In-Depth with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview
by Andrew Cunningham, Ryan Smith, Kristian Vättö & Jarred Walton on March 9, 2012 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Microsoft
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Windows 8
Windows has changed a lot since Windows 95 ushered in the modern era of the desktop operating system almost two decades ago—the underlying technology that makes Windows what it is has completely changed since those early days to keep pace with new technologies and usage models. Despite all of those changes, though, the fundamental look and feel of Windows 7 remains remarkably similar to its hoary old predecessor.
Windows 95 and Windows 7: We're not so different, you and I
All of that's changing—the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is here, and it brings with it the biggest fundamental change to the default Windows UI since 1995. Metro is an interface designed for the modern, touch-enabled era, and when Windows 8 (and its cousin, Windows on ARM) is released, it will signify Microsoft's long-awaited entry into the tablet market that the iPad created and subsequently dominated.
The difference between Microsoft's strategy and Apple's strategy is that Microsoft is not keeping its operating systems separate—iOS and OS X are slowly blending together, but they remain discrete OSes designed for different input devices. Windows 8 and Metro, on the other hand, are one and the same: the operating system running on your desktop and the one running on your tablet are going to be the same code.
Metro tends to overshadow Windows 8 by the sheer force of its newness. Although it's one of the biggest changes to the new OS, it's certainly not the only one. Windows 8 includes a slew of other new and updated programs, utilities, services, and architectural improvements to make the operating system more useful and efficient than its predecessor—we'll be looking at the most important of those changes as well.
Will all of these new features come together to make Windows 8 a worthy upgrade to the successful Windows 7? Will the Metro interface work as well with a keyboard and mouse as it does on a tablet? For answers to those questions and more, just keep reading.
Hardware Used for this Review
For the purposes of this review, I’ve installed and run Windows 8 on a wide variety of hardware. I’ve done most of the review on a pair of machines, which I’ll spec out here:
Dell Latitude E6410 |
Dell Latitude D620 |
|
CPU | 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 M540 | 2.00 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo |
GPU | 512MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M | Intel GMA 950 |
RAM | 8GB DDR3 | 2GB DDR2 |
Hard drive | 128GB Kingston V100 SSD | 7200RPM laptop HDD |
OS | Windows 8 x64 | Windows 8 x86 |
I also installed and used Windows 8 on the following computers for at least a few hours each:
Netbook |
Late 2006 20" iMac |
Mid-2007 20" iMac | HP Compaq C770US | Late 2010 11" MacBook Air | Custom-built Mini ITX desktop | |
CPU | 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 | 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo | 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 1.86GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core | 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 3.10 GHz Intel Core i3-2105 |
GPU | Intel GMA 950 | 128MB ATI Radeon X1600 | 256MB ATI Radeon 2600 Pro | Intel GMA X3100 | NVIDIA GeForce 320M | Intel HD Graphics 3000 |
RAM | 1GB DDR2 | 2GB DDR2 | 4GB DDR2 | 2GB DDR2 | 4GB DDR3 | 8GB DDR3 |
Hard drive | 5400RPM laptop HDD | 7200RPM desktop HDD | 7200RPM desktop HDD | 16GB Samsung SSD | 128GB Samsung SSD | 64GB Crucial M4 SSD |
OS | Windows 8 x86 | Windows 8 x86 | Windows 8 x86 | Windows 8 x64 | Windows 8 x64 | Windows 8 x64 |
This broad list of hardware, most of it at least a couple of years old, should be representative of most machines that people will actually be thinking about upgrading to Windows 8—there will be people out there installing this on old Pentium IIs, I'm sure, but those who are already know that they're edge cases, and are outside the scope of this review.
Update: Hey AMD fans! A lot of you noticed that there weren't any AMD CPUs included in my test suite. This was not intentional on my part, but rather a byproduct of the fact that I have no AMD test systems on hand at present. For the purposes of this review, these specifications are provided to you only to give you an idea of how Windows 8 performs on hardware of different vintages and speeds, not to make a statement about the relative superiority of one or another CPU manufacturer. For the final, RTM version of Windows 8, we'll make an effort to include some AMD-based systems in our lineup, with especial attention paid to whether Windows 8 improves performance numbers for Bulldozer chips.
With Windows 8, Microsoft has two claims about hardware: first, that Windows 8 would run on any hardware that runs Windows 7, and second, that programs and drivers that worked under Windows 7 would largely continue to work in Windows 8. Overall, my experience on both counts was positive (excepting near-constant Flash crashes), but you can read more about my Windows 8 hardware recommendations later on in the review.
The last thing I want to do before starting this review is give credit where credit is due—many readers have said in the comments that they would like multi-author reviews to include some information about what author wrote what opinions, and I agree. For your reference:
- Brian Klug provided editing services.
- Ryan Smith wrote about DirectX 11 and WDDM 1.2
- Kristian Vatto wrote about the Mail, Calendar, and Photos apps.
- Jarred Walton provided battery life statistics and analysis.
- Andrew Cunningham wrote about everything else. You can contact him with questions or comments at andrewc@anandtech.com or using his Twitter handle, @Thomsirveaux
Now, let's begin at the very beginning: Windows Setup.
286 Comments
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Impulses - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I plan to start my own riot once I'm done reading if there isn't any multi-display discussion... :pMrSpadge - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
AMD fans can be quite thin-skinned..Kristian Vättö - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
My system is not included in the table but don't worry, it's Intel based as well ;-) Z68 and i5-2500K to be exact.futurepastnow - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I installed it and have been playing with it on an AMD-based system (laptop with a Turion II P540 processor, HD4250 graphics and 8GB of DDR3). It runs fine.I mean, actually using Win8 is like sticking a fork in my hand, but there are no performance issues whatsoever on what is now a basically low-end AMD system.
george1976 - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
It is not a funny post. The answer I am sure you know it very well, it is all about the money, money makes the world go round etc.Andrew.a.cunningham - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
So, wait. Intel paid me money to use years-old CPUs of theirs in a review of a beta product that another company made?I like this story. Tell me more.
medi01 - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
We shouldn't be telling you fairy tales.Having 8 systems with Intel and 0 with AMD you should have better argument than "oh, I've forgotten it in my pocket".type.
Why is it that you " have no AMD test systems on hand at present" please?
Andrew.a.cunningham - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Because this is a review of Windows 8's new features, and it doesn't matter what hardware I run it on because an x86 processor is an x86 processor. Because I'm also an OS X writer and AMD doesn't come in Macs. Because Intel offered bang/buck and battery life last time I was in the market for a laptop. Because the business-class PCs that I usually buy lean heavily toward Intel.You wanna buy me an AMD system? Please do. Otherwise, I'm sorry I don't have anything in my arsenal, but not sorry enough to spend $400-600+ on computing equipment I won't otherwise use.
medi01 - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
It doesn't matter what hardware eh?"This broad list of hardware, most of it at least a couple of years old, should be representative of most machines that people will actually be thinking about upgrading to Windows 8"
And this, coming from a hardware reviewer, is insulting humanity:
"Because Intel offered bang/buck and battery life last time I was in the market for a laptop"
You can have good AMD notebooks (with good battery life AND performance, including GPU) at price points where there is NO Intel offering.
Andrew.a.cunningham - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
"Insulting humanity?" Dude, perspective. I'm trying very hard to engage you in a rational conversation, so try to extend the same courtesy to me. They're just CPUs, and I don't understand why you're attacking me personally about them.I'm not sure what notebooks you're referring to - even a cursory glace at Newegg, Best Buy, and other retailers shows Intel offerings featuring Pentiums and Core i3s (both Nehalem and Sandy Bridge-based) competing in the sub-$500 (and sub-$400) market where AMD is offering Brazos and Llano chips - AMD's GPUs are going to be much better but Intel's CPUs are also much better, so what you buy depends on what your workload is. Some of the AMD laptops I'm seeing use single-core processors, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone in 2012 regardless of GPU.
The difference becomes more apparent once you start looking at higher-end laptops - I've had a very hard time finding a 14" or 15" AMD laptop with anything other than a 1366x768 display, for example, and an equally hard time finding an AMD notebook with dedicated graphics. I've looked not just on Newegg and other retailers, but also on the websites of major OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo - their AMD offerings are pretty sparse.
This is AMD's problem right now, at least in notebooks - it's "good enough" at the low end, but get into the middle and high-end and (without even considering performance) you very rarely even have an AMD option.
Also, for the record, the last time I was in the market for a laptop was about two years ago when I bought my E6410 - this was well before Brazos and Llano.