Desktop or laptop?

mart1985 · 27 Sep 2016 at 17:34

As stated in the laptop thread, I currently have a decent gaming desktop in a room upstairs at home but am looking for something to use when downstairs. Originally I was looking at a laptop but am wondering whether I would be better off with a small case system instead?

I have several monitors so can leave one downstairs to plug into the new system and as I don't really need it to be portable, a small system would be better value for money than a gaming laptop and would store away easily when not being used.

Having limited knowledge about computers in general, I would be grateful for any advice on whether the smaller system would make sense and if so, what to get.

henson0115 · 27 Sep 2016 at 17:55

if its for gaming, you could try something like a steam link and save a bit of money.

mart1985 · 27 Sep 2016 at 19:48

I would probably only use it for working and Football Manager, so graphics wise it wouldn't need to be that powerful. The steam link is a good idea for gaming but unfortunately wouldn't help with work.

Quartz · 27 Sep 2016 at 20:03

Get yourself a full system. That way, when you upgrade your gaming desktop, you can put the upgraded bits in the work desktop. And you have a spare system.

mart1985 · 27 Sep 2016 at 20:18

Ideally I want something smaller downstairs. The idea behind a small case would be I can store it away easily when not in use, where as a full sized tower would be more difficult to . I would just bring my existing desktop downstairs but the case is massive!

mistersprinkles · 28 Sep 2016 at 00:12

If all your games are on steam, and a wired connection is possible from main gaming system>>>router>>>secondary gaming PC, I would urge you to just get a cheap ITX or NUC form factor machine and stream your games.

If, on the other hand, you play really twitchy games where a few ms of lag will screw you up, you will need to game natively on the secondary system.

You could go with anything from a teeny-weeny NUC to a small ITX machine with an i5 and a dedicated graphics card.

If you want a really kickass gaming PC in a small form factor I would look at something like

Maximus VIII Impact
i5 6600K
Corsair 250D
GTX 1060 (if playing 1080P) or GTX 1070 (if playing 1440P)
Seasonic G-550 power supply
500GB SSD

and there you go.

If you're just streaming you don't need much power. I stream comfortably from my i7/980 gaming machine to my piece of obsolete crap dinosaur box in the living room which is running a Core 2 Xeon and has 4GB of 667Mhz RAM. I don't think it even has gigabit ethernet to be honest with you.

Before that I was streaming to a G3258/4GB DDR3 1600 machine and that worked nicely too. The key is a wired connection.

henson0115 · 28 Sep 2016 at 17:54

you don't even need all games on steam, steam can stream non steam games if you add them to your library, but yea something like a NUC or Itx for work and will work perfectly for streaming your games.