[modeless]

Single core performance is the biggest factor for most day-to-day use of a computer, the stuff I do on a laptop. It's more important than peak multi core performance for web browsing and games. I only care about multi core performance when I'm compiling, and I usually do heavy compiles on a remote machine rather than on my laptop.

[pjmlp]

Which hardly matters because in modern OSes there isn't a single thread that runs to completion without being preempted by other OS work.