Buy a gaming laptop or desktop? cost vs useful life?

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gdourado

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Nov 7, 2014
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Hello, how are you?



I was looking at some gaming laptops and just thinking how good of an option they are...

About two years ago, when the desktop parts prices were not what they are today and gaming laptops only had m gpu variants, I would never think this, but today, it seriously got me thinking.

Shops do frequent sales on laptops, because new models are always coming out and they usually want to get rid of old stock, so deals are easy to come by.



My situation is that I currently have no pc, no monitor and no peripherals.
So I am either looking at building from scratch or get a prebuilt.



But then I looked at laptops.

I can get a good 17 inch laptop with a gtx 1070, 6700hq cpu, nvme ssd, hdd, 16gigs of ddr4 and a 120hz g-sync display, all for around 1200 euros.

That's a really good price, the computer is self contained, with everything needed and can be played at the desk, can be hooked to the TV in the living room and can even be taken on vacations.



On the desktop side, buying a 1070 alone today is 500 plus euros.

A g-sync monitor is 300 plus for a 24 inch model.

16 gigs of ram is 150 for 2400 ram.



Adding all, it easly goes over the laptop price for similar performance.

Now, the main point I am also thinking is future upgrades and useful life.

When the desktop starts getting outdated, you can always buy a new gpu, or even upgrade the cpu.

But with desktops, a cpu upgrade usually means a new socket, so a new board.

If ddr5 comes out, new memory also.

At this point, to upgrade we are looking at almost a new system.



Buy board, cpu and gpu is expensive.

Is it that much different that having the laptop for one or two years, sell it second hand and buy a new one with a whole new CPU and gpu combo?

I mean if I buy the laptop for 1200 now, and sell it for 800 to then buy a new 1200 model, is it that different than sell a desktop board, cou and gpu to buy new parts?

I know a laptop can't be upgraded, but it can be sold and help finance a new one.



What are your thoughts on this?

Is a laptop a good option on these terms and in current market situation or not?



Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Cheers!
 
So, mobile parts are REALLY not the same as desktop parts. A mobile 1070 is more like a desktop 1060.

My advice, take the budget you have: take 3/4 that and build a gaming desktop, and the remaining 1/4 and buy a basic laptop with an AMD APU or an MX graphics card.

You'll get a better performing desktop than the gaming notebook you were able to buy with the full budget, and a much better portable device (that can game) with better battery life and weight.

Overall you're going to have a better life.
 
Very generally speaking you can figure a laptop "equivalent" to be 20-35% or more slower than same "named" desktop version.

Mobility costs you. But if mobility is what you need, does it matter?
 
i disagree a mobile GTX 1070 is really close to the desktop part like 5-10%. The confusing part is if you are talking about a Max-Q GTX 1070 or 1080 now those mobile parts definately nerfed compared to the desktop versions. If you need mobility then get a gaming laptop the newer ones are pretty good in terms of performance and have gsync displays in them.
 
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