Single Core Performance or Multi Core?

[Roshen]

Hi!
I'm browsing to buy a laptop. and I had 2 choices (I am willing to buy the hp): "HP Notebook - 15-bs632tu" and "IdeaPad 320 (80XR0134IN)".
hp have an i3-6006U while Lenovo has N4200. When I compared them, I saw that N4200 has more multi-core speed and the 6006U has more single-core speed.
So, my question is: which is more useful in day-to-day computing? Is it single-core performance or multi-core performance?
-Thanks!

 

[richiestang_78]

The i3 is better however both CPUs arent that great. What is your budget for a laptop? Because around 350-380 USD you can get a Acer that has better stats then both.

 

[photonboy]

i3 is better by far.

The SPECS are very misleading. I'm not sure about the exact differences but I've found Pentium laptops (even modern) to be agonizingly slow even when the CPU isn't heavily used, and it's not a storage bottleneck (err not the HDD.. could be a crappy storage controller used with Pentium CPU's.. not sure).

So the fact that the single core is far lower and the multi-core is apparently the same just makes this worse in defense of a Pentium solution.

*Also those specs don't agree with Passmark. I know Passmark has its faults too but I've found it far more reliable than Userbenchmark.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-6006U+%40+2.00GHz&id=2912
vs
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+N4200+%40+1.10GHz&id=2886

So the i3 is on spec over 50% faster, but in reality I suspect it's up to 4x faster vs the Pentium solution for some storage situations (just based on experience which frankly I still don't understand).

 

[photonboy]

The i3-6006U is a fine CPU for basic to medium-heavy tasks.

Unless you have some very heavy CPU tasks then the main bottleneck would be the HDD. Even still the laptop should be fine for web browsing, office and possibly some very light gaming (though the iGPU may need to be allocated more memory in the BIOS).

*And be very careful about getting the cheapest laptop because the specs are better. Look at customer REVIEWS/feedback to at least try to estimate reliability. That's far more important than having a slightly better CPU (that you may not benefit much from anyway).