How important are cores for heavy tabbed browsing

[slb308]

I was looking to upgrade my old pc.
I often end up with multiple tabs (100s at times) on chrome. Outside that, its basically just watching some videos and MS Office. Pretty basic.

I was wondering if a quad core (i5-4460) would perform better than a dual core (i3-4150) when the clock speeds are comparable.

Both paired with a decent amount of ram, of course.

Just wanted to know if spending the extra $$ on the i5 was a good idea or a waste of money.

 

[CountMike]

While more cores is better for pretty much anything it's questionable how much they can help with browsing. Depends on a browser too. Chrome is known to care more about amount of RAM and can open another thread for each tab. It also depends of what's in those tabs, if you have several HD videos going on in several tabs, CPU usage will go up for sure.
As there are so many variables it would be best to open at least Task manager and/or performance tab and see what's going on. If both cores peek up a lot hitting close to maximum, than yes more cores would be helpful. Just keep in mind that many programs are still single threaded and in that case more cores are not of much help.
So it's down to what you are usually using and at which load it's running. Only than you can decide if switch is required.

 

[slb308]

While more cores is better for pretty much anything it's questionable how much they can help with browsing. Depends on a browser too. Chrome is known to care more about amount of RAM and can open another thread for each tab. It also depends of what's in those tabs, if you have several HD videos going on in several tabs, CPU usage will go up for sure.
As there are so many variables it would be best to open at least Task manager and/or performance tab and see what's going on. If both cores peek up a lot hitting close to maximum, than yes more cores would be helpful. Just keep in mind that many programs are still single threaded and in that case more cores are not of much help.
So it's down to what you are usually using and at which load it's running. Only than you can decide if switch is required.

Most tabs are just articles and images that I think I might need later.. Some youtube videos.
Stream videos pretty often, but don't have multiple tabs with those open... 2 at most if I am watching sports.

I don't have a dual core i3- 4150 right now.
I have a 5 year old amd (x4 635) and 4gb ram.

I was thinking of getting something new and was wondering if the i3, which is about 40% cheaper than the i5, will be enough for my use.

Guess I'll just get the i5 then. No point saving a bit now and regretting it later.

 

[CountMike]

That's right thinking, if you can afford it now, you'll spend less later. If you can, invest in some more RAM, it also has bearing on performance. To GB per core is about right for now,