Thanks.

I've looked into the M1 chip. Problem is there is no Bootcamp compatibility on Apple's newest devices, so I would need to use Parallels, and then it would only run ARM-based Windows which is blah. I've configured a 16-inch MacBook Pro with Intel based chip that fits all these specs with top processor and it would cost around $3100 (so way more than $400 to include all specs lol), which is a lot but I'm willing to shell out if it's needed. But...

I have thought about potentially getting a much cheaper MacBook Air with M1 chip laptop for $1000, which will run Ignition and it sounds like GTOWizard just fine along with general browsing and Microsoft Office, and then having a separate desktop just for poker like you mentioned. $30 a month is no issue for GTOWizard if it really is a useful tool. I like the idea of it being browser based and easy access to answers for general studying.

I'll look into this Dell model that you posted. Thank you. In a general sense, for someone who isn't very good with tech and building things, is it difficult to build a computer? I've only ever used prebuilt laptops. Do you know what other kinds of specs/equipment I would need besides the thing you mentioned?

I appreciate all of your help.

building a computer is often referred to as adult lego's
nowadays it's very civilized, only a few hours job if you've never done it before and all you need besides your parts is a couple of screwdrivers

I was thinking it might be good for you at start to have gtowizard to study the full big picture and have that dedicated Dell pc to go into detail and nodelocks. if you're not going to sink a lot of time into studying, just running subset flops databases in gto+ (easy to do, I'll show you how) and expanding on those is perfectly fine too and then you might not have a use for gtowizard anymore before too long.

Update: still leaning towards the higher end build. Just wondering: in the future, if I wanna upgrade the PC to be able to run preflop sims e.g.; which build should I go for (between budget, mid range and high end)? Or will it be difficult with the components even with the high end build, so that I would just have to start from scratch?

I recommend the mid or higher end version for preflop and 3way solving. R7 works too, just takes a long time, so if you're going to be solving "on the fly", it gets tedious. oh and 64gb+ ram is needed.

that being said, I feel preflop and 3way are especially useful if you play tournaments and run into various spots and stack depths, icm considerations. for 100bb+ cash games, there's only so much you're going to learn from 3way, as a lot of situations play very similar, but it gets a lot less intuitive once you drop the stack sizes and alter ranges to what you play in tournies. same applies for preflop, you already have some default gto ranges, all you can do is experiment with other rfi/3b/4b sizes and lock everyone at the table to the stats you collect via hud. there are clear differences in gto vs lock play, but then again they will be based on aggregate pop stats, it's impossible to know anyone's exact preflop ranges, most of the time doubt they know their own pf ranges. once again, when you drop eff stacks, correct play changes a lot, so playing around with a preflop solver to see what 20bb play looks like or how big you should rfi and 3b at those eff stacks is huge, esp in later stages of a tournament, when $ amount > chip amount.

Yeah, I will prob not be running preflop right away. Default GTO ranges are of course great, but personally I think there is huge amount of EV to be gained by messing around and nodelocking different ranges, sizes, stack sizes etc. and see how the solver responds. So I can see myself buying a preflop solver later on. With that being said I have decided that I wanna go for the higher end build with the R9 5950x. Should be possible to keep it not much higher than 2.3k right?

That sounds like a plan. I think I'll start by purchasing laptop, since I desperately need a new one, and GTOwizard. For general use (think just 4-table Ignition, browsing, Office, and GTOwizard/PT4), would you recommend upgrading to 16gb RAM for that computer, or do you think 8 gb is enough? It's not a huge price increase, so if you think there's any reasonable value, I'm good to get it.

Any recommendations on possible builds for the Dell computer? If I'm going to get separate computer just for poker (playing and solving), then I'd like to keep as cheap as possible (of course, making sure everything works reasonably and will last a decent number of years), maybe with option to add RAM later if I want preflop solver.

As always, help is greatly appreciated.

oh ye we should get it done for ~1.8k

upgrade to 16gb on a modern laptop, pt4 +poker client(s) + some other things running in the background add up

so that Dell I linked is pre-built, ready to go, Windows is installed, it's got wifi and bluetooth and everything, it's not too big, great value for 400$ too

if you want to build your own pc, you'll end up with something nicer and upgradable in the future but it's going to be ~900$

Oh, didn't realize that (shows you how much I understand lol). That's excellent. So for something like that, if my understanding is correct, I would need to only purchase a monitor. Any recommendations for quality, but cheap, monitor (again, really just using for poker so graphics are not super important)? Is there anything else I would really need other than that.

I'll configure the laptop as suggested. That one will only cost me about $1100, so this seems way better.

for poker, graphics card is not important. pokerstars rolled out a nonsense update that makes it so integrated graphics lag, but even if you play on stars, there are 100$ gpus you can install yourself that fix this. I haven't heard people playing on any other client complain of this whatsoever.

as for the monitor, you can use any old thing you have around, even an old TV, seeing as this will be your dedicated solver pc and most of the time you're not on it anyway. cheapo monitor you can find does the job, preferably it's FHD (1920 x 1080)

Sounds like a plan thank you so much. I'll come back if I need any help with GTOwizard.

you're very welcome, pm me if you have any more questions.

Hey ionutd, headtrauma and other legends. A little update from my part: The PC I built 3-4 months ago with your help has been working wonderfully. No problems whatsoever and grind is going well. Even the crappy $100 GPU is more or less everything I have needed. Can watch football, youtube and play the occasional CS:GO. Not even looking to upgrade it atm because no need.

However, I have a new problem. It seems I could still use a laptop from time to time and my Asus laptop with 8 GB RAM from 2014 has issues in running Pokerstars. I have restored the factory settings, installed a driver booster and done the updates and the performance is slightly better but still very much laggy. Is there anything more I could do? What makes a laptop to "run slow" even after cleaning it thoroughly? Is the lifecycle of a laptop just around 5 years?

It's a shame, I'll mostly need it for grinding when I'm staying over at my gf's place. It used to be my primary grind station but I can barely play two tables of zoom now. If it won't get better, I'll be asking for your recommendations for new laptop for purely playing poker. I guess 16 GB RAM would be a given. I already read the Twitter thread started by Pads regarding best laptops for grinding. Most of them were $1000+, I'd hope to find something cheaper with equivalent RAM but possibly worse GPU. If it's not realistic, I might just go for the high end gaming laptops recommended in the thread.

Does the Asus laptop have an SSD? It would be SATA back in 2014. You could clean install Windows on it, or clone the HDD to the SSD with cloning software (Samsung includes it) and then clean install Windows.

A clean install of Windows on an HDD in a laptop that old might see a tiny bit of difference, but a jump from an HDD to an SSD and a fresh instance of Windows could do the trick.

did your laptop work fine even after Stars' Aurora update? only started lagging recently?

This Asus model is X550L and with the help of Google it seems that yes, it has HDD. Cloning the HDD into an SDD sounds complicated and something I'd have to research quite a bit. That would require opening the laptop no? Is that a thing?

I mean it got slower by time (no wonder since it was full of crap) and it did lag in general while having several tabs and programs open and trying to watch e.g. a YouTube video on 1080p. Regarding Stars, I think the lag increased after Aurora update yea. I did try setting everything on lowest quality possible on Stars software and getting rid of that Xmas theme etc. but it was still lagging when I last tried a couple of days ago.

On another note, what's the least graphics/performance heavy site to play from the major ones? I could try out another one and see what's the difference if any.

k so if you want to keep using that laptop for 2-3 more years till we move to W11 and the battery gives in and it becomes more or less obsolete for day to day work (but still fine for other tasks)
first check if it's got a hard drive or an ssd, with hwinfo https://www.hwinfo.com/download/ (portable version)
if it comes with a hdd, upgrade to ssd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooaB...alvaKirakosian .5 min job. very easy.
don't need anything fancy https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power...9435559&sr=8-3
now it's likely it's also full of junk software/apps so you're most prob better off with a clean Windows install. the hdd you take out can be used in your pc, you won't lose anything on it. take a note of the essential apps on your laptop, chances are nothing crucial as you're not using it as your daily driver anyway and it's 1 or 2 hours' job to re-install the operating system and some apps. if the laptop came with Windows out of the box, your key will be saved on the mobo and you just install W10 via a usb stick from Microsoft's site (Media Creation Tool)

I moved a post about a person wanting a new desktop to its own thread here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/4...poker-1800354/

Just to separate out the discussion for this person's situation from other discussions. New threads are free etc.

josem, can you tell that to the other mods, they keep merging everything,

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/4...rrent-1800208/

some mod decided to merge someone's pick thread with the chat thread which doesn't make any sense at all and kind of kills both

I only moderate this Computer and Technical Help forum. If you have feedback about moderators in other forums, best to contact them directly - I'm not familiar with the background or context or what happens in most other forums.