Here are Microsoft's Longhorn hardware recommendations: Desktop CPU: 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with HyperThreading Technology 530 (or higher) or 3 GHz Intel Xeon processor with 2 MB L2 cache, or AMD Athlon 64, Sempron, or Opteron 100, 200, or 800 processor, single or dual-core versions. Mobile CPU: 1.86 GHz Intel Pentium M processor 750 (or higher), or AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology, Mobile Sempron, or Mobile Athlon 64 processor. RAM: 512 MB of RAM or more, all platforms. Longhorn Client release to manufacturing (RTM) May 24, 2006 (Expected) Source So make sure you get the latest, fastest & the greatest. I beleive the hardware requirements shown above is just a hint of whats coming our way. The best thing to do would be to wait a little longer.