Best/cheapest PC for investment banking?

What is the cheapest but still pretty nice PC that you would recommend for investment banking (modeling, pitchdecks, etc)? Budget of 0-$1000 but preferably towards the middle of that.

11 Comments
 

Is this for work or for practice?

Most companies just give you laptops or put you on a virtual desktop. So it really doesn't matter what you get as long as it turns on.

 
Newkiddo

Practice? Trying to prep before internship

How are you in college and don’t have a computer?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Most Helpful
Newkiddo

I have a mac and was told PC was better. 

You were told correctly. Plenty of recent threads here on WSO about this you should check out. If not that, start looking at a Dell XPS or Lenovo X1. May not be the most appreciatively priced for your forecast, but consider these are ones that'll last you at least three-four years let alone if you need to pick one up a year old it'll still last. Nothing against looking into a good used example so long as they have wiped the data and you don't wind up with certain weird photos on there. The out of box cheapies you pick up from BestBuy for even $600 are the ones you keep replacing every year. Quality, not quantity.

The poster formerly known as theAudiophile. Just turned up to 11, like the stereo.
 

Don't listen to Mr. Agree - you don't need to waste your current macbook and spend $1K+ on a Windows laptop. Just install Bootcamp or Parallels, buy a Windows keyboard and just use that. It's the same thing.

 

Bring the best Alienware, razor or Asus gaming laptop you can find to work. Also, make sure you have a keyboard with loud, clicky switches.

 

Buy a used Thinkpad on ebay.  Get a model with at least an 8th gen Intel CPU (T480 or newer, check wikipedia to get a full list of those models) and 16gb of ram, at $500 this should be esay to do and quite frankly can be done for around $200 - $300 and possibly less.  You are likely to get a Thinkpad from the office so it will get you used to that anyway.

 

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