Desktop vs mobile

[Lyric Suite]

Wisdom dictates that mobile gaming is considerably more expensive then a comparable desktop set up, hardware wise. With small battery life and reduced portability (when compared to business class systems) gaming laptops just don't seem like an attractive choice. Yet, thanks to consoles, right now we are under a weird predicament where there is no game capable of bringing a mid-level desktop setup to its knees. With this in mind, what is the price/performance ratio differences for this level between a desktop and a gaming laptop? I mean, if i could get a laptop that is fully comparable to a desktop with an I5 CPU, 4GB of mem and a Gefore 460 or ATI equivalent for something like one or even two hundred dollars more i may actually consider it. I already have a monitor so that's not included in the equation. What do you guys think?

 

[Dangman]

Yet, thanks to consoles, right now we are under a weird predicament where there is no game capable of bringing a mid-level desktop setup to its knees.

Yeah I disagree with that statement. Way too blanket for me.

With this in mind, what is the price/performance ratio differences for this level between a desktop and a gaming laptop? I mean, if i could get a laptop that is fully comparable to a desktop with an I5 CPU, 4GB of mem and a Gefore 460 or ATI equivalent for something like one or even two hundred dollars more i may actually consider it. I already have a monitor so that's not included in the equation. What do you guys think?

Well using the GTX 460 as an example, the closest Nvidia mobile video card to the GTX 460 in terms of specifications is the GTX 485M. The problem is that you only find the GTX 485M in $2000+ laptops. That's well above even a $1000 price range desktop with a GTX 460.

Another example would be the HD 6850 1GB: The closest mobile GPU to that card in terms of specs is the HD 6970M. Cheapest I've found (though there probably are cheaper options) laptop I've found with the HD 6970M is an Alienware M17x that costs $1750 with the HD 6970M selected. That's $750 more than a desktop with Core i5 2500K and a HD 6850 1GB.

So in other words, mobile gaming laptops still haven't reached a level of price to performance ratio to a desktop to the point where it's only $200 more for fully comparable performance.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah I disagree with that statement. Way too blanket for me.

Disagree all you want, but its the truth. The fact Crysis 2 is actually inferior to the original graphics wise should send a warning sign to everybody that something is terribly amiss here.

So in other words, mobile gaming laptops still haven't reached a level of price to performance ratio to a desktop to the point where it's only $200 more for fully comparable performance.

Fair enough. I've been out of the loop with hardware advancement for long that i was hoping things had changed, at least on mid range levels. Desktop it is then.

 

[Markyip1]

Disagree all you want, but its the truth. The fact Crysis 2 is actually inferior to the original graphics wise should send a warning sign to everybody that something is terribly amiss here.

The problem with your statement is that you disregard monitor resolution as the critical factor affecting graphics performance. If you gamed at 768 vertical lines of resolution, which is what most console games are set to output (and even then, many are up-scaled from 500-600 vertical lines,) then sure, a mid-level system will be fine. However, today that would be gaming on a 17 inch desktop screen. Most gaming PCs are paired with larger, higher resolution monitors. Try playing a high-end game on a 24 or 30 inch screen, with 1200 vertical lines of resolution or higher, and you'll find that mid-level systems come up short.

This is key for laptops too -- most high end laptops ship with 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 screens, even at 17 inch sizes. On a TV, a video game outputs at a single resolution, say 1280x720, and then your TV will up-size if its native resolution is higher (i.e. to 1920x1080.) Computer monitors don't do this.

When playing on computer, a game will render at whatever resolution you set. Since you don't want to set a lower resolution than your monitor's native resolution (to avoid ugly downsampling,) the PC version of a game will do more work than the console version, as the PC version has to render 1200 lines of resolution in real time where-as the console version only has to render 500-600 lines of resolution.

A further issue driving laptops is that most 1920x1200 laptops don't come equipped with graphics hardware powerful enough to drive most high-end games at native resolution with all eye-candy turned on, at least at enjoyable frame-rates. Those that do will feature quad-core CPUs and very beefy graphics cards (sometimes in an SLI setup.) These gaming-PC replacement laptops are still very heavy and have very poor battery life, and even though the screen resolution is high, a laptop screen will still be physically small compared to most monitors paired with gaming desktops.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The problem with your statement is that you disregard monitor resolution as the critical factor affecting graphics performance. If you gamed at 768 vertical lines of resolution, which is what most console games are set to output (and even then, many are up-scaled from 500-600 vertical lines,) then sure, a mid-level system will be fine. However, today that would be gaming on a 17 inch desktop screen. Most gaming PCs are paired with larger, higher resolution monitors. Try playing a high-end game on a 24 or 30 inch screen, with 1200 vertical lines of resolution or higher, and you'll find that mid-level systems come up short.

Your argument would have made sense when consoles were new. But now the difference is just too great. Any game made to run smoothly on such flimsy hardware, no matter the resolution, will not be able to put up much of a challenge to a mid range PC gaming rig. I mean, go ahead, name one single game capable of challenging a mere 460. Crysis? That game is three years old for Christ sake. The only reason to even bother with an high end rig is set yourself up for some future advancement in games which may or may not come. I remember a time when a 600$ graphic card was the only way to run the latest game at its highest setting. Its absurd.

 

[Markyip1]

Your argument would have made sense when consoles were new. But now the difference is just too great. Any game made to run smoothly on such flimsy hardware, no matter the resolution, will not be able to put up much of a challenge to a mid range PC gaming rig. I mean, go ahead, name one single game capable of challenging a mere 460. Crysis? That game is three years old for Christ sake. The only reason to even bother with an high end rig is set yourself up for some future advancement in games which may or may not come. I remember a time when a 600$ graphic card was the only way to run the latest game at its highest setting. Its absurd.

Not really. Consider other differences in architecture between console and PC and it's easy to see that the comparison is not clear-cut at all. For instance, developers benefit from the unchanging nature of console hardware. They can include significant optimizations for the GPU and CPU that aren't available on PC, because they know that the GPU and CPU will be the same on every XBox or PlayStation. Furthermore, the CPUs on modern consoles are highly specialized and can offload work from what appears to be a very outdated GPU. Similarly, when developing a PC version, significant overhead is incurred in order to support the generality of the PC environment. The PC version has to support a plethora of CPU, GPU, OS, and API combinations. This can have a pronounced effect on the efficiency of a rendering engine compared to its console counterpart.

I think if you tried to setup a PC that mimicked the hardware of an Xbox as best as possible, with a nVidia 7 series CPU, and tried to play Crysis 2 at 1280x720, you would have a very frustrating experience.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Once again, this argument would have made sense when consoles were knew, but not anymore. The difference in hardware power is just too great, and the fact Crysis 2 is graphically inferior to its predecessor (after three freaking years) is conclusive and irrefutable proof. And its not even the fault of gaming consoles, which until very recently had a completely different gaming catalog anyway. Its because of that freaking xbox. Microsoft is going to be the death of PC gaming. I mean, look at this:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=47396&start=175

I rest my case. And its ironic because one of the biggest selling point of Windows is that it was able to run every single PC game out there. With that out of the picture, there's just no need to bother with a Microsoft OS ever again,

 

[Spare-Flair]

Mobile GPUs are much less powerful than the same named GPUs on the desktop because of marketing by Nvidia and ATI.

The mobile GTX 460M is only a bit over half the speed of the desktop GTX 460. The GTX 485M is currently the most powerful laptop GPU you can get and it is only about 90% the speed of a desktop GTX 460. It will also cost you about $2100 for a laptop with a new sandy bridge i7 and those graphics.

You can build a comparable PC with a GTX 460M for $1000.

To get the same performance of an average PC desktop gaming system (GTX 460, HD 6850, etc.) you would need to spend double the amount of money, not $200 more like you hope.

 

[Dangman]

I mean, go ahead, name one single game capable of challenging a mere 460.

BFBC2, GTA 4, Metro 2033, Just Cause 2, F1 2010, Assasins' Creed 2.

And then later this year it's gonna be BF3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I remember a time when a 600$ graphic card was the only way to run the latest game at its highest setting. Its absurd.

See I never understood this mentality: So you're mad that you DO NOT have to spend $600 on a video card to get max setting these days?

Also what was the point of posting that link? How does that prove your case?