[amgraham]

There are a number of sites that provide benchmark results if you want to see the relative performance for various tasks.

Assuming you're talking about the same generation of both, the i5 is the "sweet" spot in terms of price/performance. Of course, if you don't end up using all of an i3, then the i5 isn't worth it. Obviously, the i5 is capable of running Win 10 "better".

As has been addressed in other threads, an SSD is really crucial to extracting the most performance is disk io is the bottleneck on most computers. That and I'd look for something with discrete graphics. You certainly aren't going to get "workstation" grade graphics without spending a bunch of money but.... $700-ish or so should get you at least an i5, SSD and discrete graphics.

If I were you, I'd pick up an SSD for the old machine. It'll breathe new life into it... I have an satellite that's probably 4-5 years old. When I got a new machine, I replaced the hard drive with an SSD, added some memory, gave it to my daughter. Does everything she needs to do, which includes some video editing.

The difference in time required to render videos and rip BDs between my i7/960M notebook and my Ryzen 7 1700/RX 580 desktop is HUGE. The notebook is no slouch but man... the rip/render times on the desktop are 1/5th, maybe less, than on the notebook.