How future resistant are dual-core CPUs with regard to mainstream desktop applications? [I3-6100 vs I5-6500]

Thank you for your informative answer.

I know that my perspective is a little bit different from most users, which is also why I didn't find any answers on my question in the hundreds of articles available on the web. When people talk about future proof, they are talking about high end games, and they are talking about 4-5 years max. I realize that it might sound a bit silly to ask how long a low to mid end system will last, but I for one am very glad that I could use my last computer for 10 years, thus reducing e-waste. I will by the way also put a Lubuntu on my old computer and give it away to someone who only needs a browser and an e-mail client, and who will be able to use it for yet another few years.

Then again it might not be all that silly to research what mid end configuration will last the longest: my old PC had an Athlon 64, which was the first affordable 64bit CPU that was targeted at the consumer market. While this did not translate into any performance gain for the longest time, it did make it possible for me the last few years to use a modern 64bit OS. Did I not, from the perspective of wanting to use a computer for the longest period possible and thus reducing e-waste, do a good job researching back then?

The discussions that were raging back then about the relative importance of a 64bit CPU are somewhat similar to those that are going on now about multiple cores. Of course, those people who said 64bit would only start to translate into performance gains when the first AMD64s would already be obsolete were right, at least from their perspective. From my perspective however they were not: it did enable me to extend the total lifespan of my CPU with 5 years and more! But the question of 64bit computing was, even by hindsight, relatively transparent compared to the question of multiple cores: nobody doubted at the time that at least after 4 years or so 64bit would be standard. I'm not quite getting equally clear signals now about multiple cores. That's, of course, why I'm now turning to the experts for a clear view.

If I understand you well, you are saying that individual applications will never depend on multiple core support, but that there is a chance that in say 4-5 years OS's themselves might be demanding more than two physical cores because of an increased need to run applications in parallel?

Could you please tell me why you think the PC Mate motherboard is cheap crap? I'm especially interested in this because I do not know too much of motherboards brands, or how to tell if they are making durable products. My last one (10 years ago) was an ASUS Deluxe which I read good things about at the time (and which still lives, too), but I must confess I might not have read up enough on the new one I'm about to order.

As for the RAM, understand that I only got DDR4 because I still want to be able to upgrade in 4-5 years time if necessary, and I'm assuming it will be easier to find DDR4 RAM than DDR3 RAM by that time. The RAM I chose (Corsair Vengeance LPX) was simply the cheapest 16 GB DDR4 set my local hardware store offers, at 120€/129.5$ (I know that there are better prices, but I prefer my local shop over web-shops). Anyways, do you not think that I might start to notice the speed of my RAM in 4-5 years when even mundane software becomes more demanding? Or am I completely wrong about this one?

I do not know to what degree planned obsolescence has entered today's computer industry, but I do know that a lot of pentium III machines are only now being replaced, and most of them still live. Those CPUs were surely designed to last that long, but of course things might be different today. Any information on that would be most welcome. If it's not in the hardware however, obsolescence is a matter of mentality and perspective: I have great sympathy for computer enthusiast who are continually following up on the newest tech, but my personal perspective is different, and I'm hoping this difference in perspective will not stop you guys and girls from sharing information.

I seriously don't see why you should be so condescending in answering me, but thank you to do so anyway.

It seems there are not too many reviews of the MSI motherboard out there yet, and I also found the one you referred to now when I went googling after your previous post. Much like your posts, the review is written in a condescending way (internet café, bulk office, basic functionality) without any serious evaluation of its features or the way they might be used. Sure it has some legacy features some people might look down on, but it would be much more informative, either from the reviewer or from you, to tell me what important features it doesn't have, or what real (that is, truly affecting performance or durability) shortcomings or drawbacks it might have.

It's interesting you should cite the still working 286 running Windows 3.1. It supports all the games I ever play (Chess, Solitaire, and Prince of Persia), and it also supports word processing, which happens to be what I use computers for the most. There are in fact some professional writers still using those machines, and why not if they're not interested in internet surfing or playing music/watching movies on their computers? They could even do their own professional typesetting using Latex if they wanted. Why not keep on using a machine that costed +2000$ in its time if it does everything one needs? The article you cite about a failing 286 in an airport is by the way highly unfair, because obviously security applications that thousands of people depend on every day are very different from individual consumers' needs. I do hope that they replace those machines as fast as possible, but I also hope they don't throw the keyboards these machines were using in the garbage can, because they surely still are in working order, and they fit nicely in a legacy mobo like ... the PC-MATE.

As for my own old rig, I have run 64bit OSs on it from the moment I got it: 64bit versions of Linux were already available at the time. Admittedly I might better have not done so because 64bit compatibility was a pain in the behind until 2010 at least, but from that time on it was actually better from a compatibility viewpoint to have a 64bit processor. The performance gain has always been small, but it sure is a good thing that the next user of my machine will be able to run a 64 OS for another few years without issue. There were by the way other good reasons to get the Athlon 64 instead of a Pentium 4 at the time: they were the first consumer grade CPUs to have an on-die memory controller that supported dual channel memory, radically reducing latency and boosting DDR1 up to 800Mhz. Moreover, their new Cool'n'Quiet technology ensured that they were much more energy efficient than their Pentium 4 counterparts. The ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard I used supported up to 4GBs of RAM and had four SATA ports supporting RAID 0,1, 0+1 and JBOD. I had two 200GB hard drives in them and an older 80GB drive. It still had a floppy interface, but also four USB 2.0 ports. Yes, that's more than 10 years ago, but it served me well and it will serve a user with more mainstream needs and a smaller budget (a refugee) for yet another few years. I know that's not you, but that's no reason to scoff at it.

As for the rig I'm building, I will be using Intel's integrated graphics so I guess that's at least one way faster RAM might serve me well. The price difference between the H170 and the Z170 was only 20€ anyways, so I figured that 20€ should be a good deal to get the 2400 Mhz I pay for (it is the cheapest 16GB set in my store) and to leave the option open to get 64GBs of 3600Mhz RAM if that's what needed at a certain point in the future. Of course I might be wrong here, but for the 20€s I won't at least be horribly wrong. I did by the way at least need a H170 chipset because I will need the extra PCIe lanes when affordable NVMe technology comes along. There are other reasons beyond overclocking to get a decent chipset, and upgradability is one of them.

As for the CPU, I settled on the I3-6100 because I figured (not learned, since it doesn't seem to interest people) that neither the I3 nor the I5 can do more than four threads at a time, and the 20-30% performance gain in running all four threads does not seem to justify the premium price. I guess what will really make a difference is an OS that insists on running 5 or more threads, but that even the I5 won't do and I guess that when that time comes along I can either switch to a legacy Linux distro (Xubuntu has been really nice to me the last few years) or get a second hand I7.

Thank you for putting up with me, and if you answer, please do try to be nice.