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Can any of the tech nerds on this site recommend a reasonably high-powered computer? My laptop died two weeks ago, and my 10-year-old desktop just isn’t working out for me. Despite commenting on a Rationalist-diaspora forum, I’ll admit to my shame that I know almost nothing about computers, and I’ve pretty quickly become overwhelmed by the staggering number of options for each and every component part.
What I’m looking for is a machine that can ideally simultaneously handle several open Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, image files, and PDFs, one or two PowerPoint presentations, an ungodly number of open tabs spread throughout multiple windows and likely across several browsers (including several active windows that are absolute memory hogs), a CAD program, SoundCloud, and a couple of other minor programs on a rotation basis. My budget is roughly $1,500–$2,500, though I’m open to being told that I need to increase it. I basically want a machine that will handle everything I throw at it and won’t die or get completely bogged down at any point in the next 15 years.
I don’t mind buying either a desktop (in which case I’d supplement with a cheap laptop for those few occasions when I’d need one) or a laptop. In either case, I’ll be hooking up several monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse. Also, I know it’s a bad time to be buying a lot of memory, but that unfortunately can’t be helped. Finally, without any additional information, I was planning on just picking one of the recommended gaming desktops on a review site, but I’m hoping someone here can tell me if that’s a good idea or not.
These are completely understandable requirements, but I will note that I chuckled at your list -- Office documents and PDFs, along with even many browser tabs, are definitely a solid set of real-world work computer requirements, but they're also not that demanding. You could get away with a comparatively modest system for this, with some wiggle room for memory requirements. Then you had to throw a CAD program in there, and boy does that add considerable expense to what you need. But if that's what you need, that's what you need.
Right now is possibly the worst time of all times to need a computer upgrade, so I feel for you. Memory and solid state storage are at ludicrous levels, close to plaid. Unfortunately that means these are going to make up a much larger chunk of your costs than they ought to. My feeling is that 32-64 GB of RAM would be the target; I had a system with 16GB, and even without the CAD requirement it desperately needed a memory upgrade. My advice would be to go for a set of two 16GB sticks for now, which would put you at the recommended level for a lot of CAD software and gives you room to grow based on your needs.
The lower GPU requirements that gattsuru talked about are actually a blessing here -- that's another huge cost center, and you can shave some of the cash that gamers have to spend on graphics and allocate it to memory. Generally people doing CAD work would have a pre-built, possibly workstation-grade computer from a major manufacturer bought by their workplace as part of a large contract deal. Those are expensive because they're calibrated for businesses to expense them. I would not, in general, recommend a gaming-oriented pre-built for your needs, and I think your willingness to try your hand at building is the right call. You'll have to keep us updated!
I'll also join gattsuru in saying that unfortunately even in today's world a computer won't last 15 years, even if you spec it out. That's particularly true if you're doing CAD work or trying to keep up with the web.
And Microsoft might not even give you the option: my 9-year-old system works great, especially as I've continued to upgrade the memory and SSDs to higher-end components over the years, but Windows 11 cut off support for it. There are ways around that, but they're hacky and unofficial, and if you're using a computer for work you want it to work and be properly supported. Linux keeps it going though.
You shouldn't feel bad about your level of knowledge -- you have a great awareness of your needs, you can explain them well and in a way that makes it easy to understand and give advice, and you have opinions on the software you use for the work you do. That's solid.
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