I'm building a new DAW, and I saw this link with a direct comparison, and Win7 tested better than Win 8 by 30-50%.
 

 
The guy upgraded his PC OS, and tested it with identical hardware using Sonar plugins and instances.
 
I've been leary of Win 8.  I don't like the GUI.  I see no advantage.  The Sonar lead programmer gave a preview of Win 8 that I read, but he wasn't that convincing.   He said timing may be better, but wasn't too specific.
 
Here's the issues I would like some QUANTITATIVE data on:
 
Assuming 64 bit versions of both.
 
1.  Is the multi-core scheduling any better under Win 8?  (vs Win 7 with latest Service pack)
 
2.  Is the system timing any more accurate with Win 8?  I heard there are MIDI jitter problems in Win 7.  I haven't measured it, but is it MIDI only or is audio affected?  I have noticed latency problems in my system with Sonar 7 and X1 (I now am using X3), but usually these latencies were ASIO related or other system problems.
 
3.  Why would Win 7 allow 35-50% more instances of plugins of the same audio processing plugins without dropout..... as identified in the above link from gearslutz?   Also more notes of polyphony in soft synths.
 
I'm used to Win 7, I need a good reason to go to Win 8, and I haven't found any......has anyone else?
 
Thanks

The forum cut out my link:
 

 
try again

You can make Win8 look very much like Win7. I have read that 8 has some disk speed advantages and also perhaps some latency improvements but the latter will always depend on the drivers. MS supposedly wrote W8 from the ground up and dumped all the legacy code. I put W8 on a 2007 Toshiba laptop and it really improved the performance. I never use the Modern (Metro) interface so it looks and operates for the most part like W7. I would make sure that W8  drivers are available for your hardware before making the jump. I still use W7 for my studio and may consider W8 after I convert my work machine to W8 next month. I am sort of in the same boat as you are.
Not sure if I can post a link but a Sonar + W8 article is here:

 
Michael

Nope the link was removed
google this and it should be the first hit
 
Windows 8 - A benchmark for music production applications
 
Michael
 
 

I have Windows 8 and love it.  I had Windows 7 for quite a while prior to that, and loved that too.
 
Both work well for me.  I have delayed going to 8.1, until I finish my current projects, but will likely be going to that in a couple of months.
 
Make sure drivers are there, and have a blast.
 
As far as performance, Sonar ran fine on Win 7, and runs fine on Win 8.  I saw no performance hit in Windows 8.
 
As far as usability, I see the Windows 8 UI precisely once, during most days, only at boot up.  I do NOT have any apps to make Win 8 look like Win 7 - I just click on Desktop, and I get the same desktop look and feel that I had with Windows 7, with the exception of the Start button.  Whip Dee Doo , la de la.  All I did was take the most used programs and pin them to the task bar, and send the others as shortcuts to the desktop, and I now rarely have to go to the new Start Menu .
 
Bob Bone
 

I believe the Cakewalk team have done some considerable testing on Win8 and have passed Sonar to run on this operating system without any major problems. I'm sure if Sonar was taking the kind of performance hits you are mentioning, it would never have passed testing.
My thoughts on this are that there may be some kind of driver issue with the hardware that is being used to test on, I'll be interested to see if this is case, and whether the site you are referring to has given details on exactly what hardware, and drivers, they are using..
 
I think you must have a certain amount of posts on this forum before you are allowed to post links, so they are not showing up and I can't find the articles you are referring to.

Not much difference between them. The latest is slightly better and will be supported for longer by M$ more importantly. The guy who did the testing probably didn't disable the services he did not need.

Running 8.1 x64  here in my studio. No OS related issues. I boot straight into the desktop.

8.1 is a no brainer for me because of the touch stuff.
 
If you're one of those folks who's uncomfortable with new things, you might stick with Windows 7.

I was running X1 on a quad core 6600 on Vista up until four months ago.  That machine was over 5 years old.  When I decided it was time for a new PC I contracted a local business (who also happens to be a musical client) to build it.  I chose Windows 8.1 for the touch-screen capability (even though I haven't moved to that technology yet.)  The PC is an Intel i7 4770K 3.5 gHZ processor with 16 Gig of RAM.  It's a beast to say the least!  I also have a Samsung solid state drive for the boot/program drive.  I'm very satisfied with this system as a whole!  It takes 30 seconds or less to fully boot, no issues with X3D, I see 8 processors in Sonar and I've been throwing a boatload of plugins that I wouldn't have dreamed of throwing on the Vista machine and I've not had any issues.