Windows 10 LTSC v Windows 7 Pro - Solved

Clanger

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Despite using LTSC for several months and having tweaked the living daylights out of it there is still the nagging feeling that LTSC v W7 is still like the Hare and the Tortoise and due to an unplanned bit of luck i can run w7 on Intel 8th gen Coffee Lake(H310C (R2.0) ) but what are the pros and cons of each

Telemetry - Easy to silence on w7, not easy on w10. This is the main issue for w10 users. Mine is airgapped so telemetry isnt an issue.
Graphics - W7 doesnt have a igpu driver for intel uhd 610 and 630, LTSC(1809) does. Need to spend an extra £30 to £40 for a graphics card to run w7.
Intel graphics will be good enough for many and i use it on my i3.
Drivers - LTSC has native ms drivers for usb3(xhci), W7 needs usb3(xhci) drivers added to boot.wim and install.wim.
Liting(removals) - W7 is easy to shrink, 10 isnt. Both can take a "beginners" lite preset very easily.
Power consumption - People say 7 uses less power than 10 but 10 can use the igpu and you need a graphics card for 7 so power consumption will go up.
Tweaking - Both are easy to tweak and LTSC is proving very tolerant considering i have tweaked the living daylights out of it.
Performance - LTSC, 25000 to 36000 handles. W7, 6000 to 10000. I can get LTSC down to 9000 which is in the w7(default) ballpark. I can get w7 down to 3300 handles bareboned which is a lot less that LTSC heavily fettled(9000).

How do they feel in use - (default)W7(on ssd) is fast and responsive but heavily tweaked LTSC feels just as fast and responsive. Both systems use a single channel of Ballistix Sport 2400, 4GB for Pentium, 8GB for i3, both use MX500 500GB ssds. The difference between the two isnt noticable and im wondering if it is worth worrying about at all. Am i really fussed about 3000 extra handles? That £30 to £40 extra for a graphics card is bugging me :confused:

Edit - Windows 7 wins by a hairs breadth. Schiit Audio's USB drivers support W7. 7 is a bit more responsive than 10 and i get a 2 second faster render to mp3 on a pentium(w7) than i do the i3(LTSC). Back to old faithful then. :)

The pentium, motherboard and gt710 cost the same(give or take a bob or two) as an i3 8300(£147 for 8100, £183 the 8300) and 2 second quicker. :D
 
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pentium 5600 has 4 mb cache and i3 8300 has 8 mb , besides other obvious differences. for some programs this cache is very important. just my 2 cents to help you build a decision.
 
5400 but i get your point so heres mine. Im not a gamer, benchmarker or supermax/ultra ultra hd video streamer, i deal with good old fashioned 16bit 44.1/48khz audio in various formats and even a cheap cpu does audio well. Look at Scan and CCL for i3 prices, they are really taking the wee. £57 works a treat with w7.
 
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