Don't you think it would be a bit different for him than the rest (not taking anything away from abilities, but all else being equal)
What are the specifications of your current laptop (CPU, RAM, hard drive, graphics)? You mention that it works good enough, so this gives you an indication of your minimum requirements for your next desktop computer. Usually are trading applications not so heavy on the computer, they don't require high computer specifications.
Well, you can easily rack up hours this way, which at any decent salary which will be more than you save by building yourself. About 33-50% of my friends' and my own homebuilds while growing up tended to fail in some way or another (=more cost and time). Buying a finished computer of a type with good reviews is the way to go for nearest to zero trouble IMO.
Use three Dell refurbished currently online at $370 each, 8gb ram ok 16gb better, win 10. Five monitors ,2 on one pc runs medved trader charts with .30 charts and portfolios with 300 stocks. 2nd pc 2 monitors runs thinkorswim trading , could do with more desktop size will probably upgrade to 27 inch monitors. Last pc runs chatroom ,Twitter ,scanner ,browser for Halts etc All depends on how big your desk is, mind is L shaped fits in a corner , dsom people go vertical on the monitors but that gave me neck cramps
Using this puppy with Sierra charts and TOS at same time. No lags, great system. Would strongly recommend NOT running or installing chrome browser on your trading machine as it is immensely resource hungry and runs tons of (sometimes hidden) background processes. Got this from PC specialists.co.uk but I’m sure you can get all same spec if not better anywhere else. I’m running 2x 55” Samsung 4K TVs for monitors + one 27” Asus monitor. All at 4K output res from this graphics card. Anything over 32mb ram is overkill in my mind unless you are running a shit ton of resource heavy programs.