Great topic, I bought an old Win 7 laptop as a dedicated sdr computer for SDRPlay.I had some issues with a hot mic giving feedback,and the great folks at the FB SDRPlay group gave me good advice on dumping the drivers and reloading that fixed the feedback. I found the SDRPlay fine on adsb, and very muddy on hf. Switching back to my small, quad-core Acer desktop I had great results again.
I still would like to run the old Windows7 computer for my dedicated sdr computer, and the tips stated so far seem promising. I am hoping some will chime in with more useful info.
The Win 7 laptop, a Dell, is an i3@ 2.53 Gigaherz with 6 gb ram, 64-bit. Looks like to me that should be enough horsepower.
thanks guys!