What's the disadvantage of a gaming laptop vs a SFF?

C

chx

Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2011
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So, it turns out I am probably heading out ... indefinitely... again. Happens :) I have lived digital nomad for 19 months once and 5 months another time so it's not really news but it's been quite a few years (I've been sitting at this desk since 2010 with at most a month break) so computer wise I need ... more :) I have a monitor and a keyboard in the suitcase, that's a given. I need a portable desktop, though. Here's the requirements:

  1. E3 1270 CPU level. Single thread performance is important and quad cores too. Previously I had an i3 2120. But let's be realistic, I work on a T420s laptop which has a 2520M so this is not such a hard requirement. But the faster the CPU, the better -- as long as it's like 35W or so.
  2. GTX 660-RX 460 level graphics performance. (Heroes of the Storm, Civ 6, not much.) Here the faster - the better is not true, a faster GPU is more expensive and the cooler is heavier.
  3. 32GB RAM is better than 16GB. I can live with 16GB, though.
  4. At least 128GB SSD. The rest can be HDD but if it's a 512GB SSD, I am good.
Some ways
  1. Short 1U case (that's the best fit, thin is very important if I don't want to check it in), ITX MB, i5 6400T, my existing single slot RX 460 and run it from whatever Flex ATX PSU I can find... Yes I could also run from a PicoPSU, is that much lighter weight though? There are like 1.25 lbs 200W Flex ATX PSUs, I wonder how much lighter weight a 10-12A 12V external adapter would be. Case weight can be an issue.
  2. Skull Canyon but the graphics performance is like half the performance of the above and that's a sad.
  3. Add the RocketStor 6361A to the Skull Canyon or whatever smaller TB host can be found (with quad core, I am not sure what else there could be) and again my RX 460 -- all the other Thunderbolt enclosures are bulky. This strategy requires a TB3-to-TB2 converter which is again a cost and now we have two AC-DC adapters.
  4. Wait for the Zotac EN1050K to go on sale, actually. Who knows when that happens. I have two months before I leave.
  5. S4 mini ... maybe. The timing works a bit unfortunate but I can take components and assemble it elsewhere when it ships
  6. Get someone to redesign the S4 mini into a Thin ITX with a single slot video card and a powered x1 riser -- the powered x16 risers I have seen are using a single Molex or worse a single SATA to feed 75W into the slot and that I really dislike. OTOH I have seen x1 risers with 12V barrel and even 6 pin connectors. This would be ideal but I have doubts it actually could happen. If you are up to doing it let me know. I could use a 25W Xeon CPU to combat the super low heatsink necessary.
Finally, I could get an older 14" gaming laptop with a 870M or 965M (or even 970M) and whatever i7 HQ they sell with it, even the Haswell i7 HQ chips are adequate according to both userbenchmark and cpubenchmark. What am I missing here? Aye, I'd need Skylake to break the 16GB barrier but I can limp along with 16GB -- I already run MySQL on my work laptop for example just so that I do not need to sync databases between desktop and laptop. What other disadvantage would I have that I am missing? Because I could squeeze everything I need spec wise into <2kg <$1000 and real small chassis. Heat? Feel free. It will be used as a superportable desktop not as a laptop. Battery? If I bought an SFF desktop that wouldn't even come up so that's irrelevant for the use case. Noise? Well, hopefully it will be noisy only when gaming and I can live with that.
 
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I'm not sure why you have such strict power limits, but it seems like there are two decent options for you: Either use the S4 mini and deal with the awkward timing, or go with the older gaming laptop.

Since neither performance nor noise seem to be much of a concern for you, that leaves upgradability as the main problem. It means that over time, the laptop will be much more expensive, because its performance will drop off faster and when it does, you'll have to buy an entirely new system, rather than just upgrading bits and pieces.

That being said, without knowing your exact circumstances, it seems like the laptop might be the most convenient option for you anyways.
 
I was looking at 14" to get the lightest weight. If I were to go 17" I would need it to replace my monitor -- that'd be a route too -- I guess a Thunderbolt HDMI capture device could make an external monitor out of a TB laptop -- but my monitor is 19.5" visible and I would loath to lose those two inches. And a 18" laptop is $4000 and more than double the weight of my monitor and that's madness.
 
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