Las Vegas (NV) - In an email sent to vendors at the CES 2006, Microsoft for the first time outlined some system requirements for its upcoming operating system. These guidelines are a first indication of how much horsepower Windows Vista will require to be able to deliver on Microsoft's promises.

The email states that Vista asks for a system with a 3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor and 1 GB of memory. We believe that especially ATI officials may have liked the recommendation to firms who are demonstrating Vista at their booths to use a "high end ATI GPU," namely a Radeon 9800, x600, x700, x800 or x850 device. According to Microsoft, ATI is preferred to Nvidia at this time due to superior driver support."

Other requirements included a SATA or 7200 rpm EIDE hard drive. For Vista on notebooks, Microsoft recommended the Acer Ferrari 3400, the Acer Ferrari 4000, the HP Pavillion zd8230, the IBM Thinkpad T43 and the Toshiba Tecra M4.

The email stated that "PCs that meet or exceed these specifications will provide the most responsive Windows Vista operating system demo experience."