Quad core arm vs Dual core x86_64

[Alpha90]

I am researching new low end laptops and I hit a question of processor architecture which branched into several variables that hindered my comparison.

The arm processor I am looking at seriously is a ARM cortex A17 rockchip rk3288:
Stats are
1.80ghz
quad core with 32kb L1 cache per core
1mb L2 cache
32bit

The x86_64 processor is more vague but im looking at comparing Intel Celeron's but not a specific model but roughly speaking they would be about
2.0 - 2.2 ghz
dual core
1mb L2 cache
64bit

I do use multiple threads for compiling software so I am wondering how much the clock speed would make a difference if i am using 4 threads at the same time instead of 2 at a faster rate and if the RISC architecture would play into the performance rating positively or negatively?

 

[digitaldoc]

It is quite hard to compare an x86 chip to the ARM architecture. It will also depend on the OS of the laptop. ARM chips cannot run Windows (except for Win RT which is pretty dead at this point), so they typically run Android or Chrome in a laptop. These tend to run lighter than a full Windows install, so the overall experience will be better, but it is more than the OS has less demands, than the CPU is more powerful.

 

[Alpha90]

OS wise it wouldn't matter what comes stock on it android / chrome or windows / winrt I would dump that and run a lean version of Gentoo Linux running from a bash prompt or if i needed / wanted a gui something like openbox or dwm.

 

[digitaldoc]

Either CPU can work if you are running Linux. In my mind they are about the same, but I doubt you will find benchmarks to quantify this.