Will you sit in an office or need to lug that around? If office I'd suggest best desktop that you can hide under the desk for ease of upgrade/expansion compared to laptop. Push comes to shove all you really want is a keyboard, mouse and your screens. And if you are using three now, add a fourth, three landscape, one portrait, or two portrait, two landscape. Makes a difference reading/editing, etc.

If you have to lug it around, laptop, obviously.

What I like about desktop is SSD and HD is best combo (split your load/use as required), and the physical storage is quite useful.... keeping the SSD light,and the belt and suspenders redundancy for archiving work.

As for make/model... just about any of the top names have what you want.

That said, no matter how fast computers get they are never fast enough. You need to take Patience Management Classes... not that you will graduate (I haven't after 30 years!)

Thanks tangor.

Patience Management Classes

ROFL - sad but true.

I'm struggling with the laptop v desktop question. I would like the portability but realize it's asking a lot to have multiple screens and the chutzpah I "think" I need.

I still see a desktop as a tool and all other form factors as toys. when you want to be productive and get the most from your system I still say nothing comes close to a keyboard and mouse. Even with a laptop I still NEED a separate mouse.

Mack.

I agree with Mack, BUT...so, I'd get a top of the line (mucho powerful processor) laptop and plug it into a top of the line (big and high rez) monitor and an Apple keyboard with a mouse you like.

My biggest problem with laptops is the limited number of video ports, unless you get a docking station to go with it... and by the time you add that et al, you're dang close to a desktop.

I also do a lot of audio/video editing and having cables hanging off a laptop to a suitable set of speakers, mics, mixer, etc puts too dang much cable on my work area (where my hands are). With a desktop I don't have that problem.

Actually... this is what you want. Old days we called this "big iron".

The Department of Energy has commissioned two supercomputers: one is a system codenamed "Summit", and it will be installed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. It is designed to peak at 150 to 300 petaFLOPS – that's 300 quadrillion calculations per second, or about five times faster than the 54 PFLOPS Tianhe-2.

The other system is codenamed "Sierra", which is designed to peak at more than 100 petaFLOPS. This will be based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Together, the systems will cost $325m to build. The DoE has set aside a further $100m to develop "extreme scale supercomputing", or an exaFLOP machine in other words.

[theregister.co.uk...]

While you're at it, get two, one as a backup.

And this is one you DON'T want:

Walmart, that well-known purveyor of the finest America has to offer, will flog a $99 Windows 8 tablet for this year's Black Friday.

As you'd expect at that price, the E Fun Nextbook is an utter dog: it has a 1.8GHz Intel Atom processor with 1GB of RAM – the bare minimum for Windows 8.1 to function.

[theregister.co.uk...]

Here's one I am considering, although it likely would not suit Tangor:
[quietpc.co.uk...]

As long as I can play Solitaire during down time I'm a happy camper.

I agree with Mack, BUT...so, I'd get a top of the line (mucho powerful processor) laptop and plug it into a top of the line (big and high rez) monitor and an Apple keyboard with a mouse you like.

BUT.... you can't. They do not put desktop chips in laptops, they'd suck the battery dry in no time while burning a hole in your desk / leg / whatever.

also limited in ram options, less and most of the time its single channel not dual channel.

DD4 for is also out and they now make chips and boards for it......not so in laptops.

apples, and watermelons, not the same and never will be. why people think this is beyond me.

^^^ What he said..

They do not put desktop chips in laptops, they'd suck the battery dry in no time while burning a hole in your desk / leg / whatever.

Exactly. And as @tangor noted - the lack of video ports.... darnit. I have a couple weeks to do some research but this is going to bug me to no end.

>>>they'd suck the battery dry...

Yeah, that's assuming the laptop is for working unplugged. If the laptop is for portability and not for working unplugged, then it can still be an option. Lack of enough RAM is generally what makes a computer crap out. Opening multiple windows and software apps puts a load on the RAM. So whatever form factor you choose, if you don't put the maximum amount of RAM in it the computer is going to crap out, regardless of the CPU and GPU. One of my computers is a laptop with 32GB of RAM and an I5 CPU. It's a tank. Never a problem except after about a week or longer of being turned on without a restart. It's solid.

When I used to actually compile code for massive projects and not just run server scripts then I did custom built towers and desktops with the fastest buses and HDDs available.

Funny thing people always worry about HDD over SSD and overlook simple things like the bus speed which is a raw limiting factor. Having a ton of RAM and a bunch dedicated to a RAM disk (I'm talking GBs of RAM disk) makes an HDD vs SDD almost a moot conversation for most personal computing tasks.

However, SSD also extends battery life so for a laptop I'd pick it if price isn't a consideration.

There's the combo solution which is a docking laptop so you wander around with a nice high powered portable that can dock to a multi-screen desktop layout and you then have the best of both worlds.

So I'd get a laptop with the most RAM they can jam in it, a high powered SSD, and of course a 3 monitor docking station with a real keyboard and mouse, extra TB drives on USB for backups, etc.

I'd also buy it from Dell via Costco so you get their concierge support and extended warranty for 2 years out of the box. Esp. when it comes to a laptop as my wife has killed a few, mostly Lenovo's and even Dell and HPs, but Costco got them returned fully repaired via FedEx in less than a week!

The main thing to remember with laptop repairs is they don't guarantee your data, which I think is even at more risk from being fully unrecoverable if an SSD gets fried vs a HDD which I have more experience with low level recovery (I used to work on HDD and Tape drivers years ago, if the HDD is done properly, you can almost recover from anything but the usual IT nerds don't know how which is why it's shipped away to experts to do things like we did). Anyway, I find the Costco support well worth going through them and they sell custom gear online, you aren't limited to the stuff in the store. But I've been quite happy with their off the shelf top of the line boxes over the years.

That's the reason I suggest your own TB drive to dock with is to keep a backup of the data and you can run your own cloud storage and share between everything. I don't like leaving my private data on some other cloud service and 3 TB drives are cheap and hold everything I own with 2 TB to spare LOL

Sadly, if this is a business machine you'll be expected to amortize the damn thing so depending on their company policies, you might want to get the best possible the first (and only) time you get to buy a machine.

How we used to solve that problem is any new hires for low end jobs got the hand-me-downs from the engineers so we could opt to get a new machine every time a new hire needed one, which allowed us to side-step that nasty amortization issue as hardware improved. Trust me, the lower paid new hires DID NOT complain as they got much better gear from the hand-me-down program than they would've gotten if it was being purchased directly for them in the first place. Don't know what the hardware policies are there, but I always suggest it so that people that need the fast gear always get it and everyone benefits as well.

Myself, I have the desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, got to have it all so I've got what I need for all occasions. My wife has the same, one of everything and she has both windows and Apple, she's a show off.

I hate to decide on just one machine ;)

YMMV

>>>I hate to decide on just one machine...

Agreed!

I'd be thinking first about the need to work away from a desk. If there is no need, then there is no requirement for portability. Simples! :)

If you are expected to work away from the desk, make a list of the functions you're likely to be required to undertake while on-the-move. Sometimes, e-mail is all that's required, in which case you can get away with, perhaps, a tablet, or smartphone.

After going through that process, i'd then look at the most memory-intensive procedure i'm likely to undertake and then choose the power of processor vs amount of ram required. Hard disks memory is relatively cheap so get the biggest hard drive you need for the amount of data you're likely to need to transport/manage.

Screens are important. For anyone that gone from a single-screen to a dual screen, or more, can attest. You never want to go back!

Primarily a desk computer but portability would be handy as I do want to work away from the desk at times and bring it with me when I go to a meeting or conference. It will be rare when I'm away from a plug but it does happen.

The docking station is a good idea - I hadn't thought of that. I use Jungledisk for my backups (nightly) so I'm not worried about losing a drive. I've had to restore lost files here and there and it's always been super easy.

I agree about Dell. I've had good luck with them. I do leave it to them to figure out suitable components that will provide the best performance. I know enough to be dangerous here and the few times I've built my own computer I wasn't happy with the results - I know I missed something.

Yeah, that's assuming the laptop is for working unplugged. If the laptop is for portability and not for working unplugged,

plugged in or not plugged in they don't put desktop chips in laptops... have you seen the coolers for some chips? those thin laptop coolers would need a hair dryer strapped to the side to cool it.. MAYBE! hahah

I have to agree with @J_RaD: Laptops and desktops are not equ8al, yet I will say this: for most of what the average webmaster or ordinary computer geek needs, a high end laptop can get 'er done. Depending on computational tasks required will make that final determination of which is best. I have both. I do all my WORK on a desktop. I do less WORK on the laptop, but find it immensely useful off site or in the Lazy-boy recliner. I just can't get behind laptop for work work (sic) as there are limitations on ram, disk, ghz, etc. The ONLY reason I think laptop for anything is taking my office space on tour (ie, portable). Make that decision first go from there.

My "work", for example, might not be your work, and that's another consideration.