Windows 11 gets wrecked by Windows 8.1 in speed tests
Someone actually tested six Windows versions head-to-head. You won't believe which one won (spoiler: not the newest one).
Scout Team
Okay so I saw this test and had to share because honestly? It's hilarious. Someone with way too much time on their hands decided to benchmark six generations of Windows against each other. And Windows 11 came in dead last. Like, embarrassingly last.
Here's the thing that gets me. Windows 8.1 - you know, the OS everyone pretended didn't exist after the Windows 8 disaster - actually smoked the competition in most tests. I'm talking boot times, file operations, basic responsiveness. The version Microsoft basically apologized for is faster than their latest and supposedly greatest. Make it make sense.
Now look, this wasn't exactly a scientific test. But that's not really the point. What strikes me is how each new Windows version seems to get slower despite our hardware getting ridiculously fast. My gaming rig has 32GB of RAM and an NVMe drive that costs more than my first car, yet Windows 11 still manages to feel sluggish sometimes. Remember when Windows XP ran fine on 256MB of RAM?
The real kicker? Windows 11 is now mandatory on new PCs in 2026. So we're all stuck with the slowest version whether we like it or not. At least until someone figures out how to install Windows 8.1 on modern hardware. Which, knowing the internet, probably happened five minutes after this test went viral.