Vista needs more memory than Windows for Supercomputers

19 Nov 2007 | 10:24 GMT

By Egan Orion

MICROSOFT VISTA requires more hardware resources than the Vole's Windows for Supercomputers.

Officially called Windows HPC Server 2008, Microsoft's offering for high performance computing runs in as little as 512MB of system memory, though it supports up to 64GB.

Only the Vole's relatively crippled, low-end Windows Vista Home Basic runs in just 512MB of RAM, according to Microsoft. It specifies that all other versions of Windows Vista have a minimum system memory requirement of 1GB.

Further, the people who have actually used Vista say that 1GB of RAM isn't enough and claim that Vista's so bloated that it really needs at least 2GB. Indeed, some claim that it really takes 4GB of RAM to make Vista seem responsive. The high-end 64-bit versions of Vista support up to 128GB of RAM.

What this points up is something we've all known for years, that is, that Microsoft isn't in business to benefit its customers but to fleece them. It's in cahoots with OEMs to march the computer buying public on an endless upgrade treadmill, upon which Windows drives demand for faster CPUs and more RAM, and - thanks to preload agreements - new PCs push new versions of Windows.

Vista is a bloated resource hog, and slow. In contrast, this writer is scribbling this article, streaming internet radio, and playing online poker in a Java window - all in 256MB of RAM on an old 1.4GHz CPU that's only 25 per cent to 35 per cent busy... under Mandriva Linux 2007. µ

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