My Desktop Build...

[MyndFyre]

If the kid was going to run windows Vista Home Premium & up he would need more than 2 gigs of RAM. Vistas resources use at least a Gig with all of its widgets.

That's a bit of an exaggeration - my notebook ran fine with 1 gig - but 2 is always nicer

[Yegg]

If the kid was going to run windows Vista Home Premium & up he would need more than 2 gigs of RAM. Vistas resources use at least a Gig with all of its widgets.

That's a bit of an exaggeration - my notebook ran fine with 1 gig - but 2 is always nicer

Confirmed. My mom's laptop also runs Vista Home with 1gb of RAM and has no speed issues. I'm no Vista fan, but I know that 1gb is all you need for Vista to run while still being able to run a few heavy on the resources softwares.

[Michael]

Why not spend the extra money on a quad core processor it isn't that much more then what you will pay for your current processor runs at the same speed and has a bigger cache.

[Barabajagal]

When are AMD's 4core processors coming out, anyway?

[Joe[x86]]

Warrior, you just love to take things people say and completely twist them around numerous times. I never said that we will never need x amount of RAM. I said I've never needed 4gb (to date. I never said "will never need") and he probably won't need 4gb either. By the time 4gb is a necessity, he'll be buying all new computers parts and probably even new RAM anyways. So why spend the extra $100 right now when he doesn't have to?

Let me bring a case study of sorts in to play here. I consider myself a power user, requiring a more powerful machine than most others. I'm using a Dell Dimension 2400, which I purchased in 2001, I believe. It came with a 40GB hard drive, which would now be nearly half-way filled by just installing Windows Vista and Visual Studio. It also came with a CD-RW drive, which you couldn't even install Windows Vista using, as you need a DVD drive. Also, it shipped with 512MB of RAM, which couldn't run Windows Vista even if you had all the time in the world, as eventually you'll need sleep.

I'm still using this machine to date (posting from it, to be exact) running Windows Vista, installed from a DVD-RW drive, installed onto a 120GB HD, and with 1GB of RAM. I wish I had a bigger HD and more RAM, and that would be the second time I upgraded those. I got a machine with a decent processor (2.8GHz, incredible at the time), and that's the only thing I haven't upgraded.

When I build my next machine, I'll want to get at least 5 years out of it, without spending too much on upgrades. Now, look back in 2001 and tell me that those weren't amazing specs for $400. Right -- you can't, because they were. Look in 2007 and tell me that the $400 machine I bought should sell for more than $100. If I hadn't spent a good deal of money on upgrading my hardware, my amazing powerhouse would be about as useful as a paperweight. Keep that in mind when you pick what hardware you have in your machine.

Running VMware on a personal computer just to run a Windows OS, um..ok. Why not just run a Windows OS?

Because his machine is a Mac.

If the kid was going to run windows Vista Home Premium & up he would need more than 2 gigs of RAM. Vistas resources use at least a Gig with all of its widgets.

That's a bit of an exaggeration - my notebook ran fine with 1 gig - but 2 is always nicer

Confirmed. My mom's laptop also runs Vista Home with 1gb of RAM and has no speed issues. I'm no Vista fan, but I know that 1gb is all you need for Vista to run while still being able to run a few heavy on the resources softwares.

I'm running Vista Ultimate now and still keep many of my programs open like in my previous posts. I only have 1GB of RAM, and have several widgets open, and I don't notice any more lag than I did with Windows XP a few days ago.

[mayhem]

Changed Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017