Laptop vs Desktop?

[skiingliberal]

Howdy! About a month ago, my apartment was broken into, and my baby (laptop) was stolen, along with my xbox, ps2 and gamecube controllers (interestingly enough, the guy left the gamecube itself untouched). Since then, I?ve been scouring tech forums learning about the hardware, determined to build my own pc without starting an ?oh my dear god, please help me!!!? thread. But alas, I?ve come to an impasse and I need
some advice.

I definitely want something powerful enough to handle high-end gaming (seeing as how I?m stuck with nothing right now), and had settled on building a system around an athlon 64 3500+ processor and MSI nForce3 motherboard. However, As I prepare to build this system, I was reminiscing about using my laptop at coffee shops, at work (politics, don?t ask), and about its functionality in our tiny apartment, and started looking at the acer Ferrari and dell inspiron xps (on ebay for the xps), and now I?ve essentially driven myself crazy with indecision (seems to be a pretty common problem for us Democrats).

My budget is around $2000, give or take a few hundred, and any advice about what I should do would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Tostada]

It totally depends how important the "high-end gaming" is to you, and what exactly that means. The A64 3500+ with an MSI NF3 board would probably be a great machine. You could really load it up for $2,000.

Personally, the options I would be considering for $2,000 are:

For about $1300, you could build an A64 3200+ on an NF3 Ultra with 1024MB RAM, 160GB drive, 16X DVD+/-RW DL, GF 6800GT 256MB, an $80 PSU and a $120 case. Then you can get a nice $400 19" digital LCD. Then if you really want a laptop to play with at a coffee shop, you should be able to get something on eBay in the $300 range that's about a 1 GHz P3 with wi-fi.

or...

For about $800 you could build an A64 2800+ on an NF3 250Gb with 1024MB RAM, 80GB drive, combo CDR/DVD-ROM, GF 6800 128MB, and a 350W Antec case. Then you could get a 19" CRT or a 17" LCD and a new $1000 laptop. Newegg has an Acer Centrino for $825, a Vaio with an R9200 for $1155, and there are decent laptops you can get from almost anybody in that price range. You might want to get the iBook to fit in at the coffe shop.

or...

You could just be looking at $2000 laptops. The ASUS W1N only has a Radeon 9600, but it has a huge display, 1GB, 4-hour battery life, 1.26" thick, DVD-RW. I really don't like the big brick gaming laptops. Compare the Inspirion XPS to the Inspirion 9200. They both have a Radeon 9700, but the XPS starts off at $2000, has a 15.4" display and sad battery life. The 9200 is cheaper, has a 17" display, weighs less, has a 4.5-hour battery life. On the Inspirion 9200, for $1700 you can upgrade to a 1.8 GHz Centrino, upgrade the battery and get bluetooth. I'd probably get the 2-year at-home service for $116 and go to Newegg for another 512MB RAM for $80 and get a nice Bluetooth mouse, taking that up to just under $2000 (but then you could probably get some Dell coupons on here to bring that down some). I might also try and squeeze the 7200RPM drive in there.

The Acer Ferrari is great. I guess I just think it's a little silly and I don't like the resolution and smaller screen on the thing. If you go to Newegg and look for all the Notebooks with a Mobility Radeon 9700, you'll see plenty nice ones.

I just think that your biggest bottleneck for gaming will be the video. You're pretty much stuck with the Radeon 9700 no matter what CPU you get. I'm an AMD fan as far as desktops go, but with a laptop I'd be going for a Pentium M that has long battery life and doesn't toast your crotch.

 

[Matthias99]

There is the new Mobility 9800 (essentially an underclocked X800SE), and the new GeForceGo6800. Both of those offer VERY solid gaming performance for a mobile system, although obviously they eat your batteries like crazy, and systems with them tend to be quite expensive.

performance article

It's definitely more cost-effective to build a gaming desktop and get a cheap mobile laptop -- but depending on how you want to use the laptop, you might happier with one high-end laptop system.

 

[skiingliberal]

Thanks, guys. unfortunately, in my research, finding a laptop with either a 6800 or 9800 is extremely expensive. Also, how are the Pentium M's with running games? (aka hl2)?

 

[OSUBeaver]

If you want to play games dont get a laptop. If you want to do anythign other than play games get a laptop. I dont care about the new mobile graphics chips, having it paired with a P4 you could probably play for like an hour on battery. My buddy has an XPS and it is freaking huge. The ac adapter is the size of an actual brick. Get a laptop and an Xbox and be happy

 

[skiingliberal]

So what would you suggest for a laptop for digital imaging/ mp3 storage and some gaming?

 

[NFS4]

Desktop + Dell Axim X50v

 

[Malak]

High-end gaming on a laptop means $$$$. Dell XPS or a Voodoo for laptops, but it'll do some damage to the wallet.