I bought a Dell “Referbished” small form factor desktop PC with two Monitors. The Dell has 8 USB ports, 6 in the back and 2 up front. As others have pointed out the horsepower required is not very high to effectively run the CNC, design and web browsing. I paid about $200.00 for the PC, keyboard, mouse, two monitors, a stand to hold the monitors and a USB powered fan inside the PC cabinet to keep the air moving. You can go cheaper or more expensive but remember that shop is a harsh environment for a PC and you just need “Good Enough” to have a good experience. Whether you get a laptop or a desktop just keep it with your budget what ever your budget is. Ebay has a lot of good deals for PCs and they usually come with a pre loaded OS. Mine came with Windows 10 Pro. I did back it up because used computers usually do not have backup media in case you have to reload the OS from scratch. I created a USB stick that I can reload the Windows 10 Pro back like the day I got it. Additionally I use Norton Internet Security to backup my files on the shop PC. So I am protected in case of hard drive failure or other catastrophe.
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