As a programmer, being able to run non-trvial parallel builds (e.g. compiling large Scala projects), whilst keeping the machine quite usable for other things is

As a programmer, being able to run non-trvial parallel builds (e.g. compiling large Scala projects), whilst keeping the machine quite usable for other things is pretty awesome. 5 years ago I'd have struggled to get that out of a desktop. Today, my laptop handles that, barely breaking a sweat.