I find Geekbench ( http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/ ) to be a good measure of overall performance, since it gives a "single number" that you can use to compare machines.

I know that BB runs well on my old HP Laptop (XP, 1 GB RAM, AMD Turion), and that has a Geekbench of 1,100. I tried to update that to 2GB RAM, but it just wouldn't take it (blue screened until I put it back to 1 GB).

And I have a MacBookPro (running Windows 7/64 under Bootcamp). That has a Geekbench of 4,200, and of course its much faster.

Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.