Is dual-core the end for internet use?

[claptonman]

I've been thinking, since dual-core is more than sufficient for internet, email, word processing, is that all there will be needed from now on, with netbooks and the like? Of course it will change, but it seems like, at least for now and a while, the computers will only have dual-core because that's all they need. Sure, in a few years, when quad-cores are cheap, they could use those instead, but I would still rather have an even cheaper netbook with a dual-core. Thoughts? Just something I was thinking yesterday.

And not just the CPU, I guess, either. Now 4GB of RAM with win7 is the norm, and now that win 8 is supposedly even lighter, it would need less RAM, so the requirements are even going down.

 

[Aastii]

Most netbooks don't even have dual cores, because they aren't needed. The Intel Atom is a single core, but it has hyperthreading so shows up as 2, when it is just 2 threads on a single physical core.

And for now dual cores will be enough, however as the average user's internet speed increases, sites will be able to take advantage of more complex technology and languages which require more data coming down the line, which eventually will mean greater processing power is needed to load the pages and all of the content, especially as a lot will be interactive or dynamic