Essentially, you want a dev machine set up so you never break your flow/mindset/focus because you're waiting for the PC to respond. Lots of RAM. Once you go 4G

Essentially, you want a dev machine set up so you never break your flow/mindset/focus because you're waiting for the PC to respond. Lots of RAM. Once you go 4GB++, you wont go back. The amount of time you spent waiting for a pc with 2gb of ram when developing is more significant that it seems. ON that note, grab two of the best gb per $ drives, raid mirror them, and enjoy similar speed enhancements. Re. The CPU, a Quad core might be a good investment for the future, as it seems muti-core programming is going to become more and more important as time goes on. I don't know if your compiler can use multiple cores, so assess that benefit there. If not, dual core may be a better option, as they tend to have higher performance for each single core compared to the quad cores (IE. Core1 on a dual vs Core1 on the quad, the dual will tend to be faster given similar clock speeds).