Good choice@klm747klm747

@Zoowarp When I first saw your profile picture, I thought it was Saturn.

@Giantwhale Alright. I think I've decided on the I7-9750H with a 1660ti and 16GB.

However it’s a desktop

I have and AMD 9 3900X processer with and RTX 2080TI, 16 GB of RAM(I might switch to 32). Really good computer!

@klm747klm747 np!

@exosuit I'm going to head for the I7-9750 and I might as well grab some more RAM while I can, for a 12GB or 16GB computer that can run other things besides just SP lol

@klm747klm747 refer to my previous comment.
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R3 2200U 12GB
I'm using the Ryzen3 2200u mobile processor with 12GB of RAM.
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you wouldn't need alot of RAM, but rather having a powerful processor.

@F104Deathtrap You too

@Zoowarp @exosuit @spefyjerbf Thank you all for your help!
now all I gotta do is save 1,000 dollars RIP

@Zoowarp something with full interior, full cockpit, no expense spared, full ground vehicle support, detailed seats, insane livery like that Pokemon plane, etc. I tried to do that here, but I ran out of computer power. It's even possible to do details like all the panels in the fuselage and wings. You could probably do even crazier stuff like fuselage flex under load, wing chord twist under rolling stress, soft body physics integration, and an absolute TON of funky trees controlling all the aircraft's systems, fly by wire, heading hold autopilot, vertical climb autopilot, altitude hold autopilot, and I ton more outside detail like A/C packs, RAT, pitot tubes, spinning jet engines with fuselage blades, etc. It could be amazing, but it would take months to build.

@klm747klm747 16 is safer
And I've never seen a 10000 part aircraft gl

@exosuit how much RAM do you use when running large aircraft? I'm trying to decide if I will need 12GB or 16GB.

@Zoowarp Thank you! I'll be graduating from high school in May 2021 and then I'll be able to make 10,000 part aircraft!

@klm747klm747 that will likely run everuthing just fine

@Zoowarp my budget is $1000. I was looking at this computer.

you just need a good processor to calculate the game physics

R3 2200U 12GB here
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ran about 2.5k parts at high settings at playable fps (about 10-25fps)
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only complaint i had is the graphical glitch when looking near water, which I assume because of Vega3.

You don't need more than 8gb ram for simple planes. You don't need a beefy graphics card either. But the physics for parts is the big performance killer, so on max physics you will need at least an i7/ryzen 7 to be able to run the best builds. However, I'm using a 2nd gen Ryzen 5 (2500U) and that runs almost everything on minimum physics just fine (30fps-ish), bar maybe the 4-5000 part builds which get a bit slideshowy, closer to 15-20 FPS.
But as the other people have said, you need to balance it with cost. I don't know what your budget is but I wouldn't expect it to be a gaming laptop worth £2000 xD so I would get a laptop with a latest gen i5/Ryzen 5 at maybe £8-900

I'm using a laptop with 16Gb ram, and NVIDIA 1660 Ti graphics card (about 6Gb of VRAM). Other than that I forgot my specs, and Its been a while since I researched laptop specs.
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Anyway, what I have works quite well. It did come with a decently high price though. Downgrading to, say, 8Gb of RAM shouldn't nuke your performance too much. Like the previous commenter said, its a balancing act between cost, specs, size, and weight. A heavy laptop will be cheaper, but won't be too fun to carry around.

Computer hardware is subject to diminishing returns. It's best to find a sweet spot in terms of performance / cost rather than just dumping money into the thing and expecting the moon. I upgraded my GPU in order to run VR, and it works great, but SP still runs like crap with builds over 1,000 parts.