David, I can't advise you on Linux, because I'm a relative novice with that OS, but your results with Windows surprise me.
My i7 laptop is lower end than yours, with 1/4 the memory and no discreet graphics, but I don't run into any real problems until I have more than a dozen tabs open.
I'm running Win10 professional, but I don't think that is significant different than Home.
I do have one desktop that I still have Win7 and Win10 on, because frankly I like Aero and Win7 doesn't have Cortana (which I can't get rid of completely to save my life).

But I can't see Linux being that much better a performer as it's gotten pretty bloated too.

It's a pity that there aren't any really tight, efficient OS' running on X64 systems.
While we talk about porting MorphOS to that platform, even once that happens it will still be a hobbyist's oriented operating system.

I'm still convinced that a good commercial OS could be created around a micro kernel that would outperform currently available systems, but doubt that will ever happen.

With all the horsepower we have available in today's hardware, we ought to be getting better performance.



[ Edited by Jim 14.09.2017 - 14:53 ]