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I'm helping to buy a computer for a person whose main computer's use will restrain to web browsing, checking e-mail, office tasks but who may occasionally run Windows in a VM or perform some video conversion.

Among the offers I found two similar ones:

  • Acer V3-372 with Pentium 4405 and a LED IPS matrix, extra USB-C and USB 3.0 port
  • Acer V3-371 with i3-5005U and a LED matrix

The latter of them is 8.2% more expensive than the former, i.e. 150 PLN. Is the i3 processor worth the extra money in these case?

There's a benchmark showing that Pentium 4405 is 14% faster than i3 (CPU-wise), but benchmarks are benchmarks: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-4405U-vs-Intel-Core-i3-5005U/m54474vsm24957

The notebook will run Linux, probably Cinnamon or KDE as its desktop environment.

marmistrz
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You need the i3-5005U. Its graphics power is the main reason. If/when you are consuming GPU-accelerated web content or converting videos, the extra GPU horsepower will make all the difference and is worth the extra cost alone. Additionally, the i3 has a little extra cache, which might come in especially handy for virtualization.

Adam Wykes
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  • Thanks a lot for the reply! According to gpu.userbenchmark.com, the i3's GPU is 39% faster than the P4405's. Won't this even out with the 14% faster CPU of P4405? Or maybe it's not that simple? – marmistrz Sep 13 '16 at 07:47
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    GPUs and CPUs do different work. So no, there is no way to equate the two so easily. The i3 is a better balance of GPU/CPU capability. – Adam Wykes Sep 13 '16 at 07:48