generally speaking, RAM always peaked during startup (second number), then settled down afterwards (first number).)
RAM Usage @ 4 GB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~620-750 MB
RAM Usage @ 2 GB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~515-645 MB
RAM Usage @ 1 GB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~480-525 MB
RAM Usage @ 512 MB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~315-455 MB
RAM Usage @ 256 MB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~200-255 MB (Finally started to notice small dips in performance.)
RAM Usage @ 128 MB (w/ Aero Enabled): (Boot not successful.)

RAM Usage @ 1 GB (w/ Aero Disabled): ~445-525 MB
RAM Usage @ 256 MB (w/ Aero Disabled): ~180-255 MB (A bit speedier than when we ran with Aero enabled and only 256 MB.)
RAM Usage @ 128 MB (w/ Aero Disabled): (Boot not successful.)

Comparing these numbers to Vista, it's pretty clear that 7 was definitely tidied up and made leaner and meaner. Unfortunately though, the actual difference is not really as stark as I had hoped for. Maybe we'll see more of a difference with Windows 8.1.
 
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