Laptop vs SFF for gaming

hhcave

hhcave

hhcave

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20 Nov 2008
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6
Hey,

looking to get a new laptop/sff computer for christmas but im not sure which form to go for... I cant go for a desktop as i need some portability (i will be moving around a lot) but i think sff should be fine...

In terms of performance how does an sff computer compare to a latop (gaming)? Also, is it much cheaper for what you get?


My budget is about 1100 quid so please recommend some options!

Thanks
 
I'm no expert or anything, but I would safely guess that a SFF would be better for gaming, especially with 1100 quid.
 
Yeah it would be a LOT better.

It'll be bigger than a laptop, and require an external screen, but it would beat the laptop in every department for the same budget, especially gaming performance. You can fit full sized graphics cards in a SFF, you don't have to settle for special crippled gaming chips (although having said that there are some capable gaming laptops).

Also airflow is a lot better - a gaming laptop will get hot, especially while doing anything GPU intensive. As a result it'll probably be noisy, and the whole chassis will be designed with heat dissipation in mind, so it'll be big and heavy.

£1100 would get you something seriously tasty in terms of SFF anyway - Q6600/9450, 4GB DDR2, and a GTX280/2x4850.

Do you have a screen/keyboard/mouse already?
 
I do have a screen/keyboard/mouse...

What are the Ocuk sff gaming pc's like? They seem to have a very nice spec but how reliable are they? Also, roughly how long is the wait time when ordering one? Am i better off ordering a Shuttle?

Also, for gaming would you recommend the AMD system or Intel?
 
Bradley has a very nice, but very overpowered and cram packed system... :D

I guess with the sort of money you've got, and gaming you'd be best looking the M-ATX or shuttle market - mini-itx is an option, but is a lot more hardwork when trying to run as a gaming rig if you want a modern gfx card to fit in and cooling often isn't the best in mini-itx cases.

I've not heard anything bad about the OCuk SFF computers, but if you have the confidence and knowledge to build the computer yourself it will be a lot cheaper - you get even better rig :D
 
I mainly play World of Warcraft and Counter Strike Source...

My budget has now moved up to 1600 ish so could you tell me how these compare:

-Shuttle (the gaming one)
-Ocuk
-BEAST Taurus

thanks
 
wow some people have too much money to spend on computer :D - im only jealours
With this new computer will you start playing new games?
A decent laptop should play CSS without any worries and WoW will play on your grandma's computer :D

I don't know much about shuttles, (I'd just build my own M-ATX setup) and I have no idea what BEAST Taurus is, but the 2 OCuk gaming systems in the sugo cases are lovely. The quad core might be a little more future proof, but the duo would be better for current games. (i'm going to get shouted at)
 
Well you can either get a Shuttle, which means adding a CPU (Q9450), RAM (8GB DDR2), Graphics (2x4850 or GTX280), HDD (Raptor 150GB, Spinpoint F1 1TB, or SSD?), and optical drive (DVD-RW, maybe consider Blu-Ray?).

Or you can build a SFF system from scratch, which means choosing your own case, PSU, motherboard, and cooling as well as the above. You also have room for a sound card if you like, or SLi/Crossfire with two dual slot cards.

I would spec one up for you, but £1,600 isn't restrictive at all. Just start playing with some builds, only you can know how much power you really want/need. You might actualy find it beneficial to just drop a thousand on the system and save the rest actually! :)
 
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