ID:182870
 
I'm going to be getting a new computer in a few days. It will have..

RAM: 4GB 1022mhz (Somewhere around that)
Processor: 2.2 GHz, Intel Dual Core
Video Card: AVI HD 2200, 256mb or something.
500 GB HDD.

Now, I was wondering.. Is this around the modern day standard? And I've heard some things about Vista. Good and bad. I'm not sure if I should upgrade to Vista, or stay with XP.

Thankies.
Strong123488 wrote:
I'm going to be getting a new computer in a few days. It will have..

RAM: 4GB 1022mhz (Somewhere around that)
Processor: 2.2 GHz, Intel Dual Core
Video Card: AVI HD 2200, 256mb or something.
500 GB HDD.

Now, I was wondering.. Is this around the modern day standard? And I've heard some things about Vista. Good and bad. I'm not sure if I should upgrade to Vista, or stay with XP.

Thankies.

Ram sounds overly good.
CPU sounds alright but nothing special.
Video card I'm a little concerned about. Personally I'd spend the most on the video card as it's normally the biggest bottleneck.
Hard drive size is good though.
For a computer like yours I'd stick to XP for the moment.
Strong123488 wrote:
I'm going to be getting a new computer in a few days. It will have..

RAM: 4GB 1022mhz (Somewhere around that)
Processor: 2.2 GHz, Intel Dual Core
Video Card: AVI HD 2200, 256mb or something.
500 GB HDD.

Now, I was wondering.. Is this around the modern day standard?

Yes, that is a good enough computer to run all the latest software and a very large hard drive to boot! If you haven't ordered the computer already, note that Intel Dual Core processors come with 2mb or 4mb caches, and the 4mb cache is usually not a whole lot more expensive but can increase your processing power greatly during some tasks!

4GB of RAM is the cap of most modern-day systems, because you can't utilize more than 4MB of ram per task in any modern 32-bit operating system I know of. If you went any higher you'd be better off with a 64-bit OS, but at 4GB you should be okay.

And I've heard some things about Vista. Good and bad. I'm not sure if I should upgrade to Vista, or stay with XP.

Many long-time Windows advocates are telling people to stay with XP instead of upgrading to Vista. Vista has a lot of problems with it -- perhaps most noticably, your brand-new computer running Vista will probably not run a whole lot faster than your old computer running XP due to its extra bloat and notably poor performance.

However, the reality is this: Microsoft is going to force people to go to Vista by ending support for Windows XP, probably within the next year. They were going to end it already, but they have extended the deadline slightly because of massive demand from their OEM buyers. That will mean no more patches or security updates, leading to a future plagued by malware far worse than the average XP box is today.

So, if Vista isn't for you, I suggest that you get XP and start tinkering with non-Windows systems so that you have some experience in that area when support for XP gets dropped. Ubuntu is a good starting place, since it's free of charge, very user-friendly, and has many of the same features of Vista with far less software bloat.


Good luck with your new computer. I feel bad for people who have to choose between XP and Vista right now, though. :-\
I love Vista, get it.
In response to Critical
Alright. I've got some updates on what the computer will have..

Processor - Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.0 GHZ
OS - Vista
RAM - 2 GB DDR2 667 MHz
Video Card - 256 mb, PClex16 ATI Radeon HD 2400
Optical Drive - 16 x DVD/CD
In response to PirateHead
Can you install Windows based programs onto Ubuntu?
In response to Shinjiro Aragaki
Yes and no, mostly no. You can install wine, but it's very hard to get winodws programs running. Byond afaik does not work in linux.

That said, ubuntu is superior to vista or xp in every way, except for support by software (mostly game) developers.

I'm using ubuntu right now and use vista solely for games.