It’s an odd question right? Well, not really considering how much client side data processing and complicated browser rendering we do.
As you likely know performance on Redfin is not what we would like it to be. One of the things we want to start doing is testing the site’s performance on a wider variety of hardware. However, the question I have is, what’s the ‘average’ amount of processor and memory that machines have today? I have a feeling like the machines we use at work likely aren’t typical of the machines that users have at home. What I’d love is to find a study showing the distribution of processors and memory so that we can pick a reasonable baseline profile.
Short of that I’ve been looking at minimum requirements for a variety of things and thinking of working forward from there:
Google Earth: P3, 500 MHZ, 128MB
Virtual Earth 3D: 1GHZ, 256MB
Windows XP: 233 GHZ, 128 MB
Windows VIsta: 1 GHZ, 512 MB
Flash: P2 450 MHZ, 128 MB