What is actually the best budget Intel chip right now for a basic home office setup that wont feel like a brick in two years? I have been building gaming PCs for my friends for like a decade now but my sister just asked me to put together a snappy productivity machine for her new accounting firm in Chicago and honestly the low end market is confusing me more than the high end stuff usually does.

I was looking at the i3-12100 vs the 13100 but the price difference is like 30 or 40 bucks for what looks like the exact same silicon just clocked slightly higher and it feels like a total ripoff? Shes got a hard $500 budget for the whole tower and I need to make sure this thing can handle her insane 50+ chrome tab habit plus giant excel sheets without stuttering.

I thought about maybe jumping to an i5-12400 but then I have to cut back on the nvme drive or the ram to stay under budget and that seems like a bad trade for a general use case. Is there some hidden gem I am missing or should I just stick with the older 12th gen and call it a day? I just dont want to build her something that feels sluggish when she is on a zoom call while crunching numbers...