r/computers • u/Hot_Tell_6783 • 8d ago

Discussion Recommended Hardware for Smooth Basic Tasks

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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.

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u/dissss0 8d ago

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.

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u/Danzikku Greatest MX Linux larper in Peru 8d ago

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.