Others will surely chime in on the hardware specs, let me address the Operating System.
About 6 years ago, I got fed up with the amount of “free” software that comes with Home versions of Windows - I sprung for the minimal increased cost of Windows Pro just to reduce the ■■■■ I have to clean out. It was well worth my time, and I’ve never used a “Home” version of Windows again!
YMMV, and I could now be wrong! Since I haven’t even looked at “Home” versions since, Microsoft may have cleaned things up since then!
The gaming one with Nvidia card …I have an HP Omen with a RTX 2070 and it performs well in terms of handling sketch models.
The main draw backs are the battery life is quite short, and the amount of heat it will put out - I can use it for about 25-30 mins on my knees before I have to shift to a table… Windows Pro is a must IMO.
BeccaC you really need something i7 or higher. Not a fan of i5 at all. like Gordon i also use Nvidia gaming cards, also you want to have as much available memory space as your budget allows.
There are even some i3 model CPUs that perform well with SketchUp. If you are choosing a CPU for solely SketchUp use, it is best to look for CPUs ranking high in a single-thread benchmark, for instance in PassMark CPU Benchmarks - Single Thread Performance
Multithreaded performance is only important if you plan to use other things, like a photorealistic rendering engine.