If you are buying a new desktop system, we strongly recommend a system faster than 1.5GHz, with at least 512MB RAM. Going much slower than that won't be economic over the long run, though the software will run OK for some special purposes or for patient people even down to the minimum 500MHz with 256MB RAM.
For professionals planning to dictate at least 15 minutes per day who are acquiring a new system, the choice is simple. Get almost the fastest system you can. In the short term, you might save a little money by buying a slower system, but I believe that you will have buyers remorse within a year. This is a productivity tool, and should be handled like other capital expenses.
The following two sites have general information on hardware that is fairly reliable:
For a budget system, I suggest a Celeron or an AMD system. The modern Celerons are adequate for good speech recognition despite some older recommendations to stay away from them.
For a top-of-the line system, an Intel Pentium-4 with RDRAM will provide the best performance. Though there is a price premium for the 3.4GHz CPU's today (March 2004), it is my opinion that the premium is justified if you are a professional dictating 30 minutes per day or more and you plan to keep the computer more than a year. NaturallySpeaking used with Word will benefit from HyperThreading, and the benefits will increase as new releases of NaturallySpeaking and Word appear.
Memory and sound cards are critical to success.
For best results, acquire a quiet power supply and/or CPU fan to reduce both electrical and mechanical noise. PC Power & Cooling, Inc. is one source for these. If you think your system is a lot louder than when new, consider replacing the CPU fan. With some CPU's that is a trivial task, with others it is difficult. If buying locally, ask for a system to be turned on. Listen to the system while it is doing something like starting Word, when there will be several disk accesses. Some systems are a lot louder than others. Some say noise doesn't matter for speech recognition, but in my experience one gets slightly better accuracy with quiet systems than audibly loud systems.
Windows-XP Professional or Windows-XP Home will be offered in most cases. Pro has some features such as better backup and better ability to remotely use the system that are worthwhile but not mandatory.
Office-2003 is available bundled with many systems. That is typically a lower price than if you bought it separately. There are several versions of Office-2003 or Microsoft Works than include Microsoft Word 2003, at different price points. They differ in the other applications. If you need Access, Publisher, PowerPoint, or Excel, make certain you get the right bundle. My opinion is that Word works better with NaturallySpeaking than other word processors. Office-XP, while a little older, works just as well with NaturallySpeaking and if offered should be considered.
Factor in the cost of Office and Windows when comparison shopping.
Several ask "what is the best system." That's tough to answer, but for a general top-of-the-line system today, the list should include:
Pentium-4 3.4GHz CPU, 1GB RDRAM, Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Sound Card, Windows-XP Professional, Office-2003 Professional
One of the many quiet disk drives with a quiet power supply added to the above make a better working environment.
Your needs may not be so demanding. But the above will run NaturallySpeaking well.
If upgrading a system, concentrate on adding RAM. RAM upgrades are usually simple to acquire and install.
If you can increase CPU speed by 40% or more without changing motherboards then a CPU upgrade may make sense. Anything less than that and it is hardly worthwhile. Often a motherboard upgrade is needed to significantly upgrade your CPU, and then you often need to upgrade RAM, and sometimes video, and by that time you may as well look for a new system.
Once upon a time it was important to do a detailed analysis before buying a notebook computer for speech recognition. Fortunately, those times are past. Use the same CPU/RAM guidelines as above. Plan on buying a "USB Pod" if the on-board sound system isn't adequate for your needs, or alternately buy a USB microphone to use. The Tablet-PC's work OK though are generally available only in slower systems. Get help if needed, as some nomenclature is confusing. For instance, a Pentium M system is not the same as a system with a Mobile Pentium-4 Processor-M. The upper-end Centrino systems from Intel meet most needs unless you demand the fastest system possible.
These PC's are characterized by having a stylus and generally being lighter in weight than notebook computers. They are intended to be carried around. Most of the designs are less than a year old. Most allow handwriting recognition and the functions of a touch-pad screen.
This is fundamentally new technology, though all the individual parts have been used for several years. Manufacturers are having to fix problems as they are found in the mechanical design and the software. There is a higher risk associated with purchase of a Tablet PC. There are some software problems affecting NaturallySpeaking that are unique to the Tablet PC's, but there are workarounds for these problems.
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