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Projected 'Average' Longhorn System Is A Whopper

greg_barton writes "At first I thought this was a joke, but this article from Microsoft Watch confirms it: '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.'"

15 of 1,539 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The estimates are OK by Cali+Thalen · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article and the quote both say 'dual core processor' - not dual processors. Forgive me for not knowing off the top of my head, but I am assuming that they don't mean one of those hyperthreading things though, so...multi-processor chips maybe?

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  2. Repeat after me: HE NEVER SAID THAT by bonch · · Score: 4, Informative

    Did Bill Gates Really Say That?

    Someone just did this joke a couple of articles ago. False memes that never die just make people look ignorant.

  3. Re:The estimates are OK by Hollinger · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's possible. IBM has been doing it for some time with the Power4+ chip, as seen here. It's a form of Multi-Chip Module. You can see a picture of one here.

  4. Re:The estimates are OK by pantherace · · Score: 5, Informative
    Yes, like the power4, and the ultrasparc IV (& another ultrasparc that's 2 US2 cores) These chips have are supposed to have 2 processor cores on a single die.

    Right now, that would help AMD a heck of a whole lot more than Intel, because AMD has a MUCH more scalable arch than Intel. (AMD licenced alpha for athlons (32-bit) (dedicated northbridge connection per processor) and copied them for the Opteron (on-chip memory controller, and very fast chip interconnects)) Intel by contrast has a shared memory bandwidth for all it's chips (assume that both Opteron and Itanium have the same base memory bandwidth, for a single chip call it 6.4GB/sec, Assuming it's in the Opteron's own memory (each can have it's own memory) on a dual processor board, each Opteron would have 6.4GB/sec to it's memory, and slighly slower access to the other processor's. Itanium on the other hand shares it's memory bandwidth so each processor has 3.2GB/sec. Scale this up to 4 processors and each Opteron has 6.4GB/sec bandwidth while the Itaniums have 1.6GB/sec bandwidth. Thus why people either cluster Itaniums (with usually a max of 2 processors per node) or have very custom chipsets that emulate what the Opteron does (SGI, and an HP chipset))

    Think of it as on chip SMP which is not some virtualization construct as Hyperthreading is.

  5. Windows size? by Nexum · · Score: 4, Informative

    Win 3.1 Windows folder approx 40MB

    Win95 approx 100MB - 150MB (4x increase)

    Win 98 approx 450MB (4x increase)

    Win XP approx 2.5GB (5x increase)

    Longhorn? Around 12GB???

    Well, seems to be the trend.

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    1. Re:Windows size? by RedWizzard · · Score: 4, Informative
      Win 3.1 Windows folder approx 40MB
      Win95 approx 100MB - 150MB (4x increase)
      Win 98 approx 450MB (4x increase)
      Win XP approx 2.5GB (5x increase)
      Can you provide references that these are accurate average installation sizes? I'm running XP here and the Windows folder is 1.5GB, which happens to be the Microsoft suggested system requirement. And where are WinNT and 2000? XP didn't follow 98 so the alleged 5x increase between them doesn't mean anything.

      According to microsoft.com (KB 304297) the requirements I've found are:
      Win95: 50MB
      Win98SE: 195MB
      WinME: 320MB

      WinNT Workstation: 110MB
      Win2K Workstation: 650MB
      WinXP Pro: 1.5GB

      Clearly there is an upward trend but your 4-500% increase is bullshit.

  6. Re:Really? Because all this time I thought that... by Grand · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is why you run MYIE2 (www.myie2.com). It is a shell for IE that has tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, and a popup blocker. I have around 40 pages open on my crappy work computer (800 mhz, 512 mb ram) and it has no problems.

  7. Re:Really? Because all this time I thought that... by Avihson · · Score: 4, Informative

    " And mozilla needs 4 gigs and a hyperthreading P4 to start in under 4 seconds."

    Must be the windows version underlying Mozilla.

    It works fine on a 4 year old gateway pII-600 laptop maxed out at 288MB. As I surf Slashdot, I am taking a break while doing compiling a report in SunOffice7, pulling from Excell and Word files on one virtual desktop. Two separate instances of Mozilla with a total of 10 tabs are open on another to confirm data. Evolution and a tabbed terminal session running ssh and wget take up another Virtual desktop, and I leave one open for KPatience. Gkrellm is showing 129 processes and 90% idle cpu. Memory is sitting at 60%.

    This is normal use with Mepis, your milage may vary.

  8. Re:And that will be the standard computer by LuxFX · · Score: 4, Informative

    This may be modded as funny. But even 2008 seems too early for these kind of specs. Give me a break, 2GB of RAM and 1 terabyte of disk space.

    It's not that ridiculous.

    On the hard drive side, 250GB drives and even 300+GB are very easy to find in any computer store. I've also heard of 1TB external hard drives. It would be pretty simple to set up a system with more than 1TB of storage.

    On the RAM side, most motherboards these days support 3-4GB of RAM. Mine right now supports 4GB; I run 1GB in it for now, and will be buying a second GB fairly soon.

    And on the processor side, I hear of CPUs being overclocked past 4GHz and higher all the time.

    So, even though these are the specs for the "average" computer, it's possible to have it today. And bottom line, if it can be done today, then there is no reason to think it wouldn't be average in 2.5-3.0 years.

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  9. Microsoft didn't tie IE to the "kernel" by bonch · · Score: 5, Informative

    So, you have to wait an extra 2 seconds for it to load up because the WEB BROWSER isn't tied to the KERNEL. After all, what sort of moronic dipshits would make a web browser an integral part of a system kernel anyway?

    Good question. Microsoft didn't tie IE to their kernel. They tied it to the Windows shell.

    I love the progression of memes around here. IE startes out integrated into the shell, and over time becomes integrated into the actual Windows kernel itself! Cute.

    Meanwhile, KDE does the same damn thing.

    1. Re:Microsoft didn't tie IE to the "kernel" by bonius_rex · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, it's the static HTML part of IIS 6 that they put in the kernel.

  10. Re:And that will be the standard computer by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · · Score: 3, Informative

    The jokes are still legit--I mean, go here: http://www.3drealms.com/games.html It's at the top of the page! They're still working on that crap! Amazing!

  11. What amazes me most is by Boarder2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Slashdoters inability to read. Even in the description of the article it says that this is what Microsoft projects a common computer will be about the time Longhorn is released. These are NOT system requirements of Longhorn.

    A common new computer when XP came out was about a 1.4GHz If I recall correctly, but the system requirements are 400MHz...

    Just some food for thought.

  12. AFAIK by melted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Longhorn will have several "tiers" of user experience, so it'll still work on low-end hardware and run all the apps even, but the support for Avalon/Aero will be scaled back to what the actual machine can support.

    That's why these projections seem so incredibly high. And I'd say they aren't that high either. I'll be surprised as hell if 4GHz processors and faster graphic accelerators don't come out next year.

  13. Thats for IIS, not IE. by jon_c · · Score: 4, Informative

    None of IE is in the kernel and that link says nothing to that effect. What is does say is that IIS has some kernel level optimizations, which is exactly the same thing tux in Linux does.

    I'm currently a moderator, but no-one has clarified the BS on this thread. Moderators, please moderate accordingly.

    -Jon

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