laptop vs desktop

Paul11

Paul11

Paul11

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I know in the old days a laptop was always seen as inferior to a desktop but looking at the specs of some of the current laptops they are some beefy machines that seem to give a good desktop a run for it's money.

So the question, is there any benefits to going with a desktop nowadays?
 
There are huge benefits from using a desktop:
Upgradeable
Graphics cards are WAY faster like for like
Better suited for gaming (laptops are way too small)
Quieter

It all depends what your needs are. You can't be carrying a desktop around all the time if you are a university student who lives in Spain :p.
 
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What I've done to my desktop
Bought motherboard, memory, CPU and GPU in 2005
Replaced motherboard, memory, CPU and PSU
Added more hard drives
Changed CPU cooler
Changed GPU cooler
Upgraded from quad to hex core
Replaced memory
Replaced GPU
Added pci-e nvme adapter
Upgraded monitor
Bought new keyboard

None of that would be possible with a laptop.
 
Cooling and noise is a big thing. You can use the laptop wherever or dock it with a better screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. but the fan noise can be pretty annoying, especially if you don't use headphones.

If you don't need to be mobile, get a desktop.
 
I impulse bought a gaming laptop, have a decent desktop already. The real decider at the moment is the price of desktop GPUs making gaming laptops look cheap.

Went for a Legion 5 Pro. Yes it's a little noisy under load but the specs for the money are mental, especially in the current GPU market. 8c/16t CPU, 3060, 16GB RAM, QHD 165hz HDR Gsync screen - £900.

The higher power version of the laptop 3060 isn't far behind the desktop chip, it actually has more
CUDA cores than the desktop chip.

Such an impressive bit of kit, great for chilling and playing some AoE or RPGs on the sofa. Apart from playing FPS I mostly game on that now over my desktop.
 
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Minstadave said:
I impulse bought a gaming laptop, have a decent desktop already. The real decider at the moment is the price of desktop GPUs making gaming laptops look cheap.

Went for a Legion 5 Pro. Yes it's a little noisy under load but the specs for the money are mental, especially in the current GPU market. 8c/16t CPU, 3060, 16GB RAM, QHD 165hz HDR Gsync screen - £900.

Such an impressive bit of kit, great for chilling and playing some AoE or RPGs on the sofa. Apart from playing FPS I mostly game on that now over my desktop.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the laptop I was looking at (legion 7) and the exact reason which is the price of desktop GPUs
 
To add, if you do go laptop, it pays to get a decent brand as cooling is notably better on some brands. Also, AMD vs Intel, you're probably getting better temps and value for money on the AMD side.

The Legion is a good option.
 
Minstadave said:
The screen of the 5 Pro and 7 (I believe they use the same panel) paired with the beefy CPU is pretty solid for photo editing. An M1 Mac is worth considering if portability is important though.
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Don't need portability other then moving from my desk to the sofa.

And would never go with a Mac
 
hornetstinger said:
What I've done to my desktop
Bought motherboard, memory, CPU and GPU in 2005
Replaced motherboard, memory, CPU and PSU
Added more hard drives
Changed CPU cooler
Changed GPU cooler
Upgraded from quad to hex core
Replaced memory
Replaced GPU
Added pci-e nvme adapter
Upgraded monitor
Bought new keyboard

None of that would be possible with a laptop.
Click to expand...

A bit like Trigger's broom then!
 
Gaming laptops of today are in a different world comapred to gaming laptops from a few years ago. I would argue that they are close to desktop replacement for a lot of people's needs. Desktop will always have advantages though as already mentioned above. I wouldn't be too unhappy with a high end gaming laptop of today though.

My last and only gaming laptop was an MSI one with a 4th gen i7 and a 970m, it was a hot pile of rubbish. Chassis was poor quality, CPU was forever at 80c minimum with fans always raging, gaming performance was pretty poor and it just wasn't a good experience at all, topped off by a 1-2 hour battery life.

Now you can have a decent high end CPU with lots of efficient cores, with a high end GPU capable of high refresh gaming in a much nicer chassis and decent battery life.
 
Marques said:
A bit like Trigger's broom then!
Click to expand...


Yeah but allows me to use case and parts from older machine, PSU, GPU until needed, soundcard etc. And only replace parts like going from 60hz to 144hz.

Laptops are really non upgradeable, so for office use just get a decently fast machine with enough RAM for next gen OS (I'd say 16GB)
 
OpenToSuggestions said:
I imagine most gaming laptops sound like jet engines too really.
If you are an occasional computer user who just browses the internet then I'd go for a laptop, but then you wouldn't be on this forum with 10k posts if that was the case :D.
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Heat and noise is definitely against them - my 10870H w/ 3070 laptop in anything demanding literally sounds like a jet spooling up for take off...

My older Samsung gaming laptop is actually reasonably quiet in all but the most extreme of circumstances and even then is orders of magnitude quieter than the newer one but then it is 17" vs 15" which doesn't help.
 
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