Times have changed. The newer Intel i7 on board video is great for office work, can dual monitor but still not something gamers will want. The i7 quad with it's HT feature gives you 8 threads so it's quite to the task of many active apps. So yes, dedicated always wins but can you live with a couple of milliseconds to switch windows? That's more of a gamer issue.
SSD is not a factor to multitasking. That's more about RAM. Try 8GB. However it can make the machine quite nice. Try to stay at 240GB or higher.
Bob
Can anyone give me some info on the most important specs for multi-tasking?
I use my computer mainly for office work. I will typically have 3-4 browser windows, and 4-5 ms office applications, powering an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, and maybe a twitter or spotify app opened simultaneously.
Does dedicated graphics help with any of that? Or should I go for an i7 processor over an i5? ssd over hdd?
Thank you very much!

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