About to build a Vista Box

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by OceanPacific, Mar 28, 2008.

  1. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    My boss is purchasing me a Vista Business license for testing purposes, but he wants me to build my own PC to test it on to save money. I dont have much on hand at the moment as far as hardware goes, but heres what im looking at putting it on.

    P4 1.3Ghz
    1GB Ram
    ATI Radeon 128MB
    80GB HD

    and I have a 2GB flashdrive which can double as a readyboost drive, hopefully to help out on the ram.

    Do you think that will be enough for testing, or will I be draggin arse all day trying to use it? I plan to use it for day-to-day things, like outlook and excel. Im not getting rid of my xp machine but I will basically have both under my desk and will switch back and forth between the two.
     
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  2. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    It is going to be slow. At least double the memory. (If you can - a motherboard with that speed processor may not be able to.)

    I don't have the load specs to hand - but that disk drive looks on the small side. And it is going to be slow as well.

    Harry.
     
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  3. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    Mmmm... that processor is a little slow. I used it for testing purposes on a 2.4 GHz P4 with a gig of RDRAM, and didn't have much trouble with it. But having only half of that processor power? I think that'd be too slow for my patience level.
     
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  4. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    Do you think the readyboost drive will help out at all?
     
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  5. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    I've seen mixed reports about readyboost. It seems to be *very* dependant on the exact hardware.

    Harry.
     
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  6. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    From what I see of specs for software with most of them when it says 1GB RAM is reccomended really you should have 2 and when it comes to the processors up it by 10-20%

    if I were you try an get a C2D processor the E6400 2.1GHz CPUs are pretty cheap now and you can get decent mobo like the Asus P5NE-sli for £60 and 2GB RAM from crucial will cost £40 not sure of the conversion to dollars.

    Also you can get 256MB graphics cards for about £60
     
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  7. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    Well the flash drive I bought says "readyboost drive" on it, so hopefully it will work. I know the machine isnt much but I just need it to be able to do basic office apps and networking apps. Hopefully it wont be too awfully slow.
     
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  8. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    I build a Vista box recently (for my wife) and installed Vista BE with SP1 already integrated. I put a £17 quid Nvidia 7200GS with 64MB ram in it as I needed a cheap PCIE card for it. Runs very well indeed and is more than enough to run Aero nicely.

    The system was quite a bit higher spec in other regards though. Athlon X2 3800+, Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe - x16 SLI Motherboard, 3GB of Ram, 200GB Maxtor HDD. It's obviously not meant for 3D games given the uber weedy graphics card, but it will run most apps very well.
     
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  9. Sparky
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    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    If you drop aero that spec should be fine 8)
     
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  10. C4sper

    C4sper Byte Poster

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    I'm quite far from 'dell boys' but looks like buying one of the 'vostro' line may by the rught answer.
    you'll avoid most of the hardware compatibilty issues and get the system quite cheap
     
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  11. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    No you see, I cant buy anything, my boss dosent want me to spend any money on hardware, so buying ANYTHING isnt an option, I just have to use what I have on hand. And unfortunately, that system is the best one I have available.

    So I just have to kinda make it work.:(
     
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  12. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Um - how about telling your boss that he wants a modern Mondeo, but all you have is an old Ford pop to base it on?

    Harry.
     
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  13. greenbrucelee
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    Good analogy Harry, you can't put a Ferrari engine in a citreone 2CV it just isn't practicle.:D
     
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  14. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    I know, I know. I didnt say I agreed with him, but hes the one who cuts my checks so you dont bite the hand that feeds you. Its really in their benefit that I learn it anyway so...:rolleyes:
     
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  15. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    Giving him information isn't the same as biting his hand. In fact, if you give him Vista, and it performs horribly... who do you think the blame for that will fall upon? Certainly not Bill Gates... that blame will likely fall squarely on you... and particularly if you don't warn him about the potential performance problems.
     
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  16. Wassup

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    but you can drop a Porsche 911 engine straight into an old VW beetle :biggrin

    the box will work but it will run very slow, you will need to turn off all the fancy-looking features of Vista to get any sort of half-decent performance.
     
  17. neilmowforth

    neilmowforth Bit Poster

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    Why don't you download a copy as a trial before spending money on a license.
     
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  18. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    Just an update:

    Ive built my Vista box, and its running quite smooth, the installation was slow (not sure if thats normal) but ive been using it all morning and im very impressed with how well its running. I did NOT expect it to run this well at all! So far so good, not sure why everyone complains about vista, its honestly not that bad!:D
     
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  19. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    No, it's not. But it's not XP, and thus, people will complain.

    I don't have any real problem with Vista either. Only reason I don't have it on my gaming box is because XP runs faster than Vista.
     
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  20. OceanPacific

    OceanPacific Byte Poster

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    Well Im currently running vista on a 1.3Ghz P4, with 1280MB (1.2GBs) of ram, and two 80GB hard drives and an ATI Radeon 9200, and I honestly cant tell that much of a difference in performance between it and my XP box here, which is a 2.6Ghz P4 1.0GB ram and an 80GB HD. Now, im just doing basic stuff too, im not gaming on them. These are my work computers so im basically just crusing the net with firefox and using outlook 2003.

    RIght now im installing vista SP1 and its seems to be taking quite a while.(currently typing on my xp box, if you havent already guessed im using a KVM.)

    But so far so good, eh!:)
     
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