Microsoft has released a whitepaper document which provides an overview of Office 2010 Performance and Hardware requirements and investments.

Upgrading to Office 2010 does not require new hardware if you’re currently using Office 2007!

Office 2010 was specifically engineered so that its minimum CPU and RAM requirements are identical to those of the previous version Office 2007.

This whitepaper highlights the broad range of hardware supported by Microsoft Office 2010 and describes the significant improvements in performance available in Office 2010.

Results from internal testing by Microsoft are included to demonstrate the measurable performance gains users can experience when performing common tasks using different Office 2010 applications.  These results indicate that in some cases uses can expect performance gains of 90% or higher compared with using corresponding Office 2007 applications.

Download: Microsoft Office 2010 – Under the Hood Investments for Hardware and Performance.