2014 Germany for the final at category 1 was 990$, less than half, accounting for inflation and generously rounding this would be 1400$.

Edit: Less than half for Cat 4 right now

This. As a chemist I just need to do rather simple calculations, plots and sometimes use a package or two. My total yearly compute time is like 1 hour in python. Spending 5 years learning c, assembly, data science and what not just to reduce that to 1 minute is not really worth it.

I would recommend anything Thermal Grizzly: https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/

Simply because the owner has two 1 hour long videos explaining how its made and tested and it actually seems to be one of the best.