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My SO is buying a new laptop. This one to be exact:

Expert.no / Data/Bærbar PC/HP CQ60-405 BÆRBAR PC

She plays low graphic-intensive games sometimes, like the Sims and Civ 4 and such, but not often. She does do a respectable amount of image processing. While I'd appreciate some general comments on this laptop, I do have one VERY specific question:

It's a single core running Vista. OK, that's not optimal but it will do. The problem with this particular sale is that she gets it replaced by Windows 7 as soon as it is released. As far as I know, Windows 7 was very much designed for multi core systems. Microsoft generally states Windows 7 will outperform Windows Vista on a single core system: that is a bullcrap comparison considering how bad Vista runs even old games. XP has always been the more optimal OS.

On the internet I find (as usual) conflicting reports. Some say Windows 7 runs really well on single cores, even 1Ghz ones, others completely contradict (possibly because they weren't running XP but Vista prior to Windows 7). Microsoft doesn't even really have to try to sell people their product, it gets shipped with new computers by default. I can't really trust what they say about this issue.

So what's the dilly here, is Windows 7 on a Sempron single core a good idea or not?

From what I have managed to gather from various Windows 7 release candidate reviews, it does seem to outperform Vista. Not by much, but definitely a marked improvement over the latter. Though in no way should you compare either Win 7 or Vista with XP.

Microsoft themselves seem to be touting the capability of Win 7 to run on much slower netbooks who until now have almost always come bundled with XP. So, in answer to your question, it would probably run fine on a single core CPU, but I not really sure that would be a good idea. For the sake of future-proofing the laptop, try and get a dual core. Some of the Santa Rosa based Intel ones are selling for cheap, seeing as computer manufacturers are trying to clear the stock on it before the latest mobile platform gets released.

I'm running in the Windows 7 release candidate on my machine as well as my main OS of XP, and 7 actually runs faster than XP (though likely because I've got less things running with 7 when it boots up). I haven't done any benchmark tests though, so that's just my perception of boot-up times and performance. I'm also running a quad-core CPU, so my experience might not be relevant to you.

Everything I've read and test with 7 tells me that MS is actually being somewhat honest when they say that it runs better than Vista. 7 is essentially a tweaked and streamlined version of Vista, so while its not a tremendous leap forward, it still performs better. Its compatibility features also allow to emulate running things on an XP machine, though I haven't fully tested that yet.

It will likely run decently well on a single core, at least as well as Vista does. I'd agree that it's not optimal though, and 7 is really focused on using multiple cores to their full advantage. But, it'll still run.

Thanks for the input guys, much appreciated. We discussed the matter and we'll be waiting for another good offer for a multi-core laptop.