Gaming desktop to gaming laptop -any regrets?

[bakes0310]

Due to life circumstances and losing my office space, I'm playing with idea of jacking in my desktop, superwide monitor for a gaming laptop that I can play anywhere around the house and take-up less space. As my partner knows it's a big sacrifice to my favourite hobby she will help fund a £2000 budget gaming laptop.
Has anyone gave up their desktop for a laptop, any regrets do you still get a good gaming experience or is it only tolerable?
Games I play is RTS (crusader kings 3, total war titles) and RPG (Witcher 3, isometric RPGs like divinity 2 and eventually baldurs gate 3).

 

[olliej82]

I made this move and find it fine. I would advise getting a laptop with only a 1080p screen so that as long as it has a good gpu you will still be able to play games at ultra settings. On a laptop screen the 1080p resolution still looks really sharp. £2000 will get you a really good laptop with an rtx 3070

 

[bakes0310]

I made this move and find it fine. I would advise getting a laptop with only a 1080p screen so that as long as it has a good gpu you will still be able to play games at ultra settings. On a laptop screen the 1080p resolution still looks really sharp. £2000 will get you a really good laptop with an rtx 3070

I've been looking at Ryzen laptops with 5800h CPUs and a 3070 graphics card. They do seem to have 1440p high refresh rate screens. Will that be an issue?

 

[Squink]

I've been looking at Ryzen laptops with 5800h CPUs and a 3070 graphics card. They do seem to have 1440p high refresh rate screens. Will that be an issue?

From my own research, a 3070 gaming laptop at 115w will give performance somewhere between a desktop 2070 and 2080. Achieving high frames at 1440p on demanding games will become increasingly difficult to achieve.

1080p at 15” does look quite sharp, but I imagine qhd will look really good if high frames aren’t vital.

 

[bakes0310]

From my own research, a 3070 gaming laptop at 115w will give performance somewhere between a desktop 2070 and 2080. Achieving high frames at 1440p on demanding games will become increasingly difficult to achieve.

1080p at 15” does look quite sharp, but I imagine qhd will look really good if high frames aren’t vital.

Always games at 60hz never had high refresh monitors. Don't play competive FPS games so I don't think it matters for single player RTS and RPG games, I'm guessing. If I limit it to 60hz from the start and not try the higher refresh I'll never miss out.

 

[olliej82]

I've been looking at Ryzen laptops with 5800h CPUs and a 3070 graphics card. They do seem to have 1440p high refresh rate screens. Will that be an issue?

It won't be an issue depending on the games you play but 1440p is more demanding

 

[Sh4rkie]

Missus has the Asus Scar 15 (3070 QHD) and it is an absolute beast. Mostly play Indie games rather than AAA / Twitch games but no compromises so far and the QHD / 165Hz is lush too!

 

[hood1971]

I did moved from desktop to laptop a few years ago, but eventually found the fan noise/heat too much to handle. When I had first got it it coped with games, but after a couple of years the cpu/gpu struggled with newer games and it got so that I could only play for 30 min sessions. Went back to desktop gaming a year ago and wont go back.

 

[Mesai]

Make sure you take a serious look at the cooling solution; some are unbearably loud but the recent ones appear to be better, specifically the AMD variants.

 

[Kohaashi]

I grew up with a desktop, switched to laptop for 4 years, then back to a desktop for 1 year, now moving back to a laptop.

I find I enjoy gaming laptops more.
Being able to play in the living room while the wife watches tv or anywhere around the house, especially with young children around is perfect for me. Having a desktop ties you to a desk. I still have a 34” ultrawide monitor im keeping though, mainly for when working from home and when I fancy playing some FPS.

I’ve recently ordered the Alienware m15 R4 with RTX 3070 and 4K OLED display.

 

[Furos]

I moved from a full tower desktop to a 17inch gaming laptop. I have the GT73 titan and for my gaming needs it's been perfect. Its cooling is impressive and speakers are great, the fans don't get loud because of the cooling and chassis of the laptop. I've used it for all kinds of gaming these past 4 years and now I'm ready to upgrade to a newer laptop. I've been more then happy with mine so I definitely recommend laptop gaming.

 

[Brazo]

Just a note on the fan noise/cooling, have been using my laptop with the fans off whilst gaming and a laptop cooling pad with a 230mm fan underneath. Temps for cpu stay below 60c and gpu hovered around 70c and fan could not be heard over speakers.

 

[Brackish]

I made the move a couple of years ago and got a Dell G5 and I'm more than happy. I mostly play racing games now with a controller but when the mouse is needed I have a poor man's laptop gaming sofa table thingy called '100 recipes, hard back edition' with a 5 year old Steel series mouse mat.
I can sit where I like, how I like and I use headphones most of the time so fan noise isn't a problem. Even sat in the garden once but the sun made me shy.

 

[willhub]

I also did a similar thing and jacked in the desktop, I now have a desktop again, fan nois is annoying and the performance is not brilliant considering price / same names components on a desktop.

I still have a laptop with a RTX 2070 and a i7 9750h, I think this will last me for some time with the casual use it gets on and off.

 

[Squink]

I'd be interested in some more comments on this. In my mind, the idea of sitting downstairs on a super-powered laptop while my wife watches stuff on telly sounds great, but in practise I don't know if it would be so uncomfortable (and noisy) using a laptop for this purpose that I'd just stop doing it and effectively end up with a gimped desktop. I see a few of posters are in this situation and it would be nice to hear how well it worked out (or didn't).

 

[willhub]

I'd be interested in some more comments on this. In my mind, the idea of sitting downstairs on a super-powered laptop while my wife watches stuff on telly sounds great, but in practise I don't know if it would be so uncomfortable (and noisy) using a laptop for this purpose that I'd just stop doing it and effectively end up with a gimped desktop. I see a few of posters are in this situation and it would be nice to hear how well it worked out (or didn't).

You can make it a bit more bearable repasting with some quality paste and using a desktop pad with fans in, but I don't use the fans on mine as they're loud too. I liked the thought of using it in bed, but it just gets too warm even having it near and not on my lap, still get sweaty knackers with it.

The girlfriend rarely lets me play games on it in bed as she gets anxiety when it really spins up in a game she is thinking it's going to blow up

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I'd be interested in some more comments on this. In my mind, the idea of sitting downstairs on a super-powered laptop while my wife watches stuff on telly sounds great, but in practise I don't know if it would be so uncomfortable (and noisy) using a laptop for this purpose that I'd just stop doing it and effectively end up with a gimped desktop. I see a few of posters are in this situation and it would be nice to hear how well it worked out (or didn't).

You need to sit it on a desk anything else will throttle it. Ythen need space for a mouse mat and a decent mouse.

Other than that they are superb. The idea of sitting on a couch with one just doesn't work. So you would have to use the dining table.

They are extremely loud when they ramp up and that means whilst any form of gaming. You can't really make them quiet or else it will throttle. That also means that you really need to use closed headphones or headset with them.

If you can live with that then it's fine but the idea of you can use it anywhere isn't true for gaming. Basic stuff like browsing yeah but gaming requires a lot of additional thought and accessories.

 

[Richdog]

I went from gaming desktop to gaming laptop and then back to gaming desktop and the desktop is overall FAR superior. It is way faster, way quieter and so much more ergonomic to use for long periods.

I was so taken with the idea of having a portable gaming solution, but in the end it stayed on my desk 99.9% of the time so was justz more awkward to use due to the space it took up and the fixed screen position. Not to mention the thermals on serious gaming laptops are just poor and if/when something breaks, the entire thing is often out of action.

The only reason I can see to buy a gaming laptop over a desktop is if you really need the portability (in which case there is no substitute) or if you are so sick of the current desktop component shortage that you are willing to migrate to a laptop just to get a decent gaming rig.

Now that I have built my desktop and also have it connected to the OLED TV, I look back on my laptop days and wonder what on earth I was thinking by having one.

 

[Squink]

Thank you for the insights above, which have swayed me away from a gaming laptop (though perhaps not entirely dissuaded me). Yesterday, I tried gaming downstairs on an underpowered older laptop and it was a bit of a chew on setting it up because I wanted to use an external keyboard as well as a mouse. It was also not very comfortable.

I've been bored of games for a while and am only making an effort to get back into them because I don't want to miss out on my children's gaming journey - I remember how much a part of my life it once was and I want to share it with them. I'm therefore wary about spending a chunk of money and not using the computer to its full potential. A voice keeps whispering that I should get a Mac, but that would be completely cutting myself off from any chance at worthwhile gaming.

 

[Rroff]

In the past a couple of my desktop replacement laptops died after a couple of years or so from what seems to be the effects of heat from sustained use on the memory modules both system memory and VRAM despite the CPU and GPU cores having substantial cooling themselves. Though my current laptop has been doing service since around 2013 or so without suffering that fate yet - though a bit of a stretch to call it a gaming laptop these days hah.