I don't have it yet (mid Feb since I ordered the upgraded video card) so can't really give feedback on Carrara and cores. I'd be happy to do some benchmarking when it arrives.

I'll probably pick up another 4gig after I get it, so 6 total. That should be enough to run a VM with 2 gig and still have plenty for the host OS. Right now I develop in a VM with 768meg, leaving 1.25 gig for OSX and find that have to keep nearly everything off for it to run well. RAM limits are really my biggest problem at the moment and the laptop is 2gig max.

Vista because I don't have it in house yet so don't really have that base covered in terms of testing and support.

Regards,

Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
Carrara and LightWave plug-ins