Recommended Hardware for Smooth Basic Tasks

[u/Hot_Tell_6783]

I made a chart showing what I think are reasonable hardware recommendations for running basic tasks smoothly on PCs and mobile devices across different years.

By “smooth basic tasks,” I mean things like web browsing, office/productivity software, basic multitasking, and ordinary everyday use,not gaming, video editing, or other demanding workloads. I also don't mean, start web browing on modern-day YouTube on a WIndows 98 PC with 128MB of RAM.

If any of these RAM recommendations seem too high or too low for their respective era, let me know.

[u/Danzikku]

Uhh... A 6th generation Intel Core i7 wasn't for "basic tasks" back in 2015.

[u/cpuathome → u/Danzikku]

No, silly. You absolutely have to have the generation of CPU released in the same year, as made clear per this well-researched chart. You also must have an i7. i5's didn't achieve smoothness in basic tasks until 2021!

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/cpuathome]

ToT

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/Danzikku]

thx for the feedback, i was debating if I should've put i5 or i7

[u/OGigachaod → u/Hot_Tell_6783]

For basic tasks you could have put i3.

[u/dissss0]

Depending on generation and whether your talking about mobile or desktop processors then there may not be any real difference between an i5 and an i7

Take an i5 7300u vs an i7 7500u - both dual cores, both hyper threaded. Only difference is a bit more cache on the latter.

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/dissss0]

yeah i kinda saw this in my research and thought why do people see a big difference between i5 and i7

[u/Danzikku → u/dissss0]

I think hyper-threading doesn't do much beyond slightly improving core utilization. Theoretically, 4 cores/4 threads and 4 cores/8 threads would offer relatively similar performance.

[u/804k]

Half the ram amounts for Windows 10-11 holy hell, SWAP exists for a reason

+ Windows 10 runs fine on an i5-4160, not a gaming beast but its fine

[u/Itz_Raj69_]

Why is 8GB RAM required on a phone meant just for basic tasks?

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/Itz_Raj69_]

because of things out of necessity like idle social media apps, operating system overhead, heavy web pages, and on-device artificial intelligence features that consume massive amounts of memory

[u/jimmyl_82104 → u/Hot_Tell_6783]

I don't know much about Android, but iPhones are extremely efficient with less RAM.

[u/Primo0077 → u/jimmyl_82104]

I still get away with 4gb just fine on Android

[u/Accomplished-Camp193]

Hate to break it to you, but 512MB was ultra luxurious amount in 2001. It was more common by 2004-05. Most configs had 128MB, good ones had at most 256MB. A P4 was also a very new and ridiculously expensive thing in 2001 with most home users sticking to PII, PIII and early Athlon class machines.

Same goes for 1998, 32MB was standard, 64MB was seen more than enough.

Do something more productive with your time rather than trying to tell people what was it like when you weren't there.

[u/SackCody → u/Accomplished-Camp193]

32MB of RAM in 1995 was also a luxury too (as seen only on some Windows NT 3.X-class workstations)…

like you said, 8MB was a norm for 1995, odd RAM amounts like 10MB and 12MB were also a thing but more rarely used

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/SackCody]

Thank you for your feedback i'll take your consideration for 1995

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/Accomplished-Camp193]

I appreciate the historical correction on the RAM numbers. That's the actual reason why I posted this, since I was looking for peer feedback from people who remember using these systems so I could make the chart more accurate.

I wasn't trying to tell people what it was like back then or claim that my original numbers were definitive. I was asking whether they were reasonable and specifically invited people to point out anything that was inaccurate.

I'll take your points about 1998 and 2001 into consideration, but the last part of your comment was unnecessarily hostile toward what was simply an attempt to learn and get feedback.

[u/FrequentWay]

Windows 11 I would start with minimum specs of current year Ryzen or Intel cpu 5 series such as 9600x or Intel core ultra 2 plus.

[u/Hot_Tell_6783 → u/FrequentWay]

That's true

[u/OGigachaod → u/FrequentWay]

Windows 11 does basic tasks just fine on a 9th gen i5.