It depends. If you're doing development in a dynamic language, just about anything half-modern is more than sufficient. Faster clock speeds matter more than th

It depends. If you're doing development in a dynamic language, just about anything half-modern is more than sufficient. Faster clock speeds matter more than the number of cores (ie, prefer a 3.5GHz dual-core to a 3GHz quad-core). If you're compiling large code bases, the more cores/cache you can get, the better. (You won't find "the best" in a laptop.) A lot of AI development requires GPU hardware. Again, you're looking at a desktop workstation for the best results. RAM - I say get as much as you can afford. (You can always set up a tmpfs for maximum awesomeness when doing IO-bound operations.) As for SSDs, the measure you care about is random 4k writes at low queue depths (QD <= 4, typically measured in IOPS as opposed to MB/s). Also consider the importance of human interface devices. If you're not 100% happy with the keyboard, mouse and screen, it's not worth your trouble. Those things have a far greater impact on your productivity than you might realize.