I've been asking around about what's the best machine/processor to use for Vista and here are some of the things I have learned.  Please post with your own suggestions and advice.

 Core 2 Duo:

Core 2 Duo provides the benefits of dual-core and 64-bit.  They are high performance and low-power.  They sounds like the way to go, to me.  If we're talking about a laptop, then the Core 2 Duo is only just out.  For Desktop it has been out for a while - consider the Dell Dimension 9200 series.  For workstation, check out Xeon 51xx series, used by Dell Precision and Mac Pros.

The Xeon 51xx series are very nice, but very expensive at the moment.

For a laptop, the recommendation I've seen is dual core 32-bit chip.  In particular, a few folks I trust have suggested the IBM/Lenovo T60P which has 1600x1200 resolution and have already been running Vista well for several months.

Intel's Pentium 4 Dual Core should be avoided, but as such is fairly cheap.  The biggest issue with 64-bit is the lack of WinXP drivers for x64.

Obviously these recommendations will change with time - what do you suggest for Vista?  What machine do you have, and how is it performing?

 

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Steven A Smith
President, AspAlliance LLC
CIO, Lake Quincy Media, LLC