Build a Windows Vista System Today!

[SRTDodge05]

Build a Windows Vista System Today!
January 20, 2006
By Loyd Case
Within the next few weeks, Microsoft will be releasing beta 2 of Windows Vista. The actual ship date of Vista hasn't been announced, but Microsoft's new OS is likely to ship sometime this Fall.
Since Windows Vista (formerly codenamed "Longhorn") was announced, some of the bleeding-edge features have been scaled back. For example, WinFS, a file system built using relational database concepts, won't be included in the final release. But it's likely that the Windows Vista's feature list is now stable enough that we can predict what kind of system you'll need to build today to accommodate the new OS. Here are a few details we do know:

Vista moves away from GDI/GDI+, Microsoft's current graphics API used for the Windows desktop. Instead, Microsoft will use a desktop compositing engine built on DirectX. Each window will be its own 3D surface. There will be a fallback mode for systems that can't handle the 3D load. Note that GDI apps will run, because a GDI layer will exist atop the Desktop Window Manager.
Windows Vista will ship on DVD discs, so a DVD-ROM drive, at a minimum, is required.
Microsoft is encouraging hard drive makers to develop hybrid drives. Hybrid drives with a large flash memory cache on board, probably 128MB or larger.
The Windows scheduler has been improved to take better advantage of dual and future multicore processors.
Support for HD-DVD will be built into the operating system.
Versions with Media Center capability will support CableCard for HD playback over Cable TV connections, provided you're a subscriber.
We're going to make a few assumptions about what people will want out of Vista:
First, we'll assume that people will want the full Aero Glass treatment, with 3D effects, transparency and so on. Secondly, users will want to use Vista's compositing engine, which enables more robust typeface handling. Finally, we'll also assume people will want reasonably good performance, though that's somewhat determined by your usage model. An office workstation won't have the same performance requirements as a multimedia powerhouse.

Why would someone just using office applications and web browsing want an enhanced 3D interface? There are several reasons:

Better performance. A decent 3D graphics card—which will only add about $75 to $100 in the Vista launch time frame—will improve performance. Since every window is a 3D surface, better 3D hardware means better responsiveness, even if most your apps are 2D.
Enhanced productivity. From what we've seen of the new interface, plus the better font handling with the composting engine, the overall usability of the system improves. Better usability equals higher productivity.
With these thoughts in mind, let's turn our attention towards several configurations that we could build to support Vista. Continued... First, let's take a look at a table of systems in different categories, and then run down the components in more detail:


PC Type Basic/Office Cost Home Multimedia/Photo Cost

Processor Pentium D 820 $245 Pentium D 830 $322

CPU cooler HSF Included 0 HSF Included 0

Motherboard ASUS P5LD2-VM (Intel 945G chipset) 100 Intel D945Pvs 115

Case Antec TX640B 90 Antec P150 150

Power supply 400W included 0 430W included 0

Graphics card eVGA GeForce 7300 GS* 100 eVGA GeForce 6800 GS 256MB 199

Memory 2 x 512MB Corsair ValueSelect DDR2/533 80 2 x 1GB Kingston DDR400 (KVR400X64C3AK2/2G) 210

Hard drive Western Digital WD1200JS 120GB 77 Western Digital WD2500JS 250GB 105

Optical drive NEC ND-3550A DVD Rewriter 38 Sony DRU-810A DVD Rewriter 60

Audio Integrated HD Audio 0 Integrated Audio 0

Display ViewSonic VA912B 19" LCD 270 Gateway FPD2185W 21-inch widescreen LCD 599

Keyboard Microsoft (A4B00007) keyboard/mouse 29 Logitech MX3100 Keyboard/Mouse 100

Pointing device Included mouse 0 Included mouse 0

Speakers Creative SBS 270 speakers 15 Logitech Z4 speakers 76

Tuner N/A 0 N/A

Total: $1044 $1936





PC Type Media Center Cost High End Gaming Cost

Processor Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $322 Athlon 64 X2 4800+ $775

CPU cooler Zalman CNPS 7000-Cu 40 HSF Included 0

Motherboard ABIT AN8-Ultra 115 ASUS A8R-MVP 110

Case Silverstone LaScala LC-17 120 Antec P180 130

Power supply Antec NeoHE 430W 75 Antec NeoHE 500W 96

Graphics card ASUS EAX1600XT Silent 220 ATI Radeon X1900 XT 549

Memory 2 x 1GB Kingston DDR400 (KVR400X64C3AK2/2G) 210 2 x 1GB Corsair TwinX-2048 3200Pro 195

Hard drive Seagate NL35 400GB SATA 300 Western Digital WD4000YR 215

Optical drive HP DVD740 DVD Burner 90 Sony DRU-810A DVD Rewriter 60

Audio Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 105 Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 105

Display NA 0 Dell 2405FP 899

Keyboard Microsoft ZV1 75 Logitech G15 66

Pointing device WMCE Remote Control 35 Logitech G5 Laser 48

Speakers NA—Your home-theater speakers 0 Creative Labs Progamer G500 220

Tuner Vbox Catseye DTA-150 HDTV tuner and ATI TV Wonder Elite (PCI) analog tuner 199 N/A

Total: $1906 $3468



* Note: Not shipping in the U.S. until February 2006

Before we dive into discussions of individual components, we should point out that these are suggestions, rather than rigid requirements. Depending on your budget, you may want to vary some of the component choices. Note that these are complete systems, including displays, speakers, keyboard and mice. However, these systems all have some commonalities:

All have dual-core CPUs. Given improvements in the Windows scheduler and the emerging generation of multithreaded applications, dual-core processors will be more attractive in the Vista timeframe.
All the CPUs are 64-bit capable. Since Vista will probably ship 64-bit binaries in the same box as the 32-bit version, this will facilitate the move to 64-bit computing. The driver situation for 64-bit should be improved by then, too.
Two of the four systems have widescreen, high resolution displays. The media center PC implies the use of a widescreen HDTV. Wider aspect ratios and higher resolutions will be more usable with Vista's compositing engine. Even the entry -level system sports a display with 1280x1024 resolution.
Three of the four graphics cards have 256MB of RAM or more. Even the office system has 128MB of video memory. We'll get into why that's useful in a bit. For roughly $20 more, you'll be able to get an Nvidia 7300 GS card with 256MB.
All four graphics cards are DirectX 9-capable.
Three of the four systems include two gigabytes of system memory. Continued...
Some hardware simply isn't available yet.
You can't buy hybrid hard drives today. But there's an interesting workaround to this: USB memory keys. One of the unsung features of Vista is the ability to use flash memory as a cache for the system working set. This can speed up access to the working set considerably, and improve overall system responsiveness.

Windows Vista will feature an update to DirectX—DirectX 10 (which has been referred to as Windows Graphics Foundation 2.0). No graphics hardware exists today that fully supports all the known DX10 features. For example, geometry shaders, which are one step above vertex shaders in the geometry pipeline, will be in DirectX 10.

We wanted to include CPUs with hardware virtualization, but they're not widely available yet. Intel's next-generation dual-core desktop CPUs will offer hardware virtualization, and AMD has virtualization on its roadmap with its Pacifica technology. Virtualization technology will be useful in a number of scenarios, though perhaps most useful for our low-end system in a corporate environment.

An alternative to the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ for the Media Center PC could be a desktop system running Intel's new Core Duo CPU. But desktop motherboards are scarce. One interesting candidate is the ASUS N4L-VM. However, it's not shipping until February 2006, and is only a microATX board, which limits the expansion capabilities a bit. Also, while the Core Duo processor does support Intel's VT hardware virtualization technology, it doesn't support 64-bit.

In the following sections, we'll talk about general hardware recommendations. Any specific products mentioned should be taken in the context of general classes of products. Continued... The CPU probably isn't as critical as the core logic or motherboard. Almost any mainstream desktop CPU shipping today will run Windows Vista just fine. It's worth looking for some key CPU features nonetheless. These include 64-bit support, hardware virtualization, and a dual-core architecture.

On the motherboard front, you'll want access to the latest graphics technology available. Yes, it's finally time to give up on AGP. The Vista graphics subsystem will actually make use of PCI Express's bidirectional capability, which means you'll see the graphics card write back out to main memory. So a PCI Express x16 graphics slot becomes highly desirable.

You'll also want the latest storage technologies. Assuming that hybrid hard drives ship, 300MB/second SATA connections (sometimes inaccurately called SATA-II) could be useful. As more of us store our precious digital information—photos, music and other personal media—on our PCs, support for true redundant RAID is becoming increasingly important. So look for RAID 1 or RAID 5 functionality.

Even if you don't move to 64-bit computing, more memory becomes increasingly necessary. It's likely that Vista's memory footprint will be larger than Windows XP. A good rule of thumb in the past has been to go with 4x the minimum memory requirements. The suggested minimum for Windows XP was 128MB; 512MB is a much more useful minimum. Microsoft is recommending 512MB for the Vista beta builds, but the actual minimum requirements haven't been finalized yet. However, we can guess that a good working minimum will be 1GB, while 2GB will likely speed things up considerably.

One note for people contemplating moving to AMD systems: AMD is switching sockets for desktop PCs to a 940-pin socket that's not the same as the existing Socket 940. Instead, the new socket, variously dubbed "M2" or "AM2", will replace socket 939. CPUs built for these sockets will support DDR2/667 memory, so the PC industry will finally be moving to a single memory standard, at least for the time being. The switch to the new socket infrastructure won't happen until Summer, so if you want DDR2 support, waiting is a good idea. Continued... It's well-known that Windows Vista will be much more graphics intensive. As we noted earlier, each window will be an individual, Direct3D surface. If you want to take advantage of features like Flip3D (see screen below), you'll want a DirectX 9–capable graphics card.

According to Microsoft, the minimum requirement for the full Aero Glass experience is a DirectX 9 capable GPU with 64MB of video memory.That's a little deceptive. If you're anything like me, you'll often have several dozen windows open, which eats into graphics memory. You'll also want lots of graphics memory bandwidth. So a PCIe x16 graphics card with at least 128MB of RAM becomes de rigueur. Microsoft is suggesting that 256MB of graphics memory would be optimal. So it's a good thing that we're starting to see graphics card with 512MB of RAM.

Do you need a high-performance card, like a GeForce 7800 GTX or ATI Radeon X1800 XT if you're not into PC gaming? Probably not. A strong midrange card, like the GeForce 6800 GS or ATI Radeon X1600 XT will yield good system responsiveness.

3D performance will yield better overall system performance, even with 2D only apps. Since each window—even those generated by old-fashioned GDI apps—is a 3D surface, multiple open Windows can be a drag if you're running on limited capability integrated graphics hardware. This is true even if you use the "Vista Classic" UI, which resembles the current Windows XP user interface. You simply lose all the shader effects and capabilities like Flip3D.

To reiterate, what you'll ideally like to have for a graphics subsystem should look like this:

DirectX 9 capable GPU
128MB video memory—256MB preferred
Good graphics memory bandwidth
Good pixel shader performance Continued...
The question of whether to wait or not is actually a two part question:
Do I wait to upgrade or install Vista until it shakes out a bit?

If I decide to take the plunge, should I bring my current system up to snuff, build a new one—or wait?

Take A Poll:




It's likely that many users will simply take a wait and see attitude about Vista. After all, Microsoft has already announced that many of the features in Vista, such as Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, and some parts of the graphics subsystem—will be back-ported to Windows XP. And XP's system requirements won't be as stiff.

Click here for more Build It articles on ExtremeTech.

If you are intrigued by Vista, then it may be worth planning your upgrade cycle carefully. For example, if you've been eyeing a new graphics card but already have fairly capable hardware, maybe you should wait until GPUs that support DirectX 10 come out, most likely later this year. Or maybe you can get along without that new hard drive, and wait for the hybrid drives to arrive on the scene.

What is clear is that you can build a system today, with existing available parts, that will do a bang-up job of running Windows Vista. Even if you're not convinced enough to make the plunge on launch day, upgrading your system so that it's Vista-capable will pay dividends in better performance with today's applications.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[rjs735]

I think this deserves a bump