Hey, I'm building a new PC and have decided to run Vista as well as some flavor of linux (I have Mandrake '07 and will have Fedora 6 or 7 whichever is out when I can get back to my parents to download it.). The system specs are as follows:
AMD Sempron 3000
Biostar NF-325A7 motherboard (nVidia nForce 3 250 board)
1 gb of DDR (pc3200) ram
roughly 60gb of hard drive space.
XFX geforce 6200 8x agp, 256mb card
Linksys wmp54gv2 wireless card (may get changed for the D-Link that Vista has support for natively).

What issues am I likely to run into with Vista Home Premium

 

Honestly, Vista hasn't been out long enough to really be able to tell what the recommended system specs would be. From your setup, I personally would look into a PCI-express vid card as that is the future vid card technology. AGP is a dying format, even though it is fairly cheap right now, and i wouldn't get a motherboard with AGP. Also consider maybe having more ram, somewhere close to 2 GB. 1 GB may seem like enough but it'll be less than a year before you'll probably need more RAM to keep up with not only the operating system but also the new programs as well. You can update later if you want, just make sure you have extra slots. The size of the hard drive only depends on what you use it mostly for. I would personally try to get a larger hard drive because as stated before the new programs will only get more sophisticated and require more memory and hard drive space. The network card issue is a toss up. You'll just have to see if it works. Your processor sounds like it will work. I don't know if it's a 64 bit processor or not; if not, try to get a 64 bit,, it'll run better on vista and will leave more upgrade options for the future. All these hardware recommendations are exactly that, you can get away with less and vista will probably still work fine.

From what i've read, Vista works great for some people while others have trouble with it. I personally am going to wait for some updates first but you can do whatever you want.

Good luck.

 

The sempron is the same as the athlon x64, it just has less cache. That was the deciding factor in the sempron. I'm on a budget, that's what I went with the AGP card. For about another $40 I could have gotten the same board only with a gfoce 6100 on board card. I dislike on board video as it's often inferior. I am currently running an athlon XP 1700+ (that's a socket A chip) on a severely outdated board. The only real reason that I'm even upgrading is that I want a little fast computer to keep up with a FEW of the games I like. And my dad needs a new computer... I'm really concerned mostly with the wireless card. It's broadcom 43xx chip which is supposedly natively supported by vista. We'll see. I should have it here monday to tuesday and assembled and runing by thursday. If I can't get Vista to work with the wireless card I'll format and install W2k for the time being. OH, and 60gb is MORE than enough for me. I'll eventually upgrade to at least 120gig... But for all that I do right now with it I've got more than enough. Maybe when I look at going back to school I'll upgrade again. That's when I can order the ram (hopefully it'll drop again) and a new HDD. (HMm, a 320gb SATA would be awesome...)

 

It would help to see what the prices are of the components and where you're getting them from and what your budget is.

 

I get almost everything from tiger direct.
MOBO and Processor $90
Video card $60
Ram (one stick of 512mb to go with what I have) $50
WIndows Vista, x86, Home Premium, OEM $120 (as opposed to $140 for XP)
My budget was $300, but I did go over a little.

 

Are you looking for a regular size ATX mobo or a micro ATX mobo? I'm assuming the RAM you have is DDR 400 (pc3200) too.

 

It's already ordered, and I refuse to use a micro ATX board. Too many potential heat issues. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. I've been building and repairing computers for over 12 years now.

 

Sounds like you got it under control then. Good luck with your setup!

 

Oh yeah, I'll post any and all issues I had with the Vista install and any issues with apps too. I like the new Aero window manager. I've used the 3D desktop in Linux before and was unimpressed (it was cool but was slow on this machine). Right now it's a waiting game, should have the components her monday or tuesday, and have it together by wednesday. I'm still curious as to whether or not my wireless lan adapter is going to work.. According to MS website the broadcom 43xx chips are supported natively.. We'll see.

 

UPDATE: 2-13-07
New system components arrived at 1:30 pm EST, assembled and FULLY operational by 2:15 pm. Vista installed in all of 15 minutes, and I must say the Aero environement is WAAY cool.

 

that's good to hear, let us know how the compatibility of programs are with vista.

 

Will do, so far I've recieved an MSXML error when I went to play Rise of nations, then again I haven't restarted yet either... I must say I'm rather impressed with the speed of Vista. It's a LOT better than XP on a similar machine.

 

So far, EVERYTHING runs on VISTA. I mean I've installed The Sims, along with the Makin' Magic expansion, Rise of Nations, Lord of the Rings Return of the King. All run flawlessly. My emulators all work, win99 (ti-994/a), FCE Ultra (NES), Gens32 (Genesis) ALL work great. Firefox, and Thunderbird both run perfectly, Open Office runs. The only thing I haven't tried yet is VB 6.0. I've heard don't even try.. But we will know this weekend.

 

I just put Vista Home Premium on my laptop and I am impressed with it. It isn't a lot better than XP, but it is very nice. There aren't any DVD codecs for Win Media Player available yet for Vista Home Basic. Home premium has the codec built in. So far thats the only problem I've seen.

 

The ONLY apps I have issues with are the outdated tweakers that came with my motherboard. They'd work ok at best with XP, but I think they were designed to run in win 9x.