Today, I decided to upgrade my ThinkPad X230 from Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit to Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit. I am using Windows 10 on my main desktop successfully since it was released with only minor problems. So I did the upgrade which caused some problems on my X230, especially with non working Dolby Digital Audio.I will talk about that in another blog entry. I tried a fresh install once I did the upgrade and now Windows 10 runs flawlessly on my X230! Lenovo System Update got everything that I need and the machine runs fine.
So I would like to focus on what kind of performance enhancements you can get from switching to Windows 10, especially in gaming. I do not game a lot but I am interested in how good my little machine fares in games.
The device is equipped with an Intel Core i5-3320M CPU 2,6 GHz, 2×4 GB of Crucial PC3-12800 RAM in a dual channel configuration. The display is a standard TN-display with a resolution of 1366×768. The integrated GPU of this machine is an Intel HD 4000.
The Intel HD 4000 driver version for Windows 7 is: 9.18.10.3359
The Intel HD 4000 driver for Windows 10 is: 10.18.10.4242
The date of the Windows 7 and Windows 10 drivers differs by about one year! So the Windows 10 drivers could in theory be much faster than the Windows 7 ones. Maybe the Windows 10 OS is much more efficient in using the graphics drivers, I don’t know. Here are my results:
| Benchmark | Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit | Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit | |
| 3DMark – Fire Strike 1.1 | 552 | 540 | -2,2 % |
| 3DMark – Sky Diver 1.0 | 2013 | 2024 | +0,55 % |
| 3DMark – Cloud Gate 1.1 | 4426 | 4442 | +0,36 % |
| 3DMark – Ice Storm 1.2 | 49678 | 52064 | +4,8 % |
| 3DMark11 | 702 | 715 | +1,9 % |
| Unigine Heaven 4 (1366×768,high) | 12,5 fps | 12,3 | -1,6 % |
| Half Life 2 – Lost Coast (13x66x768, DX9) | 118,0 fps | 110,3 | -6,5% |
| Tomb Raider(1366×768) | 33,6 fps | 36,4 | +8,3 % |
| PCMark 8 | 2640 | 2582 | -2,2 % |
| Passmark 8 | 2222,3 | 2086 | -6,1 % |
| Cinebench R15 – OpenGL | 9,87 fps | 19,14 fps | + 93,9% |
| Cinebench R15 – CPU (Single Core) | 114 cb | 108 cb | -5,2 % |
| Cinebench R15 – CPU | 274 cb | 272 cb | -0,72 % |
| Resident Evil 5 Test 2 (1368×768), AA off, DX10 | 32,7 fps | 34,9 fps | +6,7 % |
| Final Fantasy XIV – 1368×768, DX11, Notebook(high) | 1211 | 1857 | +53,3 % |
| Alien vs. Predator – DX11, 1368×768 | 13,7 fps | 13,1 fps | -4,4 % |
| Street Fighter IV – 1368×768, AA 2x, aniso: 16x | 32,5 fps | 35,1 fps | +8 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, medium preset – day | 27 | 29 | +7,4 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, medium preset – night | 28 | 30 | +7,1 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, medium preset – rain | 31 | 34 | +9,7 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, medium preset – sun shafts | 18 | 20 | +11,1 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – day | 26 | 26 | 0% |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – night | 24 | 27 | +12,5 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – rain | 26 | 31 | +19,2 % |
| Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – sun shafts | 12 | 13 | +8,3 % |
So there are some slight improvements. Very interesting is that Final Fantasy XIV could gain 53,3 %! Stalker DX11 also got a good boost.
The value for Cinebench R15 is very interesting, it is about 94% better than on Windows 7. I am not sure if I did something wrong under Windows 7. I cannot redo the test under Windows 7 because the machine is now running Windows 10. Maybe someone could repeat the test under their machine and send me his results?
Update 2015-09-8: one User in the German ThinkPad Forum made the following observation on his machine, although it is not identically specced to mine and he measured the switch from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 and he used an elder version of Cinebench( Test on HD4000 on Core i5-3210M using CineBench R11.5):
OpenGL:
Windows 8.1: 12,23
Windows 10: 18,02
So on his machine the switch from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 gave a performance boost of about 50% in the OpenGL test. So it seems that my boost of 93% from Windows 7 to Windows 10 is not completely implausible!
Janni
Very interesting blog. My understanding is that Lenovo does not support an upgrade path from windows 7 pro on the X230T to windows 10. I can’t find any reference to this in extensive searching on the web, until I came up with your article. We have exactly the same specs (RAM, etc)…would you have any suggestion as to how I might go about an upgrade despite the lack of official support? Thanks Mark