Gaming laptop v Gaming PC (self build)

[CBDBOZ]

Welcome any views on the laptop v Desktop for gaming... And in particular for use with TGC.

Setup would be with a projector, and obvious advantages would seem to be the portability and use for other activities with the laptop. Whereas desktop may be cheaper and more upgradable.

Currently leaning to a laptop for convenience, and in knowledge may be a $200 premium.

But welcome your thoughts and recommendations.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[keither5150]

$200 premium is not realistic. People have been buying $900 HP desktops with either a GTX 970 or GTX 980ti. Both of those video cards have no equal in a laptop. A gaming laptop of twice the value will not have the same performance as a gaming desktop. One of the biggest problems with gaming laptops is cooling. They very rarely run at full boost speed for long during demanding games. For TGC the video card is the most important part. A GTX 980m is about the same as a GTX960 and for sure less than a GTX970. You would have to spend $2500-$4000 to match those HP machines that everyone seems to be buying. I just did a quick search.... laptops with a GTX 980 m start around $2500 cnd and the 980m would be a little less performance that a GTX970. You would be better served to buy a $1000 gaming PC and then buy a $700 laptop to fill your mobile needs. Also, TGC runs the best with a CPU over 3GHz. That would be almost impossible to find in a laptop.

[Yrrdead81]

While it is nice having a gaming laptop, if you aren't a huge nerd (like I was) and you don't check the following boxes ;

1. Do you travel extensively?
2. Are you a hardcore gamer? (By hardcore I mean avg 6hrs per day)
3. Do you need to still make raids or other organized gaming events while on the road?

If you answered no to those, then listen to keither.


Edit: Forgot to add if you happen to have a lot of disposable income that you feel that the small advantage of portability is "worth" it. You may be in the position fiscally in which case eff it get a badass laptop.

[DougieMn]

I opted for the badass laptop and have no complaints. (Alienware i7 with all the latest bells and whistles). I think I paid around $2000-$2500 for it. My situation was that I wanted a laptop to be able to use in my house as well as in my simulator building and everything inbetween. It runs TGC/SkyTrak with ease and still follows me back into my house for business/personal use.

I will keep watching craigslist etc sites and at some point put a desktop unit out there solely for golf but for now the laptop route worked for me. Is it the cheap route.....definitely not.

[keither5150]

Don't get me wrong. A gaming laptop will most definitely play TGC with ease and much better than your average PC. Mobile GPU's have come a long way since they shrunk the die size down to 28nm. Smaller die size means less power required and less heat. That means higher clock speeds and more cores. I remember a day when 90nm was a big deal. Samsung is currently working on die sizes as small as 7nm. As much as I love Nvidia GPU's, it looks like AMD is going to beat them to the punch with the 14nm process. 28 to 14nm is a huge jump. What bothers me is that 14nm tech has been ready since the GTX 680. AMD and Nvidia are as bad as memory companies..... giving small upgrades in performance every year, milking the consumer to the fullest extent possible. Don't even get me started on memory companies. No reason, our phones shouldn't have 2TB in them. The tech has been there for over 7 years now. Way back in 2009 http://www.wired.com/2009/01/two-terabyte-sd/. When I am old and grey, my phone will have 2 TB in it, but by that time, I won't care.

[ProTee United]

Here an example of 2 (expensive) gaming laptops with full blown integrated desktop grade Nvidia GTX980 graphics adapter. It looks like they managed to get the heat under control, so we will be seeing this more and pricing will come down...

MSI Gaming Laptop GT72S 6QF:
https://www.msi.com/product/notebook...#hero-overview

Asus ROG GX700VO-GC009T:
https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of...s/ROG-GX700VO/

MSI Dragon - $3k on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B01AC40IQY

[keither5150]

I saw that MSI one at Memoryexpress. I didn't mention it because it's $4200 cnd.... ouch and I don't believe that you can call it a laptop when nobody will be able to game with it on their lap. I am skeptical about a desktop gpu in a laptop. A desktop GTX 980 GPU will run in excess of 75C to 100C during gaming depending on which cooler it has and the case that's it in. You have probably seen the coolers that come with the GTX 980. How does such a cooler fit in a laptop. Ok so the cooler is smaller and it is clocked about 15- 20% slower than a stock GTX 980. An overclocked or super clocked GTX980 will be clocked about 20-25% faster than this laptop version plus I would think that the boost would be easily reachable in a desktop and not so much so in the laptop. While a gallant attempt, it is probably a GTX 980M (which is underclocked ) with an extra 512 cuda cores. Is it better than the GTX 980m?.... oh yeah for sure. The only way to manage the heat in such a card is to underclock it or have a stupidly loud high speed fans, it which case you will need headphones. Smart money would say that they should have waited for the 14nm process to attempt such a thing. I guess they want to milk the 28nm process for as much money as possible before releasing tech that has been ready for about 4 years. I realize that everyone is calling this card a full blown desktop version.... that is not entirely accurate. They need to add "underclocked" to the description. I might sound displeased or frustrated with the computer industry..... I have just seen manufacturers pull this kind of stuff for close to 20 years. Don't be surprised if this card underclocks even further than 1000 MHz during heavy load. That being said....it's still the best laptop that money can buy. A hot buy literally!

Maybe they should have called it a GTX 980Tim

[CBDBOZ]

Thanks guys for the feedback

Next qn if go the desktop route....

Which HP model? ( and is this upgradable)

Or would you build your own entirely


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John6577]

Currently building a PC with the 980 card, i5 and other high end parts. Cost is around $1400 including Windows 10. You can get by with the 970 and be around $1000 but I wanted to future proof some and spent a little more.

[Yrrdead81]

I would build out my own but that is because I've been doing it for a decade or so which means you accumulate a few parts. I'd probably go micro itx only because I haven't done that before and they are neat boxes. If you aren't into building comps for entertainment I would just get something prebuilt. You don't pay that much of a premium these days (if any.)

[keither5150]

Not sure if an up to date video card will fit too well in a micro. I like going with a case with big fans that have speed control. By going with a case that has plenty of fans, your video card will not throttle up very often if ever. I have mine in a antec 900 gaming case. The case has 4 120mm fans in the front, 2 120mm fans in the rear and 1 exhaust 200mm fan on top. All are 3 speed fans running on low. My GTX 980ti video card has never throttled up even when running PG to one monitor and TGC to another at the same time. I once had a video card that the fan stopped working. The card didn't even over heat. Temp only went up 8 degrees. Micro itx are neat for HTPC and times where you want to hide the PC, but not that great for gaming.

[Shardak]

These look pretty nice. Full sized GPUs in small cases.

https://www.originpc.com/gaming/desktops/omega/

I usually build my own PC, but I might try one of these if my current rig (nvidia 970) ever gets old.

[goodmatt78]

I returned the HP (GTX970) and went with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

I bought it on Black Friday and open box and paid $960. Super quiet and doesn't generate much heat. Case is really nice and tons of room for future upgrades. I have seen the price fluctuate on Newegg down to 1K new.

BTW...get a SSD in whatever you buy. Mine loads Win10 before my projector or TV even turns on.

[keither5150]

That's a nice find. It probably plays TGC with the trees turned up close to max. I like maxing distance first. People shouldn't be hung up on the CPU or ram so much as the video card. I am running a 2nd gen i7 with a GTX 980ti and the CPU is no bottleneck that's for sure.

[amos]

Lenovo Z50

• AMD A10-7300 Quad-Core 1.9 GHz Processor
• 8 GB DDR3 RAM
• 1 TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
• 15.6-Inch Screen
• Windows 8.1, 5-hour battery life

[amos]

Look at http://gaminglaptopunder1000.org/bes...r-500-dollars/