Is this enough to run Vista Basic well?

Question

I am not terribly computer literate. I'm purchasing a new pc and am cheap enough to question spending the extra money for 2GB. I'm looking at a machine with an AMD Athlon 64x Dual-Core 4000, 1GB memory, and a 160GB hard drive (although I can up it to 250 with a very minimal cost).

Is all this enough to run Vista Basic smoothly? I am not into pc games or heavy editing; I do basic digital photo stuff on my computer and like to listen to music. Other than that, it's really just surfing the web.

Also, if I were to spend the extra $100 for the 2GB, would it be a better investment in the long run? I have a 512MB with a Celeron processor now, it is slow as anything but I'm still barely using 55% of it's memory with my files and running XP. All thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks much :)

Why would I want Premium? More stuff that I won't use on my pc? More graphics heavy junk that I don't care about? I want a OS that lets me go online, access PDF files, listen to my music (which is on Jukebox anyway), and look at my pictures. It just has to enable me to open and use those programs, and not even at the same time.

Answer 1

That will be just fine for Home Basic, it is not at all demanding. An extra $100 for 2GB is not a great investment, if you want to add another GB later, you can buy one for about $40.

As for why would you want Home Premium, I guess in your case you don't really need it, but I usually recommend people get it. The best feature of Vista is the new Aero interface, which you don't get with Basic. Plus you get extra games, Media Center, Windows DVD maker, etc. In fact I don't even think Basic has a built in DVD decoder, so you would have to buy one if you ever want to watch a DVD movie on it. So basically you don't NEED it for what you want, but considering only usually like an extra $20, I usually recommeng getting it. It should run fine on the system you described.

Answer 2

Microsoft says Vista will run with 512mb RAM.
It will, but sloooooooowly.
Try to run another program and you will want to scream.
I know - I just got a second 512mb chip which will take me to 1gb RAM -- and expect this to meet my needs.

Sounds like you are overbuying. For basic photo, listening to music and surfing, 1gb should be sufficient - providing you don't clog up your system's memory with complex wallpaper and screensavers (which run in the background and consume memory). I have mine set to blank and none.

You won't live long enough to fill 160gb HD. I have 80gb. I have MS Office, Print Shop, PDF Converter, Publisher, etc. and usually have two or three programs open at once. I still have about 55gb free space. I do not do games and don't use my PC for music. "They" keep making PCs with bigger HDs and more and more bells and whistles, but the average user, in my opinion, doesn't need them.

Answer 3

yes it will run i used 1GB and it ran fine it did not craw like the guy up top said. actually it would run any vista i am using the ultimate one and i have a 3800+ amd with 1.5GB or ram and it runs fast and smooth. but if you want 2gb will do great you wont need any memory for a while.

Answer 4

I advise th 2G ram option, at 1G Vista crawls.

Answer 5

2GB should do it. Why do you want Basic? You should get premium.