San Francisco (CA) - Later this year, Microsoft will be releasing its next-generation operating system, which is considered the most significant Windows launch in a decade. The extra bling-bling in Vista - especially in the Premium version - will require a PC with lots of performance. And if you are not among those users who will buy a new PC for Vista right away, there's a good chance you will have to upgrade several components such as your graphics card, your mass storage devices and your system memory.

The memory division of Samsung already banks on increased memory sales driven by Vista this year. Just as the iPod Nano fueled Flash sales in 2005, Vista may be boosting DRAM revenues, the firm believes. The average computer currently carries 620 MB of memory, said Tom Trill, director of DRAM Marketing at Samsung Semiconductor. By the end of this year, this number will have climbed to about 871 MB and by the end of 2007 to more than 1.1 GB.

While some manufacturers already are offering 1 GB of memory in sub-$1000 systems, Trill said it is realistic to forecast a standard 1 GB in $599 PCs by 2007. The higher end of the mainstream - PCs with prices ranging from $1250 to $1750 - will be integrating 2 GB of memory by then, according to Trill.

He may have been a bit biased when he told us that 2 GB of memory may be a good choice for Vista anyway; but in fact, users will be seeing dramatic performance increases in Vista, if more memory is installed: For example, Vista will be offering a feature called "Super Fetch," which will cache frequently accessed data in DRAM (and Flash) - and it will cache more data with an increasing capacity of DRAM: At least in theory, this feature promises to bring much faster launching applications.