You can get a decent laptop workstation like a Dell precision for fairly cheap if you don’t mind it being a few years old. I’m seeing some pretty good ones on eBay for around $350. If you’d prefer a desktop you’re looking more like $400-500. If you already have a decent GPU to add on your own you can get one for $300ish.

I’m not arguing that the Q2 isn’t the better option, but they are supposedly still planning on multicolor for CC. It’s been delayed, but several people have emailed their support line and been told that they are still planning on releasing it as an upgrade for the CC. The CC2 so far has been a Chinese only launch, and it’s more like the ams lite from Bambu. The CC should have the drybox style ams that sits up on top like the Q2 and Bambu’s ams based on what they’ve teased before and icons in the newer firmware.

Yeah it’s something to do with how tight the cable bend is on the print head. I haven’t had a problem with it, but I also don’t have a ton of hours on it like some people do. That is something else to keep in mind for OP for sure.

I have a centauri carbon, I really like it. I haven’t printed ppa-cf specifically, but it’s always put out good quality prints and it should be capable of ppa-cf. One of the downsides is it has a proprietary nozzle, so you have to order replacements/other sizes from elegoo. You can’t just swap in some generic nozzle. And as already mentioned, it doesn’t have a heated chamber. If that’s a feature you want I’d probably go with the Q2. There’s been a lot of crying on the elegoo subreddits lately because they pushed back the NA/EU release of their ams while also releasing a CC2 with an ams in China, and they haven’t really made a solid public statement on that yet outside of some emails to individual customers. But you shouldn’t be buying something based on the promise of future features anyways. If you want multicolor printing now go with the Q2. If you don’t care or want to gamble on maybe getting it or not for who knows how much extra money the centauri carbon is fine.