How does the latest leaked build of Windows 7 build 7048 compare to the beta 1 build 7000, Vista SP1 and XP SP3 in terms of performance? It’s clear that some of the results here are all over the place, and I’m putting this down this the fact that Windows 7 is still a work in progress and drivers are still pretty new, revealed Adrian Kingsley-Hughes.

However, four patterns do emerge:

-Windows 7 is, overall, better than both Vista and XP
-As Windows 7 progresses, it’s getting better (or at least the 64-bit editions are)
-On a higher-spec system, 64-bit is best
-On a lower-spec system, 32-bit is best