OMG What A Longhorn Machine You Got There!

Over at slashdot:
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.'"
11,862 views 37 replies
Reply #1 Top
Whoah!
Reply #2 Top
Ah....eventually your system will crash sooo fast you won't even know that it happened.....and you'll think you are 'stable'....
Reply #3 Top
I like to see whats going on
Reply #4 Top
no way in hell the new flagship OS from microsoft would need that kind of hardware. remember that windows spans the market because of its ability to work on a variety of different hardwares, and on equiptment that is relatively low in cost. putting the bar so high would never get them anywhere. if this were true, we would have heard by now that longhorne is not an end-user system, but more a system for developers and 3d film makers.

maybe in its initial state it requires that, but remember that the PS2 was initially the size of a room, and after they got it working they started scaling it down to its present size. even XP with its hudge evolution from '98 doesn't require anything more then 64 megs of ram to run, meaning xp can run on machines going back to '96. i expect longhorne to require what out present day standard machines use.. at most 256 megs of memory, a pentium 3, and 64 megs of video.

if longhorne is vector drawn as i'm hearing it is, it would in fact require less video power then current windows xp machines, just more processing power.
Reply #5 Top
i see 'omg what a longhorne you got there' and i think.. well, you know what i think.


Reply #6 Top
Reply #7 Top
Just installed windows NT on a old pc. (I use it for email etc,)

I was talking to this guy on the other side of the room, I showed him how much it made my pc faster.

"Look how fast it shuts down" "Click" "Looked behind if he was watching, looked back (1 second)" "down"
Reply #8 Top
I think that was the "average"...minimum requirements being some other set of specs. When you consider the leaps and bounds made in processor speeds and HDD sizes and when they project LongHorn to come out, it's pretty reasonable.

My first PC, circa 1997/98, was a Packard Bell with a P200 (pre-MMX) with a 2.5gig HDD and 16MB of memory and came with Win95, I upgraded to Win98 within a few months. It was top of the line at the time with an average PC running a P90. A mere 6-years later and my third PC, which I built myself runs a P4 3.06GHz and 528MB DDR Dual-Channelled (I built it last year) I think my PC will be at the low end of the spectrum when LongHorn finally comes out.
Reply #9 Top
Those requirements can't be right, 1TB hard drive? Although, MS did say they would be building it based on hardware available in 2000-n-whatever [naturally], so a system like that could be the standard by then. It's hard to buy a new PC now that's less than 2GHZ.
Reply #10 Top
Those requirements can''t be right, 1TB hard drive?

No, it doesn''t say it requires a 1TB hard drive, it states it will support upto 1TB of storage.
up to a terabyte of storage


Although I have seen a 260 GB hard drive today, so a 1TB drive is less than 4 times that size. 260GB is more than 4 times the size that disks were just a short while back, soooooo...
[Message Edited]
Reply #11 Top
Sounds to me like Longhorn will have to run on new PC's. That's two years away, and I can see 4-6 GHz Processors beeing standard for new PC's then. Two Gigs of RAM? No, I don't think so, maybe 1 Gig. What's standard now when you buy your standard home PC? 512 Megs? As for the Terabyte harddrive, I hope it will be able to handle more than that. A Tb HD will still not be common in two years, but it will be in 5 to 6 years I'm certain.
Reply #12 Top
they slate longhorne for what, 2 years? i don't know about you people, but i plan to have my same computers 2 years from now

a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.'"


come on, we've got 256 (are we up to 512 now?) meg video cards in agp8x. how freaking fast do you need your video card to be to open Word? its BS.
Reply #13 Top
TB storage has been around for some time. The interrupt 13 extentions from six or seven years ago allows for up to 9TB in the firmware support of basic pc hardware operations. As far as NTFS, the defacto stardard (practical) limit is 2TB. NTFS was designed to support file systems up to 16EB (Exabytes)...at least in theory.
Reply #14 Top
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10118
Reply #15 Top
Wow CrebroJd, I didn't know that a single Terbyte drive already existed. $1100 isn't too bad for something like that. You would want to get two and mirror it though. Think about backing up 1TB on a desktop with todays tape/optical technology.

10ms seek time is impressive too. Two years of continuous music boggles the mind.
Reply #16 Top
Two years of continuous music boggles the mind


Hehe, thats what I thought of too!
Reply #17 Top
Those specs aren't right, but it will require some kind of powerful PC to enjoy the system to its fullest. Visit http://www.microsoft-watch.com/ often. There's a reasonable bunch of interesting articles and pictures. Microsoft seems to be pushing for 64 bit, top reason being NX (No Execute) which prevents buffer overflow attacks, but also because of the processing power it pocess. MS and HP are working together on hardware prototypes of new PC's codenamed "Troy" and "Hermes", so it seems like MS got their eyes open for the need of design in our world

I'm looking forward to "Longhorn" and it's capabilities but indeed the GUI too and what Stardock might come up with to enhance it. Even though MS actually might pull a beautyful GUI out of the hat this time, I guess we still want to change it
Reply #18 Top
I can't wait too. Longhorn seems to be more and more kickass each day.
Reply #19 Top
2-3 years is sufficient time for me to convince the gatekeeper to release funds to buy a new computer. Any sooner and I'd be doing a lot of wishing.
Reply #20 Top
ahh HP, with their 500 million $ research and developement budjet
Reply #21 Top
http://www.go-l.com/desktops/machl38/specs/index.htm

Check out the Extreme Specs... My next purchase...
Reply #22 Top
here is my new system... in preparation for Longhorn...

http://www.wstaylor.net/SS_myspecs.jpg
Reply #23 Top
Give it 2 years... AMD will still rule!!!
Reply #24 Top
Maybe kona, maybe.
Reply #25 Top
All Intel has to do is put together a decent chipset, like the old P3 440BX boards and with their close ties with Microsoft, AMD will be pushed out to the fringes if it survives at all. I still like and use AMD products, but that's just my speculation of the situation.