It's already been widely known that Vista would require a beefier system than ever before, much more than the progress of technology would predict. Microsoft has in the past spoken to vendors about not using onboard video in the future because of the demands Vista will put on the GPU with its native use of 3D acceleration. The official specs are out now, and the systems needed are pretty much in-line with what a brand new enthusiast/performance computer is going to be today, but it may cause some headache for those of you looking to upgrade in the next year or so. My fastest system meets those specs, albeit barely, and it was built just a few months ago. The article mentions how having a dual-core system will give considerable boosts to performance. The suggested video card will have 256mb of VRAM or more, and a whopping 2GB of system memory! The requirements are far less, with a 64mb video card with a quarter of the RAM will suffice. Then again, the system requirements for Windows XP are 64mb of RAM. Is this upgrade worth it?
You can see for yourself. The beta 1 of Windows Vista is available for download from Microsofts site, easy for Technet members with Microsofts tool. You can also have it mailed to you for a fee.