AspenTech’s own platform specification for aspenONE Engineering V15 asks for 16GB of RAM and 120GB of free disk on a desktop-class machine, and lists only 64-bit Windows editions. Both figures are the vendor’s own, and between them they rule out most of what a first-year student is shown in a campus laptop bundle.
The instinct after reading that is to buy a workstation. Chemical engineering work is largely 2D — process flow diagrams, spreadsheets, tabulated simulation output — so the graphics budget is where the money can move somewhere more useful. RAM, storage and which operating system your department’s software runs on are the decisions that stick. Those three decisions sort the seven laptops matched to different parts of the curriculum in 2026.
Editor’s Pick
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Ships at AspenTech’s 16GB figure without a configuration upgrade, and its second M.2 slot is where the 120GB the suite wants can go.
- AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
- 16GB DDR5, two SODIMM slots to 64GB
- Two PCIe Gen 4 M.2 slots
- MIL-STD-810H tested
What’s Inside
- 1 – Best Laptops for Chemical Engineering Students Buyer's Guide
- 2 – Chemical Engineering Laptop Comparison Table
- 3 – Best Laptops for Chemical Engineering Students: In-Depth Reviews
- 3.1 – 1. Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 2 (Best Overall)
- 3.2 – 2. Dell 14 Laptop (Best Budget)
- 3.3 – 3. Gigabyte Aero X16 (Best for Aspen Plus / Process Simulation)
- 3.4 – 4. LG gram Pro 17 (Best Large-Screen)
- 3.5 – 5. Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Best for macOS)
- 3.6 – 6. Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 (Best Convertible)
- 3.7 – 7. Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 (Best for CFD/Workstation Work)
- 4 – Recommended Accessories
- 5 – Which Chemical Engineering Laptop Should You Buy?
- 6 – Chemical Engineering Laptop FAQ
- 7 – Final Thoughts on Chemical Engineering Laptops
Best Laptops for Chemical Engineering Students Buyer’s Guide
Start from the software list, because it varies more by department than by year. Excel carries a large share of the mathematical modeling, and MATLAB and Simulink sit alongside it — our MATLAB laptop guide goes further into that pairing. Process simulation means Aspen Plus, Aspen HYSYS and CHEMCAD. CFD-based modeling means COMSOL Multiphysics, ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS CFX, STAR-CCM+, FLOW-3D or OpenFOAM. Those three groups have different hardware appetites and, more importantly, different operating system rules.
Processor (CPU)
The same specification asks for an “Intel Core-i5 family or faster”, which is a low bar in 2026 — a Core Ultra 5 or 7, or a Ryzen 5 or 7, clears it without thinking about it. The question worth more attention is how many cores to pay for, and the answer splits by package.
Aspen Plus does not scale with core count the way a benchmark chart suggests. A user posting in an Intel community thread quoted a reply from Aspen Plus support: “More than 2 cores is not an advantage for Aspen Plus or Aspen Custom Modeler on a single user machine.” That is a support answer relayed second-hand rather than a line in AspenTech’s published specification, so weigh it as such — but it points the same way the software does, since a flowsheet solve runs largely as a sequential set of unit-operation calculations. ANSYS Fluent and OpenFOAM are the opposite case: both are built to decompose a mesh across processes, so cores are what shorten those runs.
If your timetable is mostly process simulation, buy clock speed and stop. If a CFD module arrives in the third year, that is what the extra cores are for.
Memory (RAM)
AspenTech’s V15 engineering specification lists 16GB against every desktop configuration it describes, and 32GB only once it reaches a multi-user server. The 8GB figure that still circulates in older student guides is below what the vendor publishes. Note how far apart the packages sit on this: Chemstations’ own CHEMCAD user guide asks for 2GB of RAM on a 64-bit system, and COMSOL’s system requirements ask for at least 4GB. The 16GB number is Aspen’s, and it is the one that sets the floor for a machine that has to run all three.
Vendor minimums describe the install, not your semester. 32GB is the configuration to look at if CFD meshes or several simulations open at once are part of the picture, since a mesh that does not fit in memory swaps to disk and the run time stops being about the CPU at all.
Storage
Chemical engineering does not generate the file sizes that CAD-heavy mechanical work does, and the constraint arrives from a different direction: the install itself. AspenTech’s V15 specification asks for 120GB of free space on its entry desktop configuration and 250GB on the next one up, with an SSD recommended. On a 512GB drive, that is a quarter of the disk gone before a single flowsheet is saved, and Windows and Office have already taken their share.
512GB is workable if you keep coursework tidy. 1TB removes the question, and a machine with a second M.2 slot lets you answer it later for the price of a drive. An NVMe SSD is the baseline; a mechanical drive on a machine that loads simulation datasets is a decision you will notice every day.
Graphics Card (GPU)
Process flow diagrams, spreadsheets and property plots are 2D vector drawing, and integrated graphics draw them. Neither Aspen Plus nor CHEMCAD lists a discrete GPU as a requirement.
Two things change that. Rotating a 3D CFD result — a mesh, a set of streamlines, a contour plot on a curved surface — is viewport rendering, and a discrete GPU makes that interactive rather than stuttering. Separately, some solvers can run on the GPU itself, which is a different capability from drawing the picture. Check the specific package rather than assuming: a GPU that speeds up your post-processing may do nothing at all for the solve.
Operating System
“Engineering software needs Windows” is too broad, and the exceptions decide whether a Mac works for you. Aspen Plus and Aspen HYSYS are Windows-only — AspenTech’s V15 specification lists Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server and nothing else. CHEMCAD is Windows-only too, at “Windows 7 or later” in Chemstations’ user guide. ANSYS Fluent runs on Windows and Linux; macOS appears nowhere in the Ansys 2026 R1 platform support document. COMSOL goes the other way: its system requirements list ARM64 macOS builds for macOS 14, 15 and 26, with “Apple silicon processors (M1 and later)” named under processor support — a native build, not emulation. MATLAB is the same story, natively available for Apple silicon from R2023b onward.
So the split is not Windows versus macOS across the whole discipline — it is process simulation on one side and almost everything else on the other. If Aspen Plus or HYSYS is a graded requirement in your program, plan on a Windows machine. A virtual machine is the usual suggested workaround, and it deserves a caveat on Apple silicon specifically: those Macs virtualize Windows on Arm, and AspenTech’s specification lists 64-bit x86 Windows editions with no mention of Arm. That is an unsupported configuration, not a supported one running slowly.
Display
A process flowsheet with forty unit operations, stream tables and property sets is a wide, dense drawing, and how much of it fits on screen at a readable zoom is a resolution question first and a size question second. A 14- to 16-inch panel at 1920×1200 or better is the working range, and 16:10 puts more of a stream table in view than 16:9 does at the same diagonal.
Panel type is a weaker signal than the numbers behind it. IPS describes viewing-angle behavior and off-axis consistency; it settles nothing about brightness or color coverage, both of which vary widely between IPS panels. For long sessions reading thin diagram lines, the specifications to check on a listing are measured brightness, whether the finish is matte or glossy, and the panel resolution — lecture theaters and lab benches are both lit in ways that punish gloss. A touchscreen is worth paying for only alongside a convertible hinge and a pen, which is a workflow choice rather than a specification upgrade.
Weight
Around 3 lbs is a comfortable ceiling for something crossing campus five days a week, and a 16-inch machine will sit above it. That is a trade against screen area rather than a fault. The one weight worth refusing is a mobile workstation bought for a CFD module you might take in two years’ time — five and a half pounds plus a 180W charger is a daily cost paid for an occasional benefit.
Chemical Engineering Laptop Comparison Table
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Best Laptops for Chemical Engineering Students: In-Depth Reviews
Seven machines, each answering a different part of the curriculum — from a budget laptop that clears the Aspen install to a workstation for third-year CFD.
1. Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 2 (Best Overall)
Best Overall
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorAMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
- GPUAMD Radeon 680M (integrated)
- RAM16GB DDR5
- Storage512GB PCIe SSD
- Display16″ WUXGA IPS
- OSWindows 11 Pro
The two AspenTech numbers that shape this whole category — 16GB of RAM, 120GB of free disk — are both upgrade questions on most laptops and neither is on this one. Lenovo’s spec sheet lists two DDR5 SODIMM slots supporting up to 64GB, plus two PCIe Gen 4 M.2 slots — one 2242 and one 2280. So the 512GB it ships with is a starting point rather than a ceiling: a second drive goes in beside it, which is the cleanest answer to an install that wants 120GB of its own.
Independent coverage of this machine is thin and config-specific. GSMGoTech spent two weeks with an E16 Gen 2, but with the Intel Core Ultra 7 155U rather than the Ryzen 7 7735HS listed here — a different chip in the same chassis. Chassis-level, that review calls the hinge a standout for smooth one-handed opening with no wobble, and says the speakers lack bass while staying adequate for calls. Both read across; the CPU results do not.
Watch the panel on whatever listing you buy from. Lenovo’s spec sheet offers more than one 16-inch WUXGA option, the entry screen is rated 300 nits at 45% NTSC, and the GSMGoTech unit had the 400-nit, 100% sRGB version. On a machine bought to read thin flowsheet lines under fluorescent light, that difference is worth confirming before ordering rather than after.
At 3.59 lbs it sits above the campus-carry range, which is the cost of a 16-inch screen and a metal-hinged business chassis.
Pros
- 16GB DDR5 as standard, with two SODIMM slots to 64GB
- Two PCIe Gen 4 M.2 slots for a second drive
- MIL-STD-810H durability tested
Cons
- 512GB leaves roughly 390GB after the aspenONE install
- Entry panel is 300 nits at 45% NTSC — check which one a listing ships
- Published testing covers the Intel configuration, not this AMD one
2. Dell 14 Laptop (Best Budget)
Best Budget
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorIntel Core 7 150U
- GPUIntel integrated
- RAM16GB DDR5
- Storage1TB SSD
- Display14″ WUXGA IPS, anti-glare
- OSWindows 11 Home
A first-year budget usually forces a choice between the RAM figure and the storage figure. This configuration declines to make it: 16GB matches what AspenTech asks for, and the 1TB drive absorbs a 120GB install without the housekeeping a 512GB machine starts to demand by second year.
The screen is the other reason it belongs here. Zippylaptop’s hands-on review of the DC14250 — same Core 7 150U, same 16GB, though on the 512GB drive rather than the 1TB one here — describes a 1920×1200 16:10 IPS panel with an anti-glare finish, wide viewing angles and color it calls honest rather than vivid. Honest rather than vivid is the correct target for a flowsheet; matte is the correct finish for a lecture theater.
The same review measures the battery at 54Wh and calls the runtime average, with the advice to stay near a charger for long stretches. In a building where lab benches have outlets and lecture halls sometimes don’t, that is worth planning around.
This is a consumer chassis with no durability testing behind it, and the Core 7 150U is a 15W two-performance-core part rather than an H-series chip. For Aspen Plus, whose solver does not spread across many cores anyway, that matters less than it would elsewhere. For a Fluent module, it matters a great deal.
Pros
- 16GB and 1TB together at the entry tier
- 1920×1200 16:10 anti-glare IPS panel
- 1TB leaves room after the 120GB aspenONE install
Cons
- 54Wh battery, described as average in testing
- Consumer-grade chassis with no durability testing
- Low-power 15W chip is the wrong shape for parallel CFD
3. Gigabyte Aero X16 (Best for Aspen Plus / Process Simulation)
Best for Process Simulation
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorAMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
- GPUNVIDIA RTX 5070 (8GB)
- RAM32GB DDR5
- Storage1TB SSD
- Display16″ WQXGA, 165Hz
- OSWindows 11 Home (Copilot+ PC)
A timetable that runs Aspen Plus and a CFD package in the same term asks for both at once. 32GB and 1TB together mean a flowsheet, a meshed geometry and the results files coexist without the memory or the disk becoming the thing you manage.
The RTX 5070 is there for the CFD half. Aspen Plus will not touch it. What it changes is rotating a mesh or a contour plot in a post-processor, which is the part of CFD you spend actual hours in.
Tom’s Hardware tested an Aero X16 built around the Ryzen AI 7 350 rather than the AI 9 HX 370 sold here, with the same RTX 5070 at 85W, the same 32GB, and the same 2560×1600 165Hz IPS panel. Their measurements of the shared parts are the useful ones, and two of them should shape what you order. The panel covers 78.5% of DCI-P3 at 369 nits, which the review reads as serviceable for everyday use and short of a creative-grade screen — sharp and large for flowsheet work, but not a display to trust for color-critical output. And the audio is called a weak point outright: muddy detail, minimal bass, volume barely adequate. Headphones for lecture recordings.
One number does travel unusually well for a laptop with a discrete GPU: Tom’s Hardware recorded 9 hours 13 minutes on their battery rundown, ahead of the other creator-class machines in that group.
Pros
- 32GB and 1TB for running simulation and CFD side by side
- RTX 5070 makes CFD post-processing interactive
- 9 hours 13 minutes on Tom’s Hardware’s battery rundown
Cons
- Panel measured at 78.5% DCI-P3 and 369 nits
- Tom’s Hardware calls the speakers a weak point
- Tested configuration used the Ryzen AI 7 350, not this chip
4. LG gram Pro 17 (Best Large-Screen)
Best Large-Screen
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorIntel Core Ultra 7 355
- GPUIntel integrated
- RAM32GB LPDDR5X
- Storage1TB NVMe SSD
- Display17″ WQXGA touch
- OSWindows 11
A flowsheet is a drawing that grows sideways. Seventeen inches at 2560×1600 is the largest canvas on this list — recycle streams, a heat integration network and a stream table on screen together, rather than panning between them.
LaptopMedia’s listing for the 17Z90U puts the 17-inch QHD+ IPS configuration at 1.50 kg — 3.3 lbs — with two Thunderbolt 4 ports alongside two USB-A. For a 17-inch laptop that is a remarkable figure, and it changes what the size costs you: the bag weight lands closer to a 14-inch business laptop than to a 16-inch workstation. Thunderbolt matters for the desk half of the same workflow, where an external display and a dock take over.
Where this pick is thinner than the others is verification. Techgoondu’s 2026 gram Pro review covers the 16-inch model with a Core Ultra X7 358H and an OLED panel — a different size, a different chip and a different display technology — so its findings on speakers and screen do not carry to this 17-inch IPS configuration, and no independent measurement of this exact machine turned up. What is documented here is the specification, not a tested result.
Pros
- 17-inch 2560×1600 panel at 3.3 lbs
- 32GB and 1TB, well clear of AspenTech’s figures
- Two Thunderbolt 4 ports for a docked desk setup
Cons
- No independent testing found for this 17-inch configuration
- A 17-inch footprint is still a 17-inch footprint in a bag
- Memory is soldered LPDDR5X — no later upgrade
5. Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Best for macOS)
Best macOS Pick
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorApple M5
- GPUIntegrated
- RAM16GB unified
- Storage512GB SSD
- Display13.6″ Liquid Retina
- Battery18 hours
The macOS question in this discipline has a sharper answer than “some things don’t run.” MATLAB has shipped a native Apple silicon build since R2023b, and COMSOL lists ARM64 macOS among its supported platforms with M-series processors named in its requirements — so the numerical and multiphysics half of the curriculum runs natively here. The process simulation packages do not run on macOS in any form — no version of Aspen Plus, HYSYS or CHEMCAD exists for it — and ANSYS Fluent’s platform support document has no macOS entry either.
That splits the curriculum rather than the laptop. Thermodynamics problem sets, MATLAB assignments, COMSOL work, lab reports and everything Office-shaped are at home here for eighteen rated hours. A graded Aspen Plus flowsheet is not, and the virtual machine workaround is weaker on Apple silicon than it sounds: those Macs run Windows on Arm, and the aspenONE platform document names x86-64 editions only. Treat that as unsupported rather than as slow.
On sustained load, Tom’s Hardware watched the fanless M5 open a Cinebench 2026 stress loop at 3,415 and settle into the low 2,300s. Coursework that arrives in bursts — editing, plotting, a short solve — rarely runs long enough to reach that. A long COMSOL study does.
If your program requires process simulation, this is a second machine or a lab-computer arrangement, not a solution on its own. That is a straightforward thing to check with a department before committing to it.
Pros
- MATLAB and COMSOL both run as native Apple silicon builds
- 18 hours rated battery, fanless and silent
- 16GB unified memory matches AspenTech’s RAM figure — for everything else you run
Cons
- Aspen Plus, HYSYS and CHEMCAD have no macOS version
- Windows-on-Arm virtualization is not a supported Aspen configuration
- Clocks down measurably under a sustained load
6. Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 (Best Convertible)
Best Convertible
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorIntel Core Ultra 7 355
- GPUIntel integrated
- RAM32GB LPDDR5X
- Storage1TB NVMe SSD
- Display14″ 2.8K OLED touch
- OSWindows 11 Pro
Marking up a printed flowsheet with a pen is how a lot of process design gets learned — annotating a recycle loop, sketching a reactor schematic, working through a mass balance by hand next to the simulation that produced it. This is the machine that keeps that habit and the Aspen session on the same screen, and being a Windows laptop it runs the process simulation software the MacBook above cannot.
32GB in a 14-inch convertible is unusual, and it is what makes the form factor viable for this work rather than a compromise taken for the hinge.
Audio is better than a chassis this thin implies. Ultrabookreview counts four speakers — two firing down from the base and two tweeters built into the screen hinge, which is a design that keeps working in tablet orientation rather than firing into the desk.
Two measurements argue back. LaptopMedia measured 134 GU of screen reflectance on this generation — a high-gloss panel, and gloss is exactly what a lit lecture theater punishes when the content is thin black lines on white. Ultrabookreview recorded fans at 40 dBA in Performance mode. Neither is disqualifying for coursework, though both count against it if you work in bright rooms.
Pros
- Pen and tablet mode for annotating flowsheets directly
- 32GB in a 14-inch convertible chassis
- Four speakers including hinge-mounted tweeters
Cons
- 134 GU screen reflectance — difficult in bright rooms
- Fans reach 40 dBA in Performance mode
- Soldered memory, and a premium tier for a 14-inch machine
7. Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 (Best for CFD/Workstation Work)
Best for CFD/Workstation Work
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
- ProcessorIntel Core Ultra 7 255HX
- GPUNVIDIA RTX PRO 2000 (8GB)
- RAM32GB DDR5
- Storage1TB SSD
- Display16″ WQUXGA IPS
- OSWindows 11 Pro
This pick exists for a specific case: a research project or a specialization built around ANSYS Fluent, COMSOL or OpenFOAM, where meshes get large and runs get long. The HX-series chip brings the core count that mesh decomposition uses, and 32GB is standard rather than a paid option.
Lenovo sells the P-series with ISV certifications, and it is worth understanding what that is: application vendors validating specific hardware and driver combinations against their software. It is a stability and support commitment, not a performance rating and not a stress test. Check Lenovo’s certification list for the exact package and configuration your department uses rather than assuming the badge covers all of them.
The RTX PRO 2000 supports CUDA, which is the door into GPU-accelerated solvers where a package offers one — and offering one is package-specific, so confirm it before you buy hardware on that basis. Viewport rendering benefits either way.
Then the costs, which are real and daily. Thurrott’s first impressions of a P16 Gen 3 — a higher configuration than this one, with the Core Ultra 9 275HX and an RTX Pro 3000 — put the chassis at 5.6 pounds with a 99.9Wh battery and a 180W charger, and on fan noise the write-up is blunt: “I’ve heard less fan noise on a cross-continental flight.” A lower-tier GPU pulls less power and should run quieter, but the shape of the machine is the same. This is a plugged-in laptop that you carry between two desks, not across a campus.
Pros
- HX-series core count for parallel CFD solving
- Professional CUDA-capable GPU with 32GB RAM standard
- 99.9Wh user-replaceable battery and 180W charging
Cons
- 5.6 pounds before the charger goes in the bag
- Fan noise under load drew a pointed complaint from Thurrott
- Published coverage is of a higher-tier CPU and GPU than this configuration
Recommended Accessories
Last update on 2026-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Which Chemical Engineering Laptop Should You Buy?
| Best For | Pick |
|---|---|
| Overall | Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 2 |
| Budget | Dell 14 Laptop |
| Process Simulation | Gigabyte Aero X16 |
| Large Screen | LG gram Pro 17 |
| macOS | Apple MacBook Air 13-inch |
| Convertible | Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 |
| CFD/Workstation | Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 |
Chemical Engineering Laptop FAQ
What are the minimum laptop requirements for chemical engineering students?
Whichever package in your department asks for most sets the floor, and that will be aspenONE. Translated into a shopping list: 16GB, a 512GB SSD as an absolute minimum, a 16:10 panel you can read thin lines on, and 64-bit Windows if simulation is graded. The step people skip is checking their own program’s software list before the first term — departments differ on whether Aspen is compulsory, and the answer changes which of these picks makes sense.
Do I need a dedicated graphics card for chemical engineering?
Not for process simulation. The case for one is CFD post-processing, where you rotate a mesh or a 3D contour plot and integrated graphics turn that into a slideshow. If you buy a discrete GPU, buy it for that, and check separately whether your solver has a GPU mode — those are two different features and having one does not imply the other.
Can I use a MacBook for chemical engineering coursework?
For a large part of it, yes — MATLAB and COMSOL both ship native Apple silicon builds, which covers the numerical and multiphysics modules. Process simulation is the exception, and there is no workaround worth relying on: Boot Camp does not exist on Apple silicon, and a virtual machine gives you Windows on Arm, which is outside AspenTech’s published platform list. Most departments run Aspen on lab machines or a remote desktop service, so ask what yours provides before buying a second laptop to solve it.
How much RAM does Aspen Plus actually need?
16GB, per the vendor’s V15 specification — and 32GB appears in that document only against a multi-user server, which is a shared deployment rather than your laptop. Worth separating the two things a memory upgrade buys: on your own machine, 32GB buys room for CFD meshes and for several applications open at once. It does not make an Aspen flowsheet solve faster.
Does Aspen Plus benefit from a high core count CPU?
Little, on the evidence available, which is a support reply relayed second-hand rather than a published specification — treat it as a hint rather than a guarantee. The practical version: if your work is flowsheets, per-core speed is what to spend on, and an eight-core chip with a high boost clock beats a sixteen-core chip with a lower one. If it is CFD, the reverse holds, because a mesh gets split across processes.
How much storage do I need for chemical engineering software?
More than the install figure suggests, because the install is not the only tenant. Windows and Office take their share before you start, MATLAB adds tens of gigabytes with toolboxes, and CFD results files are the ones that grow without warning — a single transient run can produce more data than a term of flowsheets. 512GB works with housekeeping; 1TB does not require it. Between two machines at one price, take the one with a spare drive bay.
Is a touchscreen laptop useful for chemical engineering students?
It depends entirely on whether it folds. On an ordinary clamshell a touch layer adds glare and weight and ends up being used for scrolling. On a 2-in-1 that lies flat it replaces printing a flowsheet out to mark it up, which some people take to immediately and others never use once. Try a friend’s before paying for it.
Will a laptop bought for chemical engineering last the whole degree?
The parts that age out are memory and storage rather than the processor, and both are fixed at purchase on most thin laptops. Soldered LPDDR5X — the LG gram, the Yoga 9i and the MacBook Air here all use it — means the configuration you order is the one you keep for four years. A machine with SODIMM slots and a spare M.2 bay, like the ThinkPad E16, lets a third-year CFD module be a memory upgrade instead of a new laptop.
Final Thoughts on Chemical Engineering Laptops
Most of this comes down to 16GB, 120GB free, and Windows if process simulation is graded. Everything after that is about which half of the curriculum your program leans on — flowsheets, where per-core speed and screen area do the work, or CFD, where cores, memory and a discrete GPU start to matter. For adjacent coursework, our electrical engineering student laptop guide covers the FPGA and circuit-design side, and what changes once coursework becomes independent research is set out in our Ph.D. student laptop guide.
