Intel question, desktop advice

Question

Hi all and thanks in adance for any tips.
I'm in the market for a new desktop - just the tower. My priorities are value, speed, dependability and durability. Use will be mostly business related - MS Office, lots of tabs open during browsing, blogging, social media, etc. That obviously involves some multimedia work, although thus far we have yet to work with video. We will store our iTunes library on the desktop, and run a cable to our stereo. But, for the most part, this is a business machine and certainly not an entertainment unit. We're not gamers. Looks and size are unimportant. It'll be tucked away in a desk.
I've most been looking at i3 and i5 processors and was suprised to see how affordable this Gateway - Desktop / Intel® Core™ i5 Processor / 8GB Memory / 1TB Hard Drive was at $599.
Then I noticed that some of the I3's, like this Lenovo - Ideacentre Desktop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 8GB Memory / 1TB Hard Drive (at $529) and this Gateway - Desktop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 6GB Memory / 1TB Hard Drive(at $479) actually run at faster at 3.1GHz versus 2.8 GHz for the i5.
Which machine will run faster, the i5 with the lower GHz or the i3s? Which one represents the best value - the most bang for the buck? Are there other machines I should be looking at given my needs? Am  I correct in thinking that all of these machines will meet our needs and offer a fair amount of computing power for the money?
Thanks! Greg

Answer 1

gmunno wrote:
Thanks so much for the answer. Yeah, it doesn't say specifically what processor it is, simply -
2.8GHz (3.1GHz with Turbo Burst). But I take it from your answer then that this is definitely a quad-core processor, and that, therefore, for appications that split well across the cores (like video editing) that it will be faster than higher GHz daul-core i3s. Do I have that right?
Yes, this is correct.  And thanks to the Turbo Boost (which cranks up the clock speed for one core when the others are idle), even for single-core workloads it should at least match the i3.
Turbo Boost negates one of the traditional disadvantages of quad-cores, which was typically lower clock rates than dual-core CPUs.
But since at least one i5 is not a quad-core, confirm before purchase that it is.  Sometimes the box in-store has more detail than BBY.com, or the manufacturer website would have more detail.
*disclaimer* I am not now, nor have I ever been, an employee of Best Buy, Geek Squad, nor of any of their affiliate, parent, or subsidiary companies.