"Average" Longhorn PC

Bogusrabin

What do you think about this ... ?

"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."

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1581842,00.asp

sbc
GW R/Me

It seems a ridiculously high spec machine. What is wrong with Pentium IV's?
Most people probably can't tell the difference between a PIII 800MHz 128MB and a P4 3GHz 256MB (at least for simple tools like Word Processing or Spreadsheets). Just look at what hardware is capable of already (i.e. Playstation 2 and XBox graphics can't really get much better).

We have also been on Pentium 4's for a long time (4 years?). A 3Ghz machine is still reasonably high spec even though they came out two years ago.

I can see a lot of people sticking with WinXP/2000 and if they do migrate, moving to something offered by Novell/Redhat. That way they do not need to spend any money on extra hardware (which most users won't really take advantage of - how does Avalon help word processing or spreadsheets?).

androidi

Todays "high spec" is tomorrows average. I would still be a bit suspicious over the big GHz's as the trend seems to be lowering the Hz's making the design efficient and cool etc. If I can choose between a equally fast 1.6 GHz and 3 GHz, I'd get the 1.6 GHz as it probably it cooler and therefore quieter atleast with conventional cooling.

object88
amplify.

sbc wrote:
how does Avalon help word processing or spreadsheets?).

I can't imagine that it would. To that end, I really can't imagine office workers needing more than what they have, except greater and more secure interoptability with disparate systems. Certainly wiz-bang graphics aren't the answer.

Games, however, can always get better. Physical interaction (collision modeling, etc.) isn't near perfect.

jonathanh
My mod color is red

Here's what Scoble thinks about it.

Basically, the article seems to be a good candidate for his new competition, "who can make up the most outrageous thing about Longhorn and get it printed in an industry magazine or pointed to by Slashdot".

Smiley

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Take everything that Joe Wilcox says with a pound of salt. Very smart guy, and we get on quite well, just that generally he takes extrapolation to an extreme.

As far as the spec, watch what Joe Beda has to say. Very enlightening. Besides, taking guesses as specs is useless until official specs come out.

After all, early Half-Life 2 reports suggested a 256MB vid-card would be required, which obviously isn't the case.

spod

Judging from the machines i run current builds of longhorn smoothly on, i'd say that machines in the report are way way overspecced...

at the low end of the scale one of my test boxes is a PIII700 with 256meg. it runs the current builds of longhorn ok...you would want to develop on it but Smiley

runs great on my dev boxes though, with all the usual dev apps / sql etc running...

Shining Arcanine

Bogusrabin wrote:
What do you think about this ... ?

"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."
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1581842,00.asp

It is a -watch site. Those sites are anti<insert what was before "-watch"> and aren't a reliable source of information. They are merely trying to damage Microsoft. Personally, I wouldn't mind it if Microsoft recommended that specification, people expect computers to be instant and with those specs, the computer would certainly be instant.

By the way, I expect to run Longhorn, here are my computer's specifications:

Intel 2.4GHz P4C processor
1GB DDR400 Dual Channel Corsair RAM at 2-3-2-5 timings
ATI AIW 9700 Pro
ATI TV Wonder Pro
Western Digital 36.7GB Raptor
Western Digital 200GB Caviar Special Edition
Samsung 52x26x52x8x CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
Thermaltake 480W Purepower PSU

sbc wrote:
Just look at what hardware is capable of already (i.e. Playstation 2 and XBox graphics can't really get much better).

If you compare modern video game console graphics to the ATI Ruby demo and/or Doom III, you would notice that there is much room for improvement. Speaking of consoles, here is how I think graphics quality of the consoles are from best to worst:

GCN
XBox
PS2

I judged them based on relatively how many porygons the graphics appear to have.

sbc
GW R/Me

GameCube graphics better than XBox? XBox is more capable and GameCube has limited resolution (640x480?). However that is not really a limitation of GameCube as most people don't have TV's capable of going to 1024x768 (except perhaps HDTV's - which really are too expensive for the average console user).

I hope GameCube is successful - as it is really the only console that is dedicated to games (and not try to do a bit of everything), it also has huge potential with the GameBoy Advance integration. If you wish to play DVD's and play music you should really have a DVD player and iPod anyway.

I see PS3 and Xbox 2 really being all round entertainment systems (a kind of 'Jack of All Trades, Master of None'). Nintendo seems to be sticking with what it does best (games consoles and games), and has great franchises with Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and Metroid (and perhaps Pokemon). They seem to be one of the pioneers of modern consoles (plus they are over 100 years old) - the DS sounds like it could be very good when it comes out.

Shining Arcanine

sbc wrote:
GameCube graphics better than XBox? XBox is more capable and GameCube has limited resolution (640x480?). However that is not really a limitation of GameCube as most people don't have TV's capable of going to 1024x768 (except perhaps HDTV's - which really are too expensive for the average console user).

Gamecube has an ATI Radeon 8500 which was designed to mop the floor with the GeForce 3; Nintendo lied about the its capabilities. Instead of pushing (I forget what Nintendo claimed, it was probably) 6 to 12 million porygons, it can push over 25 million (I don't know where Microsoft got 125 million for XBox when the Radeon 8500 is superior). Metrod Prime and Rogue Leader are excellent examples of its capabilities. It is a shame that many game developers don't take full advantage of them.

Gamecube is capable of HDTV on games that support it but I really like the graphics quality on its 640x480 default screen resolution.

sbc wrote:
I hope GameCube is successful - as it is really the only console that is dedicated to games (and not try to do a bit of everything), it also has huge potential with the GameBoy Advance integration. If you wish to play DVD's and play music you should really have a DVD player and iPod anyway.

Gamecube right now has the #2 spot because it was a year late, it is doing quite well. The next generation Nintendo console will do much better, judging by how game console fans buy the first new thing that is out, I expect it to take the entire market.

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

I'd be very interested in sources for just about everythiung you just said, a I've never heard any of that before. As far as "first to market", we really should remember that Dreamcast was first to market in the 32-bit space, Saturn was first to market in the 16-bit space (as was Genesis), and that regular old Sega was first to market in the 8-bit space.

First to market will give you good initial "buzz" sales, but it needs something to carry it through.

What's GC2's release date? I thought it was 2006-2007 (like the PS3)? Doesn't that put XBox2's 2005-2006 release ahead of GC2's?

Again, just curious, as I've never heard most of what you've just said about the GC.

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

Here's the kind of thing most people would regard as accurate: http://www.gamenationtv.com/hardware/gamesystemcomparisonchart.shtml

Again, though, I'm more than open to new info.

As far as Longhorn's performance, I'm sure we've all seen the news by now that Longhorn is (at least) a 3-level environment in terms of user presentation.

On older machines it'll give a classic win2k type of environment. Newer ones'll have a more rich environment, and the types of machines we don't have yet will have an even more rich environment.

I'm not too worried. I'll buy a new PC when Longhorn comes out (it's been 2 years), and enjoy it Smiley

sbc
GW R/Me

The information I got was quite a while ago, and I can't seem to find the source. This extremetech article compares GCN and XBox (I think most agree that PS2 is the lowest spec of all 3 consoles)

Specs from official sites.
PS2 - http://www.us.playstation.com/consoles.aspx?id=2/info/415007657.html
GCN - http://www.nintendo.com/techspecgcn
XBox - no detailed specs found, information on http://www.xbox.com/en-us/hardware/xbox.htm

Another performance sheet - http://www.xboxexclusive.com/xboxspecs.html - Xbox seems to come out on top (although it is really an Xbox focused site anyway).

PC games should really be the better than console games as monitors (and GPU's?) are capable of much higher resolution and quality than TV's. I wonder what games on Longhorn would be like, and will XBox 2 or 3 be based on Longhorn technology like Avalon?

Shining Arcanine

sbc wrote:
The information I got was quite a while ago, and I can't seem to find the source. This extremetech article compares GCN and XBox (I think most agree that PS2 is the lowest spec of all 3 consoles)

Specs from official sites.
PS2 - http://www.us.playstation.com/consoles.aspx?id=2/info/415007657.html
GCN - http://www.nintendo.com/techspecgcn
XBox - no detailed specs found, information on http://www.xbox.com/en-us/hardware/xbox.htm

Another performance sheet - http://www.xboxexclusive.com/xboxspecs.html - Xbox seems to come out on top (although it is really an Xbox focused site anyway).

PC games should really be the better than console games as monitors (and GPU's?) are capable of much higher resolution and quality than TV's. I wonder what games on Longhorn would be like, and will XBox 2 or 3 be based on Longhorn technology like Avalon?

233 MHz custom-designed chip, developed by Microsoft and nVidia

It might have a few modifications but I recall reading that it is a GeForce 3, which would make sense as it is less expensive to adjust an existing chip than it is to make one from the ground up.

162 MHz Custom chip "Flipper"

A developer leak indicates that Nintendo likes to underspec their products when they are really superior to what they said they are (Nintendo said 6-12 million polygons, devs leaked that it was 25+ million). I recall reading somewhere that it was a Radeon 8500 which would make sense as ATI accquired the company that had the rights to Flipper.

XBox is Windows 2000, the next version is probably going to be the latest Microsoft has avaliable although I thought Avalon was only suited to be a GUI.

Regarding PC games, I doubt they will ever have the user experience consoles give as consoles are meant to specialize while PCs are meant for general functions (although the User Experience could be much better even through it is a general platform). So I doubt they be "better" anytime in the foreseeable future.

By the way, regarding PC monitors, my Dell Trinitron's picture quality doesn't come close to my TV which I have setup as a clone of the picture displayed on the Dell monitor. That is regarding video, text is blurry on my TV.

&quot;Average&quot; Longhorn PC