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PCS
So, like, on Sprint wireless?
I don’t care if they are “gaming” specific, but I like PCs because they are more customizable /upgradeable
PCs. Gaming laptops kinda suck IMO, especially their cooling. They also can’t really be upgraded and are much more expensive for the performance. For mobile PC gaming I much prefer a Steam Deck.
I should have read your comment before I replied. Couldn’t agree more. Going back to a PC from a laptop soon and pretty excited about it.
PCs. I’ve been living overseas for a couple of years and using a gaming laptop. I can’t wait to start using a PC again.
Laptops can be good but in my experience for demanding games they can have thermal issues pretty easily. I’m not an expert though and maybe it depends more on the individual laptop.
Also the repairability and upgradability are huge things as well. I think desktop PC plus steam deck is my dream combo for all my gaming needs personally.
I’m also in the desktop camp. But I just purchased a Framework 16. The upgradable dGPU (assuming they release new ones) might make laptops more viable for gaming.
Laptops are uniformly awful.
You can’t upgrade or replace the GPU or CPU, the hinge assembly is mechanically vulnerable, a cup of coffee over the keyboard is game over, the screen dies you’ve got a ridiculous cost to fix, the cooling sucks, the ergonomics suck, and you pay about double the price for half the specs.
You need a proper screen and keyboard at your desk anyway, so unless you’re hotdesking with the thing, it’s just going to act like a shitty desktop most of the time.
Have you seen the Framework 16? Not the most powerful gaming laptop, but you can replace anything (including the GPU and the mainboard).
Laptops, cuz I like to travel a lot and…4 years later now, I can still play the new games or go back to the old ones whenever I want to.
It’s very convenient.
If I was in one place, I’d probably get a PC just cuz it’s usually cheaper for the same hardware.
But I love traveling and I don’t love extra possessions! And I love playing games now and then.
Pc with steam deck for me. Although, my gaming has been 80-90% steam deck lately…
Desktop first, steam deck very close second.
Laptops can stay very far away from my household
I prefer my desktop. But I can game 6 hours of not more of my work day since my job is to make sure the Internet works and stare at an email. So 99% of my gaming is on my laptop
Gaming PCs by far.
Since some computer games require the mouse, I’d rather use a PC mouse than the touchpad or a mouse plugged to the laptop.
No particular reason, it’s just more pleasing to the eye.
No hate, but I’ve never understood gaming laptops. They are noisy, hot, almost always with severely nerfed performance compared to their equivalent non-mobile components.
They are heavy and bulky with poor battery life. They are often garish, which makes them less suitable for a professional environment if you’re in a workplace where that matters.
It just seems like the vast majority of gaming laptops give you the worst of all worlds. Worse performance than a desktop rig, and none of the good things about a laptop, like portability, long battery life, etc.
To me, there are a few exceptions though:
- Gaming notebooks. You sacrifice a bunch of performance, but you at least gain back some of the benefits of a normal laptop like slimness, portability, battery life, etc. As long as you don’t play super hardcore games, the thermal issue isn’t a huge problem.
- Your work has a ton of travel and you are allowed to do it on your personal laptop. You can work and game on the same device. If you are traveling like every month flying everywhere for work, that makes sense to have a single device to do it all on.
Again, no hate, just my $0.02
For students a gaming laptop makes a bunch of sense, since taking a PC with you back an forth every time you go back home can be a major hassle.
Eh, depends I guess. Now days I would just use my Steam Deck and be happy with that.
But back when I went to college, high powered gaming handhelds weren’t a thing.
Different strokes for different folks I suppose.
Well I personally need my laptop for collage as well. And it comes in handy if it has a powerful GPU if I need to do anything more intensive on it (e.g. machine learning or game dev). Steam Deck wouldn’t really be adequate there. And even if it wasn’t for my usecase (which isn’t representative of every student), most students will probably still need a laptop to bring with themselves sometimes to collage, and if they also want to game, makes sense to buy a gaming laptop instead of a gaming PC + a regular laptop.
One advantage is you get a lot of performance in a laptop form factor for much cheaper than an equivalent ultrabook
Desktop. Powerful laptops don’t have enough space for proper heat management. I had a laptop with a Xeon processor and I could get it up to 100C and it would shut off.
Both, each have their place. I have a desktop in my office. Decent recent spec and kept fairly up to date.
Laptop I have a reasonable “gaming” spec in the lounge we both use it.
The laptop will always be a compromise. You cannot shift the dissipated heat from a full power gpu at all in that form factor, and most cpus are going to also be lower power editions because they need to work on batteries as well as connected to power. But they’re still for sure usable.
Desktop will always outperform. Even the stock cpu and gpu options will perform at a higher tdp, and you can usually improve cooling in a big case to either improve stock boost frequencies, or over clock.
Physics is the limiting factor for laptops, both in terms of power delivery, and heat dissipation.
Desktop for sure. Though I’ve started to love using Steam Link in my home to stream to my laptop (or TV) to get the best of both worlds.
Same reasons as everyone else, it’s more powerful, better heat management, upgradeable, and still allows me to stream to a laptop when needed. (I’ll even use RDP to my desktop from my laptop most of the time to still get the power for work things too).
