Minimal core count for reasonable productivity?

[Maru777]

Hello Tom'sHardware community,

I am looking for the cheapest CPU option for smooth general productivity on a Linux laptop.
More specifically, what is the minimal core count to run the things listed below?
Note: If adding cores will not increase the load times of Word processors, internet and movies by more then five seconds, I do not want the upgrade, and would rather stick with the lower core count.

What I will be doing:
Office suite
Internet
Movies on 1080p
Running an average of four applications at the same time.

What I will not be doing:
Gaming
Video editing
Photoshop

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[whoratesit]

What you have described is general desktop computing, 2 cores are more than sufficient for that.

ref:
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-effective-CPU-speed-index/55
"Extra cores work well for server orientated workloads where there are typically lots of CPU intensive tasks running in parallel but for consumer workloads where two cores or less are typically active, the additional cores make little difference to real world performance"

ref:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-are-the-UBM-performance-classifications/93
"Desktop CPU Bench = 80% Single core, 10% Quad core, 10% Multi core"

 

[skylord_]

2 would get by decently well but I would recommend a quad core processor as they speed lots of processes up and make it more future proof.

 

[holyprof]

Absolute minimum: Intel i3-4160

Good: AMD FX-6300 or A10 series APU

Best CPU witout spending too much, futureproof: i5-4460

 

[whoratesit]

Absolute minimum: Intel i3-4160

Good: AMD FX-6300 or A10 series APU

Best CPU witout spending too much, futureproof: i5-4460

Those aren't laptop CPUs.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

EDIT: I just saw this was for a laptop.
I'd say get a laptop with an i3, any would do for the tasks you are performing.

 

[holyprof]

Oh lol, my bad. For a laptop, definitely go for a dual-core. My 1 year old laptop uses i5-2500U 2.5GHz and it's blazing fast.

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

Photoshop you need lots of RAM, video editing you need to balance your entire system including CPU/GPU/STORAGE1-2-3-4/RAM

Properly configured PC will allow you to take advantage of all above which will result in faster workflow and faster render times. The CPU should be the most expensive part in your system, always.

What do you mean by load times, streaming? Streaming a 1080 (which isn't 1080 anyways, like a YouTube video) doesn't require a good processor at all, that's down to bandwidth. None of this will be optimal on a laptop, ever. But still fast enough if you're not making money of it.