We wound up with a hp from newegg for about $335, Not in shop but I know it has an i5 chip and 8gb and 6 USB ports. Overkill maybe but I design on the fly for prototyping and some of my comparison programs have as many as 20 toolpaths and I appreciate the speed in previews. Never had a problem with the Desktop doing anything I asked it, so we used same specs when Kirk built one from scratch for the second Desktop. For monitors I went 21" and I still don't always see typos. Kirk uses a 19" but will move up as soon as we get some money. When I still knew nothing I started this thread and got some good info. Ours is desktop computer in a closet with dirtbag, I asked Ted when I had him on the phone discussing mods before first Desktop shipped and he said he uses a laptop with i5 and 8gb, But an i3 with 4gb would work. When doing time estimates in VCP my most accurate times are 2.0 for VCarving and .95 for everything else as a multiplier. Here's the thread, but there's a ton of others if you do a google search.
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17865
scott P.
2013 Desktop/spindle/VCP 11.5**
Maine