Desktop or Laptop?

Chives · 26 Jul 2011 at 21:03

I have recently purchased quite a powerful laptop, not as a desktop replacement but upon comparing the specs of the two it appears the laptop is significantly more powerful than the desktop, which is not what I intended :eek:

The laptop has the following specification
Intel Core i5-2410M processor (2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz)

1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M Graphics Card

4 GB (2x2GB)1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory

And the desktop:
AMD Athlon II 245 @ 3.00Ghz

4GB DDR2 RAM

ATI 5750 1GB

Now the laptop wipes the floor with the desktop apart from graphics, as I'm not sure which of the 2 cards is better. So which system is more powerful and will be best for games?

olivier renault · 26 Jul 2011 at 21:29

hmmm...tough

Don't think either could play demanding games, but I would say the laptop. That's what I would keep if I had the choice. I prefer a powerful laptop over a cheap desktop.

Chives · 27 Jul 2011 at 10:51

Indeed, do you guys think this laptop will offer a significant boost or will it be about the same?

panyan · 27 Jul 2011 at 11:05

use the desktop for gaming i;d say - unless the game was very cpu intensive

Chives · 27 Jul 2011 at 14:00

panyan said:
use the desktop for gaming i;d say - unless the game was very cpu intensive

really? on paper the laptop seems to outperform the PC in every way..

panyan · 27 Jul 2011 at 14:11

Chives said:
really? on paper the laptop seems to outperform the PC in every way..

i dont think so, youve got to remember that the laptop uses MOBILE graphics cards and processor, from what i researched, your desktop GPU is almost twice as powerful as your laptop GPU

Hzza · 27 Jul 2011 at 14:13

Chives said:
really? on paper the laptop seems to outperform the PC in every way..

Until the laptop overheats and starts throttling itself down. I had an XPS Dell laptop that I used to game on which was amazing for the first 15 minutes you were in game before it would heat up and shut itself down.

Even if the desktop is slightly lower spec I'd still go with it for gaming tbh.

Chives · 27 Jul 2011 at 14:46

Hmm, Would the laptop be more effective with games such as Empire total war, which are very CPU intensive?
Also what difference will the DDR3 RAM have over my DDR2 RAM in my desktop?

Saitex · 29 Jul 2011 at 18:39

Tbh i would stay with the desktop regardless anything, the reason is I will be able to upgrade in the future if I will feel that it is needed. As for the laptop I would have to buy a brand new one which would probably lead to spending more cash in most of the cases, in addition I can customise the desktop case any way I want i.e. addin LED fans etc. and as far in the performance I don't really know which one would be better tbh, since the mobile parts in the laptops does perform slower than the ones which r used in the desktops. And i think that 5750 would wipe the floor with that GT 550M.