I understand that scrivener 3 needs some stuff from software, all of which windows 10 is more then compliant with. About that I have no worries.
Now, I’m currently in the market for a new machine, and I want to know on what hardware I need to focus in order to have the happiest life with scrivener.
CPU? RAM? Graphics card, maybe (in case I find myself importing a web page). I’m well aware that I’ll need the hard-drive space (backups (I don’t delete them)), but gigabytes are cheap (at least for hdd/ssd), so I’m not too concerned about that (1TB ought to be enough for the foreseeable future).
Pretty much any other use for your new computer will need more resources than Scrivener, unless you use it beyond writing a few novel-length texts. It’s fairly unusual for projects for fiction novels to exceed 100MB in total size, if you include a lot of images or create hundreds of snapshots of every document in the binder.
CPU is a non-concern. If you’re using it on your current computer, just don’t get a computer older than that one. Any current graphics cards / built-in chipsets should be able to drive whatever monitor you have/can afford; beyond that, Scrivener isn’t going to require anything special.
As long as you’re getting at least 8G of RAM (which is kind of the minimum amount for new computers, isn’t it?), you’ll be fine. Get 16GB+ if you want to run lots of programs at once, but even doing a Scrivenings session of a 100k novel won’t require more than the standard amount.
The bigger your screen, the more index cards you can display, which is nice.
Short version: Unless you’re going to the extreme ends of the used computer market (and even then, if it can run Windows 10 comfortably), you’re golden.
I ran Scrivener easily on a Surface Laptop i3 8GB when writing my Scrivener 3 Windows book.
The only things that I didn’t like were the lousy keyboard and trackpad, and sold the device within 6 months.
Whatever device you pick (Dell, then HP/ASUS are ok) check the keyboard/trackpad to ensure you will be comfortable typing for extended periods.
While 8GB is okay, go 16 or 32 plus as much internal storage as you can afford. (SOME of the Win devices still have upgradeable memory and/or storage, you may want to check that if $ are tight at present) Hopefully you’ll want the device to be around for a few years.