If I don't plan to do any audio mixing or video editing, is the i7 worth it? I will be doing networking and network security with some programming in the coming months on it, and I can't see how this sort of task would need the affect of hyper threading. I also game quite often and have read the i5 always suffices.

Long story short, at what point should I consider an i7 over the i5?

Sure, i7 compiles faster if you do programming, noticeable in larger projects.

Do you care? Not really.

You also get somewhat more leeway in multi-threaded high CPU intensity games, like BF4/BF1.

Do you care? If you don't insist having 1080p/60fps Twitch stream running or streaming yourself at good settings, no, you don't care.

At least not enough to pay $100.

Ya I don't stream at all nor do I have any plans for large scale projects. I also saw that there was an increase in the frames for battlefield but it seemed negligible to me

Go i5 dan sir

if you are major multi tasker I'd go i7

I would wait

I still use a dual core i7 most of the time (older ultrabook)

I have no issues with it

You will be fine with the I5, unless you plan a triple monitor, gaming/streaming/porn all at the same time

or you just want e-peen

i7's come dual core?

wat

Mobile

For a hyper threaded dual core its actually pretty solid, even going on 3 years old

it only came with 4 gigs of ram originally (2 accessible, 2 not) I swapped the accessible stick for an 8 and have run 10 ever since

Has a 620m discrete GPU and Intel HD4400 IIRC, does games decently

I want a newer model but this has been hands down the best laptop I have ever owned