Budget Help - Topic

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Apr 16 2015 04:37pm

Whats the price difference between a top tier gaming laptop vs a top tier gaming desktop

Ive been wanting a desktop for the longest time but i deploy for 6 months out of the year so a laptop is best suited for me and my current laptop is a sager thats about 2 years old still runs fine just wanting to upgrade.

The games i play are mostly from valve / blizzard excluding league of legends and path of exile

I want a computer that will last me at least 2 years as far as hardware goes and still get the best bang for my buck

I spent 1500 on my last laptop wife prolly wouldnt want me spending anymore than 1000 as far as budget goes

DeXaFiLaH

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Apr 16 2015 05:32pm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232404

vs

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/vcWff7

Just for a cost/component comparison.

You have to spend about 20-30% more on a laptop to get the same or similar specs as a desktop. A laptop similar to the example desktop I linked above would be about $1400 or up.

Rapture

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Apr 16 2015 07:05pm

Quote (DeXaFiLaH @ Apr 16 2015 07:32pm)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232404

vs

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/vcWff7

Just for a cost/component comparison.

You have to spend about 20-30% more on a laptop to get the same or similar specs as a desktop. A laptop similar to the example desktop I linked above would be about $1400 or up.

I'd probably say closer to 200-300% more on a laptop... in particular the gtx 960m is very weak - maybe as powerful as a 100 dollar graphics card. The latest 970 and 980ms are very powerful [980 being double that of the 960m] but theyre still easily over shadowed by 170-220 dollar graphics cards.
I unfortunately don't know the "good" prices on those cards, but looking at newegg right now the cheapest 970 class is 1500 bucks. You could build a rig as powerful for about 650-700.

Im basing these numbers however off of 3dmark Fire strike standard scores of the laptop cards here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-960M-Review.137893.0.html

and some firestrike scores of desktop cards here
http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/content/6/5/6573_21_gigabyte_radeon_r9_280_windforce_3gb_oc_video_card_review.png

with the new 300 line coming this summer you're finding a lot of 280/285's on sale around $140-150.

AlphaofAlphas

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Apr 16 2015 10:11pm

So as i thought obviously the laptop is gonna be way more expensive however what kind of price am i gonna look at for what i want

Rapture

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Apr 17 2015 11:18am

Quote (AlphaofAlphas @ Apr 17 2015 12:11am)
So as i thought obviously the laptop is gonna be way more expensive however what kind of price am i gonna look at for what i want

If your max budget is 1000 I would spend all of it on something similar to what Dexafilah posted.

Otherwise if you're just trying to play the games you want:
Newegg has a bunch of these refurb units [there's a bunch of different variations, but all 275]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834318584

the 275 graphics card on these isn't too bad and it will be a few hundred cheaper than the gtx 970 lineup. [probably the 960 as well]
league can pretty much run on a potato but POE does require some more graphics horsepower.

I would say that a laptop like this would be runner up if you were really trying to be cost effective. Maybe you could even spend like 1200-1500 and buy a low end gaming laptop and a decent rig?
if you spent 600 on each, you'd still hve your desktop that could be upgraded down the line but youll never be able to upgrade the laptop.

This post was edited by Rapture on Apr 17 2015 11:41am

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