[ Outline ] · Standard · Linear+ Windows 'Longhorn' will need whopper PCs

Now if this quote doesn't make your short & curlies stand straight up, I don't know what will:

Microsoft is expected to recommend that the 'average' Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.

Article on the upcoming 'Longhorn' version of Windows

Yowza... don't think I'll be overclocking my 1GHz to that kind of category of machine.

I just don't believe it... I looked around a little bit, but has anyone seen an official communication from MS saying that this is the case? I realize we're probably 2 years away from the release, but I doubt that graphics cards will triple in performance by then, especially given the latest round of cards (X800, etc) finally gave a performance increase worth looking at. The 3.06 GHz chips have been around for what, a year, and they're still basically the top of the line, although the new versions have 800MHz FSBs instead of 533... I would imagine that this OS would run decently on a ~2.4GHz machine with a decent video card and 512-1gig of RAM. There was talk of a mode for slower computers, anyway, that wouldn't be the 3D interface, and would look much like W2K, doesn't that make sense? It's like when Gates said '640K should be enough for anyone.' He never actually said it. Find the original quote and prove me wrong.

TL