CNET has posted results of in depth test of Windows 7 RTM, which was released for testing last month. CNET compared performance of Windows 7 (32-bit) against Vista SP2 and XP SP3. All the testing was done on Inspiron Desktop 530 running 2.20GHz Core 2 Duo E4500 processor, 4GB RAM, 128MB NVIDIA 8300 GS graphics and two 320GB 7,200 RPM hard drives.

The two of the most common software run by computer users today are Microsoft Office and iTunes. For Microsoft Office Windows 7 was quite slower than XP, but almost as fast as Vista. In iTunes performance test Windows 7 and XP were equally fast, while Vista was the slowest by just one second.

Even though Microsoft claims that Windows 7 should boot up very fast, the test showed that Windows 7 was the slowest. However, Windows 7 was the fastest to shutdown taking just 5.1 seconds.

Overall, we can see that the results are mixed. When comparing performance of individual programs XP might turn out to be the fastest Windows OS. However, running multiple programs and switching between those programs feels faster on Windows 7. Plus Windows 7 has smaller install footprint and tighter memory usage when compared to Vista, and the new graphics and UI options makes it look as good as Mac OS X.