Would a quad core laptop with 2gb of ram work well for extreme multitasking and some gaming. I read quad core let’s you do more things. I thought ram does that. What is rams purpose then? Also what features make up a good programming / gaming pc.
The graphics card is the #1 most important thing for a gaming PC.
A standard CPU should be enough, and most computers these days need ~4GB to be able to play games.
Multithreading capabilities is the last thing you should be worried about. Quad cores are pretty standard and you don’t really need much more than that.
For programming, a program like Windows nodepad is enough. Because programming is simply typing letters.
For developing something, thats a whole other area. You will at least need some kind of IDE. Depending on what you’re developing, you might need to extra programs running along side your IDE.
You should also take into account what you’re developing. If its a simple game on desktop, a crappy PC would probably be enough. The better PC, less build time, faster loading etc would cut down development time though 
You get different quad cores. Some are very weak. I don’t think you will find a very good quad core paired with only 2GB of RAM. To really answer your question, please give full system specs.
@HeroesGraveDev, most intel mobile CPUs are dual cores supporting up to 4 threads through hyperthreading. For real quad cores, you have to look at high-end Intel i7s or (at the budget end, and roughly equivalent to the intel dual cores) the AMD chips like the A8 or A10 variants. I should also mention that there are also ultra-low power quad cores that have very weak performance.
I would not recommend having less than 4 gigs of memory. If you want to do a lot of multitasking, then you will be hitting that 2 gig limit all the time.
Seconding this. I use at least 6GB of RAM at all times while programming & working on side projects.
If you’re buying a new computer today, I wouldn’t consider getting anything less than 8gb. I had 4gb in my old quad-core and I was hitting the memory barrier every day - even a browser can easily hover around 1gb mem usage when enough tabs are open; then consider IDE, background processes, the OS, gimp/photoshop etc. Ideally, you never want to close applications due to running low on RAM.
I second that, I have 8gb and it seems like a good amount to have a bunch of tabs open, an IDE (or 2 depending on the day!), Steam, some sort of media player etc… basically I can run a lot of programs with 8gb, but not with 4gb (what I used to have).
The current hardware market is better than it has ever been in 10 years.
Parts are cheaper, entry level components are affordable even for people with part-time/low paying jobs.
You will be able to pick yourself up a good dual core cpu or quad core cpu + dedicate GPU build for around £300. That is cheap considering this can play most games at medium-high @1080p with AA at 2x or off. Which btw looks 10x better than an Xbox 360 or PS3.
I’ll run over what CPU and RAM actually does, as you are being confused by both.
RAM - Random Access Memory
This a highly efficient and fast way of accessing data, when you start a program up such as lets say Eclipse, this is loaded into the RAM. This will allow the CPU to access this data at a ridiculous speed, much faster than it would when reading it from a HDD (SSD’s are faster but not as fast as RAM)
You know when you start a game up and you have those loading bars? Yeah, that is your game files being read off the HDD and whacked into RAM ready to be used. Ofc it is more complex than this but that is the basic idea.
RAM is not permanent storage unless you are doing some insane shit like RAMDisks but lets not get into that, if your computer crashes or the program is terminate the RAM is purged of that data, does not usually happen immediately but is dumped over time, if you start a big program up and time it, then shut it down and open it up straight away, it will load faster. Anything that needs to be saved, such as a game save is written to the harddrive for later access.
tl;dr RAM is a temporary place to store data for faster access, it is volatile and therefore data stored on it will be lost if the power was to be cut
CPU - Central Processing Unit
This the brain of the computer, think of it as a the boss of a company that controls how everything flows and what tasks are to be prioritized. Faster CPU’s can compute more calculations per tick (don’t know the correct term for tick).
Regardless of your setup, the CPU does EVERYTHING, even although you have say a GPU, the commands are still sent via the CPU to the GPU for calcuation.
There is a bit of a confusion about multicores, CPU’s simple have multicores due to a f**ked up theory and the way the silicon chips are made. They can’t be made any smaller with current tech, well they can but its taking a hella lot of time compared to what it used it. So how to fix it? Slap more cores in it.
tl;dr CPU is the brains of the computer, it controls everything.
How do they work together?
CPU accesses RAM via the Northbridge on the motherboard, think of the Northbridge as the “fast lane” on a motorway. From here it does its thing, I am a little rusty on the rest of it.
There is also a Southbridge on the motherboard which is a slower bus, the CPU uses this to access things such as NIC cards or sound cards, since they are low priority.
If you are wanting to just know the basics, just understand that cpu’s do calculations and RAM stores data, the faster a CPU is the more calculations it can do per tick. The more RAM you have the more data you can have loaded for fast access by the CPU.
Have a look here, it is old videos but the main concepts have barely changed and most likely never will:
Scroll down.
Thanks, but could you keep in mind I’m spending under about $400 
Trust me, it’s really important that you get more than 2gb of RAM if you want to run more than a couple programs at a time.
I wouldn’t spend less than $400. Think about it this way: it is $400 less money for your next purchase. Just save up a bit more. While buying the parts for my PC, I almost went with a crappy $400 build, but waited a few more months and now I have a $700 monster of a computer.
Timing is everything in buying parts. An awesome part one day could be outdone by a cheaper, better one within the next day.
-wes
You don’t need much more than a dual core for gaming, it matters the speed (Ghz). Some people say that a CPU is on of the least important for a gaming rig, but you should still get one that matches your graphics card or you WILL see a performance “bottleneck”. Basically the program can’t talk to the graphics card very quickly.
Sometimes a bit of ram is good. 4GB is bare minimum on my standards.
The GPU is important. You don’t need much storage if your just running BattleField 3 or PlanetSide 2 (PlanetSide is awesome, look it up). I have a 2GB GTX 650ti and they both run AWESOME on it. Almost maxed out at 1920x1080p with about 35, 50 fps on both.
If your running a laptop, get a desktop for gaming. Its not that expensive to build and really fun to play around with, just make sure your parts work together. Usually Windows is the best. And never use linux for a gaming rig. Prepares inbox
Also, please, please, PLEASE, don’t try overclocking a laptop…
Is there something that runs a bit faster than my dual core 4gb ram laptop that’s under $400? I can’t spend too much right now, but I could still update the components of it later. I’ve been looking at this(yes, I know it’s a laptop, but there are many youtube videos on its’ fast performance)
http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-T100TA-C1-GR-Detachable-Touchscreen-Laptop/dp/B00FFJ0HUE/ref=br_lf_m_8620056011_1_1_img?ie=UTF8&s=pc&pf_rd_p=1780456582&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=8620056011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0FDJCQYXYXK5TY3GY0KW
This is a quad core with windows 8 which I admire, but then it has only 2gb of ram.
“Intel Quad-Core Baytrail-T Z3740 1.33GHz. 2GB RAM.” - 1.33GHz isn’t gaming standards. Not even close.
It will turbo to 2.5-3 depending
The “max turbo speed” or whatever is the max when 1 core is active. Doesn’t mean much unfortunately.
It will turbo to 1.86GHz according to Intel. It’s an Atom, so it’s clock for clock slower than a Pentium or Core i chip, to a significant degree. For around that price you could probably get an i3 laptop which would be more powerful and have better (but still poor) graphics.
I just got $100 for a graduation gift. My grandma and other relatives are willing to send some over(Mostly my grandmah) She might send about $150 - $250 leaving me with around $300. Now that I have better Idea of my money, what desktop should I start off with for now? I was thinking about 4gb RAM and 3.0 GHz CPU to start with.(Desktop)