Anilrgowda

Since one of our comments brought up the idea of buying hardware, here’s a repost of an article I wrote in December about how to buy a PC that can run Windows Vista.

It’s never been easy to buy a new personal computer when you don’t know exactly how much computing power you’re really going to need. Gamers and heavy-duty video editors should buy the most PC they can afford, but others have no real guidelines.
With Windows Vista coming soon, it’s going to become more complicated.

Microsoft has tried to figure out a way to advise consumers on what kind of PC they need to run Vista. This new advice system might help consumers make better decisions when buying computers, but it’s not going to provide all the answers.
There are multiple versions of Microsoft’s new Vista operating system, which debuts for businesses Thursday and in January for consumers, and certain PCs are more suitable for some of those versions. If you buy a PC this holiday season, before Vista is available for consumers, Microsoft and your PC manufacturer will allow you to upgrade the PC to the consumer version of Vista for free or a small fee (covering shipping costs) in January.
You have to look for computers that say “Vista Capable'’ or “Vista Premium Ready.'’ The Vista Capable machines will run the Windows Vista Home Basic version, which is essentially just a more modern version of the current Windows XP Home edition.
The Vista Premium Ready machines will run Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, which runs the rich 3-D interface called Aero Glass. Aero Glass allows you to organize your files in three dimensions and see through translucent images of files or Web pages.
For Vista Home Premium, here’s what you need in a computer (whether or not it’s labeled “Vista Premium Ready'’): at least a 1-gigahertz microprocessor, 1 gigabyte of main memory, 40 gigabytes of hard disk space, a DVD drive and a graphics card that supports DirectX 9 and has 128 megabytes of graphics memory. Such machines cost $700 to $900 today.
For Vista Home Basic, which doesn’t have Aero Glass, you can get by with 512 megabytes of main memory and an 800-megahertz microprocessor. Such a machine costs $500 or so. Justin Hutchinson, a group product manager at Microsoft, says almost 98 percent of PCs selling today can meet these requirements.
The cheapest PCs available today aren’t necessarily configured right to run Vista Home Premium. They might have too much processing power and too little main memory or graphics. Naturally, Intel (which makes microprocessors) doesn’t agree with this, while Nvidia and Samsung (which, respectively, make graphics and memory chips) do.
Agent Corey Peterson at the tech service Geek Squad says that most people will need a PC with more processing power than the bare minimum to enjoy Vista’s multimedia features. He is recommending that customers buy considerably more than the minimum requirements listed above.
Consumers might get confused by the mixed messages. Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are promoting powerful “dual core'’ microprocessors, or those with two computing brains. Most software doesn’t truly support dual core yet, but dual-core processors help when your computer is doing two tasks at once.
In the past, consumers had to take a wild guess at buying a PC that would run their applications and have enough headroom so that it would run the applications they would buy in the future as well.
To help consumers choose a PC, Microsoft has created a guide within Windows Vista’s control panel that offers easy advice. You can test this on a computer in a store before you buy it. In the performance section of the control panel, the Windows Experience Index will run a test on the computer that spits out a ranking from 1 to 5.9. The higher the number, the more capable the PC is in the categories of microprocessor, memory, graphics, gaming graphics and hard disk space. An overall number takes the lowest number of any of those five categories.
With that ranking number for the PC, a consumer can look at the software he or she wants to run. Software vendors who are certified as Vista ready can choose to mark their packages with the ratings number. Adobe’s PhotoShop software, for instance, might require a 4-ranked PC. That means the consumer shouldn’t buy anything less than a 4 in order to run PhotoShop.
Some critics worry about this system. Bruce Greenwood, a Hewlett-Packard product marketing director, said the ranking system might be too narrowly focused. George Alfs, a spokesman for Intel, says that Intel prefers consumers to look at industry benchmarks, not the index.
So far, only a couple of games have been ranked: Microsoft’s “Flight Simulator X'’ and LucasArts’ “Lego Star Wars II.'’ If the software vendors come forward with their own index rankings, they will make Microsoft’s system more useful to consumers. But the criticism suggests that consumers would have to study their own needs more to assess their computing requirements.
The good thing is that the longer consumers wait, the more PC prices will fall and the more likely that any machine on the market will do the tasks that they need. If you want more detailed shopping advice, run a search on “Windows Vista hardware requirements'’ or “Windows Experience Index'’ to view Web pages that offer more details. In the meantime, the computer industry should step forward with better advice for buying computers.