by Yang Pei

Created on: February 05, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

How to choose a PC that gives you the best possible Windows Vista Experience?

After Microsoft Windows Vista's official launch at the end of January, people like me ask themselves whether upgrading or buying a computer just to run Vista pays off the heavy price tag for which you could sometimes buy a computer on its own (Vista Ultimate's retail price in the UK could even be compared to getting an off-the-shelf notebook at PC World when it's on sale).

In my opinion, the common user doesn't even notice the difference between the Vista that is pre-installed on their system (Vista Home or Home Premium) and the more expensive ones (Vista Business and Vista Premium).

As a general rule, buying a new computer is usually safer than upgrading your PC (especially if it's a budget one that has a 'Intel Celeron Inside' or 'AMD Sempron' sticker at the front).

When buying a new PC from a retailer that includes Vista Home, the two main factors are the Processor and the Memory. MHz numbers can be deceptive, which means reading up reviews on processors in technical magazines is your best bet on finding what's right for you.

The prices can range from 40 up to 1000 dollar per purchased CPU.

A good CPU for Vista for PC with a budget would be:

1) Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or E4300 -
a)Most power efficient processor on the market (derived from the CPUs also found in Pentium M laptops).
b) Very powerful and future proof (handles images, videos, media playback, audio creation like a cake)
c) High value for a relatively low price.
d) 2 physical processors in one package means that doing more than one thing at one time doesn't result in a perceptional slowdown of performance. i.e. run a game on one processor, while using iTunes to rip music onto your iPod(r).

2) AMD Athlon 64 Processors
a) Has established itself in the last few years as the budget processor of choice with reasonable performance (also available as Dual Core, marked as Athlon 64 X2 {up to 6000+}). Note: The + Rating was based on the old Thunderbird core of the original Athlon Processors and cannot be directly compared to Pentium 4/Pentium D or Core 2 Duo processors.

b) Available for a very cheap price in the computers of leading T1 resellers (HP,Dell, Lenovo). Due to pressure from market-leader Intel, AMD had to constantly push its CPU prices down, thus leading to more value for money.

Memory: For Vista, the stated minimum of 512 MB by Microsoft is highly subjective and optimally you would like to have at least 1 GB of RAM, considering

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