Leela or Stockfish ?

I’ve always been using a Macbook air laptop which has recently passed away due to some water-bottle-in-the-backpack issues, and I would now like to buy a new laptop, which is not a macbook this time.

My main need is using chess engines, I don’t really play videogames or whatever. At first I wanted to get Leela zero, but having done some research on the subject it appears that to get the most out of it I would need to buy a computer with a very expensive GPU like a RTX 3080. My question is, to people who are into chess engines, is it really worth it ? It’s not about my playing level, I’m only 1700 fide but quite ambitious and growing fast, I’m working on chess a lot and using the engine on a regular basis to analyze openings and prepare for my opponents. But I mean, is Leela that much better than Stockfish 14, especilly with the NNUE update, that it’s worth buying a 3000€ computer just to use it ?

And if I decide to stay reasonable, to use Stockfish instead and not to bother with expensive GPUs, what would be the best hardware setup in terms of CPU and RAM ? I’m really not too much into computers, I’ve asked for a friend’s help who is, but on the other hand he doesn’t play chess so we both only have parts of the answers…

Thanks by advance.

I'd be interested to know how the new Apple M1 chip would deal with all of that? Im an Apple fan and have an ageing MBpro, which is great for my chess needs, although they're not as demanding as yours. Wish I'd known the M1 chip was in the pipeline before i bought my 4k iMac last year. Hey ho. Although, I don't understand the M1 thing fully. I believe it more efficient because the cpu language or instructions have been streamlined or something. Whatever. 

I'm not sure your cost / value is worth it.  Even an old version of stockfish is going to be plenty strong for you, and having a slower computer just means waiting longer.  You can get the same analysis in 5 minutes vs 15 minutes.  

That said, if you are really serious about running these chess engines at their maximum, you should really consider a desktop rather than a laptop.  Desktops are going to be cheaper and more powerful. You can always get a cheaper laptop for your day to day activities. 

I haven’t really thought about that, do you have an idea how much cheaper would a desktop with similar characteristics be ? Sorry but I’m kinda new to these things, I used to just have my macbook without really worrying about all that.

I honestly don't. 

I know that laptop GPUs and CPUs have power saving features that are cut from the desktop versions. So even the desktop version of the same GPU or processor is going to run faster than the mobile version.  And I know they are cheaper for the same reason, since they don't have to be mobile.  However, I don't have any numbers.