Basic System

One thing we can look at out of the box, is what does the system use just to run the GUI? While we can take Bill's or Linus's word for it, lets go to some real numbers shall we.

Vista Left, XP Middle, Ubuntu Right

From what I can tell, Ubuntu is using the least amount of memory, with XP following closely behind and Vista chewing up the largest chunk. This same pattern follows for CPU utilization. While not much of an issue when you are running 2GB of memory and a C2D processor, it is something to think about if you are only at 1GB or less.

SiSoft Sandra

While Ubuntu is left out in this test (by no fault of its own mind you) it is a good comparison between Vista and XP. Also a good point of reference if you want to upgrade to Vista using your current hardware by seeing where it falls against our XP results.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic

SiSoft Sandra - Memory

SiSoft Sandra - Multimedia

With SiSoft Sandra CPU, Vista lost a few points, nothing drastic mind you but never the less, a drop. Moving on to memory we see, well, we see what looks like 2 completely different systems. I ran this test several times, each with a similar outcome. I don't know why, but apparently Vista is much more, not just a little but much more efficient in memory bandwidth then XP Pro. Finally there is Multi-Media, once again Vista shines, and outperforms XP Pro, likely due to the memory scores. So with the synthetic tests at least, apparently Vista is up to the task.

SuperPI

While we typically use PiFast at VL, I needed a program that worked for both Windows and Linux if it was available, and this one is. We calculated 1 Million digits of PI in our test.

Time in seconds, Lower is better

Apparently Ubuntu is a touch slower then both XP Pro and the fastest, Vista. Surprised yet? In reality, the times are pretty close which is to be expected for a test such as this.