Time to upgrade i2500k

Jin

Jin

Jin

Associate
Joined
15 Jun 2020
Posts
7
Hi all (long time lurker),

I been rocking OCed i2500k since uni days but finally I feel like it's time to upgrade now I'm spending all my time on my computer thanks to lock down. (And back to playing games).

My plan is either to buy a "gaming" laptop or desktop (preferably smaller size to have possibility of moving between rooms. I might want to carry to different country time to time).

AMD 4800h - I’m very tempted but it doesn’t seem to have good upgrade path and bad cooling for gaming laptops in general.
1. Lack of thunderbolt for external graphics card ???
2. How is build quality? Far too often unless you buy corporate grade laptops (e.g Thinkpad T/X series) something stupid seems to break and painful to replace bits. I upgraded older thinkpads, phones but they were fiddly I’m less confident on more glued, smaller machines.

Desktop, AMD seems to offer great value but am I buying near end of line CPU socket (and RAM?)

I do programming, prefer linux but most likely will have to dualboot with windows.

Looking for,
6/8+ core AMD
64GB Ram
Smaller sized case if desktop. Are there any gotachas?
No jet engine coolers!!! Found hard way before cheaper AMD cards had rather loud cooler.

If there’s upgrade path up to £2000 for laptop (seems to need to spend that much)
Desktop, prefer pre-built at this stage of my life, up to £1500 but I care about value also so would be very happy if I can spend around £800-£1200
 
You will definitely get better performance/value for the same money with a desktop, laptop CPUs and GPUs aren't as performant as their desktop counterparts due to power, thermal and space limitations.

As far as I'm aware gaming laptops are also very noisy when gaming, as fans need to be going full tilt just to keep it from overheating and throttling. That being said you are not going to get the same portability as you would with a laptop. Moving a desktop between rooms isn't a problem other than the hassle with wires, but taking it abroad is a little more difficult - probably would want to take out the GPU and CPU cooler to avoid things breaking in transit.

You can get smaller sized cases and corresponding motherboards - mATX, and mini ITX (the smallest). Only gotcha so to speak is cooling tends to be more difficult in smaller cases but definitely manageable and quiet enough with a decent cooler and fans
 
bagel said:
but taking it abroad is a little more difficult - probably would want to take out the GPU and CPU cooler to avoid things breaking in transit.
Click to expand...

Good point, I didn't think about things breaking.

bagel said:
Only gotcha so to speak is cooling tends to be more difficult
Click to expand...

I recently bought second hand dell sff desktop to run OPNSense (Replacing virgin media router, Firewall) but not having worked with such form factor made stupid rookie error of buying PCI card but case it too small I can't close it. I'll have to saw metal part of PCI card.
I already remember reading about some graphics card combo etc may not fit.
 
Yes that's true, CPU cooler and GPU length clearances will likely be smaller in SFF cases but always worth checking even for atx builds. You can get small cases that do support full length GPUs however

Another thing I forgot to mention is itx builds tend to be more expensive too
 
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