Vista Question

[mokkapoop]

Is it really necessary to have a dual or even quad core machine to run Vista? I am thinking of either building a new machine, or upgrading my following machine:

Dell GX280
P4 2.8GHZ
1.5GB DDR2 400
500GB HD
onboard audio/video/lan

Would maxing out the ram (4gb), getting a new PCI-E card, and getting the fastest LGA775 CPU I can get (cant support dual core at all) be good enough to run Vista, game, email, small office things - decently?

Please let me know your thoughts....

[bbz_Ghost]

That 1.5GB of RAM there will help out considerably over just 1GB so, you're already off to a good start.

Your system as listed should run Vista just fine, the only question I have is: what specific onboard video does that machine have.

If it's a GMA900 then you'll be able to use the Basic GUI interface, but not Aero. You'll need the GMA950 or better for that, and I'm going to bet it's just the GMA900 on that mobo because of the age of the processor you have listed.

Does it support PCI-E video cards? Seems kinda old with that P4 2.8 to do that, but maybe it does. If not, a fully DX9 compatible AGP card with 128MB or more of video RAM will work wonders with Aero compared to that onboard stuff.

You should be fine running Vista with the stock system you have. But if you want the bells and the whistles and the eye-candy Aero provides, then yes, gotta work on upgrading at least the video card to something a lot more useful and powerful. Of course, 4GB of RAM and a whole new mobo/processor isn't a bad thing to look into also. The Core 2 Duo E4300 is one hella sweet chip, and after April rolls around, it's expected to drop to about $113. Not too shabby for a 1.8 GHz processor that many people overclock to 3 GHz solid on stock voltage and cooling.

Hope this helps...