Windows Vista Hardware Requirements

Windows Vista is a big step up the ladder in terms of hardware required to get the full "Windows Vista Experience," as Microsoft calls it. This site will serve to provide information to The University of Iowa community on what hardware is recommended by Microsoft as well as by ITS.

If you are considering upgrading a Windows XP computer to Vista, you should download and run Microsoft's Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor tool to see whether or not your computer's hardware will be able to handle Windows Vista, as well as what software and drivers on your machine are compatible with Vista.

The following table outlines Microsoft's Vista Premium recommendations and the ITS hardware recommendations for running Vista. For more information on system requirements, see Microsoft's Windows Vista System Requirements web site.

Hardware	Microsoft's Vista Premium Ready	ITS Recommendations
Processor	1GHz 32bit or 64bit	2GHz 32bit or 64bit
System Memory	1GB	2GB
Graphics Processing Unit	DirectX 9 support with WDDM driver support	DirectX 9 support with WDDM driver support
Graphics Memory	128MB, pixel shader 2.0 support, 32 bits per pixel	128MB, pixel shader 2.0 support, 32 bits per pixel
Hard Drive	40GB	80GB
Hard Drive Free Space	15GB	25GB
Optical Drive	DVD-ROM drive	DVD-ROM drive

Return to the Windows Vista Compatibility Center

Last Updated: 04/24/2008