Skip to main content

Gaming laptops have come a long way, but desktops still reign supreme

Should you game on a laptop, or a desktop?

Asked by theologians and parents at Christmas alike, the battle between these two types of gaming machines is one that continues to rage to this day. Of course, pretty much everyone knows by this point that desktops have long since won the performance prize, but is there still an argument for picking up a laptop instead?

Recommended Videos

The Difference

First, the most obvious point. A laptop will never be as powerful as a cost-equivalent desktop. Period.

Because of the size difference, desktops will always have more space to stretch out, and more room to let their components breathe, which inherently means more power and more flexibility. Laptops are constrained to the tenets of portability, so no matter how badly you might want a GTX 980M to be as competent as a regular old GTX 980, the laws of thermodynamics are inevitably going to get in the way.


That said, thanks to the efforts of some very creative engineering solutions, the gap between gaming desktops and their mobile counterparts is growing smaller by the day.

GPU Performance

At the top end of the scale, newer chips like those found in the 980M are only around 25 percent less powerful than their full-sized inspirations. Laptops have come a long way in this department, chiefly due to Nvidia’s dedication to making them a viable option for gamers who want to play most games at almost the highest detail, and are secure enough in themselves to be happy enough with that capability on its own.

However, if you’ve been paying attention to our Kill All Pixels column, you’d know that the 4K gaming revolution is just around the corner (if not already here), and gaming laptops simply won’t be able to keep the competition close when it comes to rendering twice as many polygons in the same amount of space.

)

The recently reviewed Asus ROG G501 attempted to close this gap by packing a 4K display in its loadout, but unfortunately the included 960M wasn’t anywhere near up to the task of 4K gaming, which makes the inclusion of the screen somewhat null in the first place.

asusg501gtx
Nvidia
Nvidia

The end result of all this is that unequivocally, even with the wind of Maxwell at its back, mobile GPUs simply can’t keep up with their desktop brethren. At least not yet.

CPU Performance

Though the bridge between CPU performance on a laptop vs. a desktop is smaller than what you’d find in the graphics department, even here there’s still a noticeable difference. What you get in a laptop is generally toned down in key areas to account for the lack of cooling equipment such as fans or liquid radiators, and the results tell the rest of the story.

According to our test of Velocity Micro’s latest micro-tower, the Z40’s overclocked i7-4790k tacked on a massive score of 16,938 in our multi-core Geekbench run, while the G501 and its  i7-4720HQ only mustered about three-fourths of that, at 12,230 in the same category.

nvidiagtx980m3dmark-900x600
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Both are top-of-the-line contenders in their respective categories, but also cost just about the same as well. For the amount of money you spend you take a serious hit in overall performance, just for the benefit of being able to boot up Battlefield somewhere other than home base.

For gaming, though, the hit doesn’t matter. Games tend to be held back by graphics performance rather than the processor, and any mobile Intel quad sold today is quick enough to let a mobile GPU perform its best.

Upgrade-ability

We won’t spend too much time on this section, because the fact of the matter is if you’re just looking to drop a marginal amount on a machine today with plans to upgrade it later, desktops are the only way to go.

Sure, some laptops have removable hard drives that can be swapped out (while others make things a bit more difficult), but outside of that or the RAM, you’re pretty much stuck with what you get the day of purchase until you buy a whole new system. Even if you can swap out the GPU, it’ll be so expensive that it won’t make sense.

Desktops on the other hand are just Legos for grownups, with a nearly endless combination of motherboards, video cards, RAM configurations, hard drive bays, power supplies, and cases that can be mixed and matched depending on your gaming needs and relative budget.

AVA Direct Corsair X99
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Want to play Battlefield in 4K, but your one-year old desktop isn’t up to snuff? No problem, just pop in a new graphics card, and you’re good to go. Experiencing some frame lag while editing a genome sequence in class? There’s a new processor for that.

Value

And this is where value comes into play. If you’re paying 25 percent more for a gaming laptop and it’s a quarter less powerful, in theory you could price out a desktop that’s 50 percent more beastly for the exact same cost as its lap-based counterpart.

However, when you account for the fact that technically you’re getting a monitor, keyboard, and mouse already built in with a laptop (if you can actually game on a trackpad), the price difference could almost become worth it.

The keyword there is almost. Personally, I don’t do a lot of gaming on the road, nor do I know many people who need to get their Witcher fix from 30,000 feet. Portability and simplicity of use are important factors to note, but likely only apply to a fraction of gamers out there who are hopping from one LAN party to the next.

For the rest of us, the loss of power for the gain in stability just doesn’t equal out when you consider we’re talking about thousands of dollars that could either be saved, or poured into making a desktop all that much more substantial through a better graphics card, CPU, or amount of available RAM.

Conclusion

With all of these factors in mind, laptops have made some pretty substantial gains in the past few years, and it would be impossible to ignore their potential capability in the eyes of all but the most discerning gamers.

It’s been a long time since any title has come out that demands the same sort of raw power that Crysis did when it first arrived on the scene, and even Crysis 3 is starting to be slain by year-old graphics cards and aging processors. As such, at least for the time being, maybe you don’t really need to drop so much on bleeding edge technology available in a tower that’s the same size as a great dane.

If you want to run The Witcher III at max graphics on a 34” 4K monitor in full resolution, then yes, a desktop is going to be your best bet. But, if you’re just looking to knock out a couple rounds of DOTA 2 while you’re at the airport, a modern gaming laptop is more than up to the task.

In the end it’s all about what titles you plan on playing the most, and how important portability is to your everyday life.

Chris Stobing
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Self-proclaimed geek and nerd extraordinaire, Chris Stobing is a writer and blogger from the heart of Silicon Valley. Raised…
Best gaming laptop deals: Alienware, Dell, Asus and more
An Alienware m16 gaming laptop in use on a desk, playing Baldur's Gate III.

Whether you're a novice gamer or a hardcore veteran, a reliable gaming laptop is a necessity if you want to play the best PC games. Fortunately, there are all kinds of offers out there, ranging from budget-friendly models to top-tier devices of the best gaming laptops -- and we've rounded up our favorite bargains right here. Do you simply want a basic gaming laptop to while away the time, or are you looking for a high-performance machine that can challenge the capabilities of the best gaming desktops? There's surely something for you below, and we've also provided buying advice to help you narrow down your choices.

The gaming laptop deals we've selected feature the best laptop brands, including Acer laptop deals, Dell laptop deals, and HP laptop deals. You can also check out these laptop deals if you want to look for devices that are not gaming-focused, but if you're on the hunt for a gaming laptop that will meet your needs and fit your budget, read on.

Read more
Best HP laptop deals: Get a 17-inch workhorse for $167 and more
An open HP Spectre x360 16 sits on a table, angled so that the screen and keyboard can be seen.

HP is one of the biggest and most well-known laptop brands out there, and it easily competes with the likes of Dell and Lenovo when it comes to laptop quality. In fact, HP makes some of the best gaming laptops to the best 2-in-1 laptops, so there's almost certainly something in there that can cater to your needs and budget. That said, it can be a bit hard to find and pick the best deals, which is why we've gone out and collected some of our favorite HP laptop deals and put them down for you below, and we've even included a couple of HP Envy deals, too.

Alternatively, if you can't find quite what you're looking for below, be sure to check out these other great laptop deals and gaming laptop deals as well.
HP Laptop 17z -- $370 $750 50% off

Read more
Next-gen laptops may have a weird mix of components
A Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop on a coffee table.

Many gamers are awaiting CES 2025 with a great deal of excitement. Not only are we said to be getting Nvidia's RTX 50-series, but we should also see some of the next-gen top gaming laptops make their debut during the event. However, according to a new leak, these next-gen laptops may not be so next-gen across the board. With a lot of processors to choose from, we might end up with configurations that focus on new GPUs while sticking to older CPUs.

Given that Intel is said to be launching the laptop versions of Arrow Lake in early 2025, and AMD is working on the Ryzen AI 300 Max, one would expect some beastly laptops to be unveiled at CES 2025, but Golden Pig Upgrade Pack on Weibo begs to differ. This news was first shared by VideoCardz. While this user has been a fairly reliable source of hardware leaks up until now, it's important to take it all with a bit of skepticism.

Read more