Windows 8 Minimum requirements consist of Intel Atom and 1GB RAM

Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinofsky after a quick announcement  and a simple demonstration explained that Win8 demanded fewer system resources than Win7 with the same hardware specs

With a Lenovo S10 in his hand he showed that  an early-gen Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM is “enough” to run the new OS (AKA Windows 8 )