I'm definitely going to be multitasking until a proper beta is included - darn nice of Escapist Magazine to hang a tutorial designed for such.

Two observations so far (from someone on the low end hardware wise) - if you have i3 or less, unless you have a portable PC, an upgrade is just a CPU swap away (same applies to DX11 GPUs); the SUM of both upgrades is - even today - $USD400 or less.  (We're not talking a mint.)

Since we are talking vs. AI-only for now, and we're still learning the game, don't worry about poor frame rates, either.  Work on game build queues for now (those will be applicable down the road when the finished product is ready).  If you played SupCom (or TA) on a dual-core, it's the same sort of thinking in terms of game flow (instead of being in an ACU, put yourself in a room of your Nexus (the building you can't afford to lose)) - C&C or TA, as opposed to SupCom).  I started playing SupCom on a Northwood, then went to Celeron DC, then FINALLY going Q6600 when FA shipped - however, everything I began to learn on the Northwood still carried over to the Q6600 -not perfect does not mean unplayable, any more than it did for SupCom.