is there a site i can goto to compare not just chip speeds but actual speed (including RAM etc)?

[bigdan]

It's one thing to compare chip speeds. But I dont know if an i3-xyz with 12 GB RAM is better or an i5-xyz with 6 GB for example. I bought a computer a few years ago and it ended up being slower than a computer I bought *SIX YEARS* before that, so obviously I need to make some sense of the specs rather than trusting whatever I get is good enough.

I asked someone to help me who is supposedly knowledgeable. Said I want something under $500 CAD. He ended up giving me this below. Am I mistaken or is this really not that great? I say not great simply because of the 4GB RAM, which seems terrible. My understanding is I should be aiming for 12. My needs aren't that high, just browsing with 20 tabs open, a media player or two, some pdfs, and MS Office applications.

Here's the link & specs
Amazon Link
Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-363A, 15.6" Full HD IPS Display, 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 Processor, 4GB DDR4, 128GB NVMe SSD, WiFi 6, Backlit Keyboard, Windows 10 Home (S Mode)

This link suggests it's a good option but I dont know, the 4 GB RAM just seems terribly low.
https://laptopsuggest.com/reviews/acer-aspire-5-a515-56-363a-short-review-tech-specs
Excerpt: "The newly released Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-363A is one of the most affordable full-sized laptops available right now"

Anyway, gotten off topic. So yeah, is there a place i can enter in not jsut the chip speed but also the ram etc and then it tell me how a few systems would stack up?

 

[Smart_Guy]

Not one that I know of. Don't bother with chip speeds unless you are a power users who needs top of the line performance and can't waste a moment, like video editors with huge projects. What you should worry about are the CPU core and thread count, RAM amount and storage type in relation to your usage. In your case you will need at least a 4-core CPU with 8GB of RAM. Always make sure RAM is running on dual channel mode, tho pre-built computers should have that ready, so keep that in mind if you wanna build one yourself or upgrade an existing computer. You also need to find a good optimized browser. The storage has to be at least a regular SSD for the system drive (Windows 10, for example). Stay away from HDD's (mechanical) by all means these days unless you want a huge capacity to store stuff with the exception of big games. SSD are always faster but there's the price to performance ration that you need to consider too.

Newer CPU does not always mean faster even if it's of a higher class. Look are the core and thread count.

Short answer to your question, you will need general knowledge in computer parts and how they complement each other.