Speed -> As long as it's not a Celeron or the AMD equivalent it will be more than fast enough for anything you'll throw at it.
If you're talking about a machine with a Core 2 Duo, at 1.8GHz each CPU core is as fast as or faster than a 3GHz P4. A E4000-series Intel processor is wicked fast and not very expensive, but the E2000-series isn't that far behind performance-wise and is a good bit cheaper. I gave one of our warehouse workers a Dell OptiPlex 330 with a E2180 processor (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo) and it blows his previous machine (a 2.8GHz P4 OptiPlex GX280) out of the water. RAM -> 1GB minimum for XP, 2GB minimum for Vista. We buy our machines with 2GB. Disk -> These days the minimum HD is 80GB and 160GB is common, and in a business environment where all data is stored on one or more servers the capacity is irrelevant. Home users care much much more, and 160GB is the minimum in most home user-oriented machines. Generally speaking our software installation load is 10GB or so. Video -> For general business use integrated video, hands down. Intel's integrated video gets a bad rap from a lot of people (mostly AMD fanboys), but it's a lot better than it used to be. The only reason *not* to use integrated video would be support for dual monitors or you have an application that needs more than just the basics (AutoCAD-type stuff, professional video editing or other graphics work, etc). James Edwards wrote: > If you were specifying computers for a "general" user today, what would > the minimums be as far as speed, ram, disks video etc.? -- Phil Brutsche [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
