Well, Win8 is definitely optimized for touch devices, however it works like a charm on non touch devices as well. Win8 has many, many under the hood improvements, which includes boot times, battery life issues et al.

I you really want to know, try installing a Win8 copy on an older Win 7 machine, which has been used for a long time. I have done the same and there are umpteen improvements with the same old hardware... :)