Looking for advice on buying Laptop for poker,

You can get a good one for a lot less than 1000$... think 500-650$
Less if you are willing to buy used. there is a lot of good used equipment out in the market as people get bored with their computers.
make a list of things you really need in a computer and we can help you further.
FWIW, your issue might not be CPU/computer based... it could be connectivity.

I suggest going on to your local Craigslist under computers and finding someone who either has several ads or several for sale. I've bought my last 3 used Lenovo/IBM laptops that way. Always gotten MORE than what I wanted for 200-250$ and they also will customize for a few extra $$. Guys have even told me to call them if I have problems...can't beat it...

The advice from MSchu18 and swivet is sound.

Poker clients typically do not require high-end equipment.

After you obtain your (likely second-hand) device, make sure that you completely reset it as much as possible: you do not want to get stung by some random virus etc that is laying in wait on it.

What Josem said

Download the MS Windows media installation tool to a USB drive, boot from it, wipe your computer and reinstall windows.

This way you also avoid all the crap that laptop manufacturers include in their OS installations

I recently obtained a second-hand PC - I chose the "remove everything" and "clean data" options as described here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/wind...

Is this likely to be sufficient?

you dont need to use one drive, all you need is a usb thumb drive.
you probably want to debloat your windows software and run it as a local account.