While Microsoft Windows 10 is still under heavy development, its current stage hasn’t refrained testers from pushing the limits of the new operating system, with notorious resource-hungry apps commonly used in production environments.
For the sake of realism, our setup is a mix of old and new hardware, although most of the internal components are less than 2 years old.
- CPU: AMD Athlon II 640 3.00 Ghz (not overclocked)
- RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (8GBx4)
- Storage: Maxtor 1Tb HDD 7200RPM
- GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX 770, 1045 MHz graphic clock, 2GB GDDR5
- Video input 1: Samsung SyncMaster 226bw
- Video input 2: Wacom Cintiq W12X LCD tablet
Of course, our operating system of choice: Microsoft Windows 10 Technical Preview
Photoshop CC on Windows 10
On first observation, opening Photoshop on Windows 10 took us less than 2 seconds, which is definitely good news, as the same application takes up to 5 seconds to open on the same system running Windows 7 Ultimate. Opening Photoshop on Windows 8.1 seems to be as fast as Windows 10.
Opening high-resolution photographs is instantaneous, even when calling Photoshop directly from the file manager, however the difference becomes noticeable when importing high-dynamic-range images, which Photoshop CC handles brilliantly on most systems, however in our 3-image merge test, Photoshop CC on Windows 7 Pro lags behind by several seconds, while on Windows 10 the HDR editor becomes available in barely 2 seconds flat.
Most tasks accomplished almost instantaneously while editing HDR image compositions, including the automatic removal of ghost images, edge glow and tone/detail settings. Selecting HDR presets takes place also very quickly. Next, opening the final HDR composition takes approximately 2-3 seconds depending on size and complexity, almost double the time it takes on Windows 7 Ultimate, but once again on par with Windows 8.1. In this instance the size of the image in memory is 61.5MB, which includes the HDR layers.
Batch processing
We converted a folder of 30 high-resolution images, each one over 4Mb, from RGB to Grayscale, which took approximately 1 second for each image on Windows 10. Once again, Windows 7 Ultimate took at least 3 seconds per image, while Windows 8.1 matched Windows 10 in speed of execution.
Filters and layers
It’s not uncommon so sit through progress bars while applying filters like blur, glow or sharpen. Removing dust and automatically smoothing pixelation on Windows 7 Ultimate, especially on images above 20MB, can take anywhere from several seconds, up to a minutes, depending on resources. On this particular setup, applying most filters took us about 50 seconds on Windows 7, and about 15 seconds on Windows 10.
3D Text editing
Handling fonts in 3D on Windows 7 Ultimate is no light task without proper hardware, but even with higher-end computing power, our experience with manipulating 3D text and shapes over high-res images on Windows 10, in respect to Windows 7, is noticeably different.
Windows 10 interface integration
The integration of all Adobe apps in Windows 10 seems to fit quite well with the flat style. Even apps that don’t run in fullscreen mode, like Photoshop, cause the taskbar to inherit the color of the application window, enhancing focus while working within most applications.
Final thoughts
As we delved into more complex tasks, we found almost no glitches or odd behaviors suggesting Windows 10 may very well be stable enough for other high-end applications, like Illustrator, or even CAD applications, where system stability is crucial for longer processing tasks.