When you plan to buy new PC today.

As time goes, computer processing powers are improving to cater for today’s need. When you plan to buy new PC today, you need to make a wise choice. At least your PC should be Vista-ready. Regardless of your budget limitation, here are basic requirements for today’s PC. Use Duo Core CPU instead of single or solo core CPU coz Duo Core is more flexible and price difference is very small. Though Microsoft recommends minimum requirement for RAM to run Windows Vista is 512 MB, you should consider to get at least 1GB of RAM or even 2GB if you multi-task ‘heavy’ applications. Because of multi-tasking, we should buy wider LCD. Recommend sizes are 15 or 17 inches. LCD has many advantages over CRT. Wider screen is needed to run and monitor various applications at the same time. Memory of graphic card should be at least 128MB to experience Vista’s Aero interface. Storage capacity of hard drive should be at least 120GB but if you plan to archive multimedia files, the larger the better. All in all, the overall system of today’s PC should at least meet Windows Vista requirements.

See also: Intel's processors comparison table.