Computer for processing RAW files

My laptop is over 6 years old and my desktop has it beat by a few more years, the laptop is about to go out on me so I need to be looking for a new one.
The big box stores have computers anywhere for five hundred to eight hundred dollars, I'm thinking to get a computer powerfull enough for processing pictures will cost a hole lot more than the computers in the big box stores.

I was at Staples asking a guy that worked there about the computers they had, he asked me what I wanted to use it for and I said to process pictures, he said what I needed was one with a fast processor (reading suggests a quad processor) he said the computers with HD should handle the picture quality that I would need. I am between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out will it be a desktop or laptop, I have got so use to my laptop but I don't think it would be as good as a desktop for processing photos (larger moniter) etc.
Please help with suggestions on what I should go with desktop or laptop and what other things like usb ports should the computer have. AND is a HD (high def) computer going to give me the best image quality that I can get when processing RAW files?
Thanks

I've not had any problem with a bog standard computer and monitor. Yes, it will need calibrating and the brightness level reduced with something like the Eye-one display 2 or similar, but that's all.

Sounds like someone either does not know, or is trying to extract more cash from you.

Lowner wrote in post #16423321
I've not had any problem with a bog standard computer and monitor. Yes, it will need calibrating and the brightness level reduced with something like the Eye-one display 2 or similar, but that's all.

Sounds like someone either does not know, or is trying to extract more cash from you.

Thanks Lowner
I was thinking my laptop being over 6 years old that maybe I am not getting the full advantage of Lightroom 4 when it comes to processing pictures, I have the Spyder4 calibrator.

Unless you are going to be stitching panos, it doesn't take much power to process photos, my ancient Pentium 4 workstation was just fine until I also needed to start doing other things with it. An SSD would be a good addition though, it'll speed things up more than a faster processor will, especially in Lightroom.

Any monitor is fine so long as it's S-IPS or other IPS variant, you don't want color shifts or poor contrast as you would get with TN or VA panels.

I guess this is a subject of how much you're willing to spend? I agree on SSD's and lots of memory for one. Storage is where you can go with regular ol' HDD's.

I have a three year old Dell with i7 processor and 8GB of RAM but with regular HDD. It's good but does slow down when I'm opening multiple RAW's in CS5 or even LR4. I know my HDD is the culprit...because I had to throw in an emergency old drive that doesn't have a lot of cache. I'm looking Samsung Pro series SSD's next.

I use Lightroom 4 and shoot raw files with a 5D3. The most time consuming task is rendering previews which is very CPU intensive. Get the fastest CPU you can afford. I have a second generation Core i7 @ 3.4GHz, my LR catalog and cache lives on an SSD, and rendering previews still takes longer than I'd like. Desktop CPUs are faster than laptop CPUs are are less likely to overheat the machine when its cranking through a few hundred images.

Buy what you can afford...

I'd advise against a laptop for your "main" photo processing machine because, at least with the "economy" laptops, the monitor will be very bad for photos.

I did spend a fair amount of money ($2k) for the parts to build my own workstation, but I specifically went for a high-quality photo processing machine. You could do with less, although I wouldn't look at spending less than, say, $1k...

As to ports, the faster the better, now there is USB3 and Firewire 800, I'd stick to those for your ports and all your devices (you can plug in older devices, it's all "backward compatible", but still spend a bit extra...)

Disk drives...you need an extra internal drive for your library and data, and that could be an SSD drive if you want to spend the money, then I'd advise an external drive for long-term storage and then another as a back-up drive...

Get as much RAM as you can (I'd suggest 8GB minimum for decent Raw processing).

And so on and so on, yada yada yada!

I would like to say thanks to all of you for your help, I know a guy that can build one, he use to charge around fifteen hundred, think I will give him a call.
Thanks again