How well do "slower" CPUs handle XP (800mhz-1.2ghz)

[superguybob]

Im kind of in the market for a laptop right now. I have a great desktop, so I dont need it to be able to do that much. Im mainly interested in Office type work, email, web surfing (I have wireless in the house), and what not. I dont really have any intentions for running games on it, just random apps and the stuff listed above.

I am looking at a used IBM Thinkpad T21, which has a PIII (Mobile) 800mhz, and I would get it up to 512MB PC133.

Although im thinking of running Linux as my main OS, I would like to run Win XP Pro on a separate partition (that way I have the best of both worlds).

My concern is how well XP will work with a 800mhz Chip. Will it lag a lot, or will it be OK. I know im not running super intensive work, but I dont want a machine thats going to take forever to open Apps, etc.

[jay_barger]

I have xp running on my dad's 800mhz p4 with 384mb ram. It is a pretty old computer that we got from gateway, but it runs windows xp pretty well. I still have all the visual effects on and it is very smooth. It only has a Nvidia 32mb TNT2, and it plays the nascar and racing games that my dad likes. (At like 20fps lol) It is a very simple setup though, not alot running on it, just norton antivirus, some printer software, a few games, and word and other various office software. For what you want, XP will run fine as long as it is kept clean.

[ArcticFox]

I run XP Pro on a 700Mhz PIII with 128MB RAM - the thing crawls and I can't afford more memory. But with more RAM, it would run just fine. I say go ahead and do it.

[superguybob]

I hear that Linux will handle it pretty stinkin well, and thats what I will probably be mainly using.

So, I think I just may go ahead and get it. Now, I just need the cash...

[phenious]

I run Win XP Pro on my mothers computer. Its a 500Mhz with 192MB of RAM. Runs just fine but I turned of some of the eye candy and such. I bet it would run fine with more RAM. In short as long as you have 500+MHz and 256+MB of RAM you should be OK

-: phenious :-

[jadinolf]

Running XP Home on a PIII 1000, 384Mb RAM.

Runs fine.

[davidamarkley]

Yeah, XP will run fine as long as the RAM is above 192MB, that gives ~128MB for the O/S and background services, and some more for your programs. But I still recommend at least 256MB for more than just IE and email.

The processing power gets more important as you turn eye candy features on more and more. Really, it runs fine on 256MB ram, and 500Mhz if you have it set to classic theme, and turn off all the eye candy. You really don't notice any slowdown compared to an 1Ghz PIII with theme set back to the "XP" theme.

Dave

[zepper]

I agree, RAM is the key. The closer to 512MB you can get the better - anything over that (but for a very few applications) is waste.
.bh.

[Arcarix]

My wifes system is a PII 400 w/ 256 Mb Ram running XP Pro and it runs just fine, in fact it runs better now than it did with Win ME on it

[Scott Tiger]

One of the things no one's mentioned here is hard drive size and speed.

A newer, faster hard drive makes XP feel pretty peppy on older hardware. I have XP Pro running on a 550 with 320mb of RAM AND a 40GB 7200 rpm hard drive. With all the eye candy turned off it runs fairly well.

That said, I think older hardware is best served by Windows 2000 - it just runs really smoothly on P2's and slower P3's.