1/27 - ExtremeTech recently speced out four systems for running Windows Vista, Microsoft's upcoming operating system, which is due in the second half of the year. Specifics for such systems will vary, but ExtremeTech was able to distill a few guiding principles from the specifics. Older systems will still run Windows Vista. The question is, what hardware does one need to get the most out of one's investment in the new operating system.

Not all of the technologies that Windows Vista shall use are available today. Hardware support for DirectX 10, Microsoft's next generation 3D API (application programming interface), is not here yet. Neither are hybrid hard drives—hard drives that contain flash memory.

To this list we mght add HD DVD drives, which are not shipping yet. Support for HD DVD shall be built into the operating system, much the way Microsoft built support for zipping and unzipping compressed files into Windows XP: much the way in which Microsoft built into the operating system support for burning CDs and DVDs.

That being said, much of the technology that Windows Vista shall make use of is available today. These technologies include CPUs with dual-cores, 64-bit extensions (AMD64 and EM64T), and hardware virtualization. Vista is to feature improved support for multicore CPUs—dual-core on up—thanks to Vista's Windows scheduler.

Hardware virtualization on AMD platforms is not here yet, but it will be with AMD's Pacifica technology. Intel's hardware virtualization is already shipping in many CPUs and is simply called Intel Virtualization Technology.

Intel's Core Duo does not currently have 64-bit capabilities. That will not happen for Intel notebooks until the second half of this year, with the arrival of Merom. Then again that is the time frame for Windows Vista's arrival. On the other hand, AMD currently provides 64-bit notebook processors. Be forewarned. There is a tradeoff between battery life and 64-bit capability, so determine your needs and choose accordingly.

One of the most talked-about features of the new operating system is its 3D Aero Glass user interface. To run the full Aero Glass interface, one needs a fairly beefy graphics card.

The card needs to support DirectX 9 at a minimum in order to run the Aero Glass interface, preferably on the PCI Express bus, with 256MB of video memory on the graphics card. A mid-range card should do the trick.

PCI Express allows data to be duplexed back and forth between the graphics card and main memory at high speeds. AGP, on the other hand, only supports alot of bandwidth in one direction. "The Vista graphics subsystem will actually make use of PCI Express's bidirectional capability".

But why, one may ask, would an office worker need a 3D user interface? ExtremeTech's response is that a decent graphics subsystem will be necessary for decent system performance. Keeping multiple windows open could drag down performance. The new interface treats every window as its own 3D surface, "even if most your apps are 2D".

How much main memory should one use with Windows Vista? Microsoft's suggested minimum for current (beta) builds of Windows Vista is 512MB. However, a "good rule of thumb in the past has been to go with 4x the minimum memory requirements". You do the math.