PC advice please...

[Santi]

Battery life is quite short though, even with it's bigger-than-most battery, I reckon you'd get 1 to 1.5 hours at most (gaming),
not sure how that figures into how you'd use it - most of the time I have it plugged in

That is the crux of it, mobility on a gaming laptop depends on finding a power socket, and you will get overheating problems with long gaming sessions. And a laptop for gaming will never substitute a desktop in terms of performance.

Going from a desktop to a laptop is a no in my opinion. Get a proper desktop and then, a cheap laptop that can play plenty of classic games.

[greypanther]

I know if I'd been using the same PC for that length of time that I'd want something much more substantive as an upgrade.

Just so.

Though Tycow's post earlier was very useful as it made me realise something. Tycow says they travel a lot so need that portability to game, to be honest I do not travel enough to justify the extra expense. This is reinforced by what many of you say, especially exogenesis, who even though they give a rave review, their comments about the lack of battery power for gaming and the weight, kills off the thought of getting a gaming laptop. I think I need to rethink my needs, rather than just what I want.

One of the main reasons I thought I needed a laptop, was to reduce the space taken up on my desk, which of course Stars suggestion of a small form desktop PC would help, a compromise maybe. With a cheap laptop for limited mobile as is suggested above.

Now a question about that sort of thing please, if someone could help: Is there any more consideration needed for the small form case, regarding cooling? I certainly imagine so. Also could I still get that boost in performance as I see that some GPU in particular are huge!

Thank you for all the help so far, I do not doubt I will have more questions soon...

[CBJ]

Small format PCs are nice, but as you say they do come with compromises when it comes to cooling. I used a Shuttle as my main PC for a few years, and I really liked it (so much so that I still have it by my desk in fact, even though it's decomissioned). I was able to fit a decent desktop CPU and GPU (for the time) in it, and I never had any problems with overheating because their designs are pretty good on that score, though it could get quite noisy under load. That was really the only significant downside though, so as long as you don't mind your PC sounding like Concorde taking off when you're playing a game then you'll be fine! With regard to upgrades, the Shuttle case was compact but large enough to work on if you wanted to upgrade or replace something, and most of the parts were standard PC parts apart from the motherboard. There are plenty of other similar designs available, but for your purposes I'd avoid the really small form factor PCs, which tend to use laptop parts and don't generally have the scope for upgrade.

[pjknibbs]

My only experience with small form factor PCs was from years (must be a decade or more) ago, when I deliberately built a PC in as small a case as I could get just for gits and shiggles. IIRC it was a 900MHz Celeron CPU I used, which dates it somewhat! I have heard good things about the Shuttle cases, though--they're generally set up so you can install a full-size graphics card, but generally that's the *only* expansion card you can fit; not an issue these days when most other I/O is built into the motherboard, unless you planned to fit a SCSI card or something like that.

[jlehtone]

Ergonomics of a laptop is not good. Serious laptop users have separate monitor(s), keyboard, mouse, etc.
A docking station (used to have proprietary connector, now USB) makes connecting the peripherals easier.
That does not save space on table. Probably the opposite.

Shuttle is a known brand of small cases, but there are a lot of options on mATX and ITX form factors.

The computer does not have to be on the table. Under (on floor or hanging), behind, on the side of table. Out of sight can improve the "Concorde tuning" too.

[burger1]

For small cases:
cooling (and upgradeability like adding more fans), cooling fan locations, is the case getting airflow over the ram, cpu, gpu etc....
orientation of the hard drive if it's a mechanical hard drive (not side ways)
power supply cooling (does it have fan holes in the right places, top mount vs bottom), and replacement (it may be costly)
front cables and hook ups as usual (usb types, slot types, etc...)
Mainboard type and what you can fit on it (expansion slots, video card sizes, cpu cooler sizes, # of ram slots, number of hdds you stuff in it, etc...) A regular mainboard might not fit. Not sure about io plates fitting at the back?
cable management for power supply cable (are you going to have a hunk of cables sitting in the middle blocking air flow and other stuff)
optical drive slot yes/no?
Fake grills is also a thing. Like fans mounted behind a solid surface that do nothing but spin.
Performance might also be reduced compared to a full size build. Generally smaller is lower performance.
There's also portable cases like lan party cases. I guess you could hook up a tv and tote along a keyboard/mouse, etc...
smaller main boards might also lack stuff like cooling fan hook ups, etc...


Basically look up reviews for small factor or micro/mini atx cases on newegg, amazon or other popular companies. If you do see a case maybe see if there's youtube videos of a build with it or a review.

[Mightysword]

The computer does not have to be on the table. Under (on floor or hanging), behind, on the side of table. Out of sight can improve the "Concorde tuning" too.

And this is an important thing that I think a lot of us forgot is NOT a thing. Your tower/box doesn't have to be on the table next to the monitor like a typical lab/office set up, or under the table next to your feet. Get some long cable, extension for the display device and kb/mouse (or go wireless with them). The tower for my PC is actually about 5-6feet from where I'm sitting.

[greypanther]

Lots of very useful information and points raised, thank you all.

I have to admit that I had not even considered moving the tower elsewhere, other than the floor. ( Which does not appeal. )

[Chips]

Here's a different approach. You wanted more desk space, less clutter, it'd still possibly be cheaper to get awesome desktop pc and a better desk to sit the machine under, or next to, or ... just get longer cables so it doesn't clutter the actual usable deskspace by locating the machine box further away. Could be fixed horizontal under desk, or next to it, or on the side... you get the idea. Instead of going small form factor, just re-locate the actual box somewhere and wireless keyboard/mouse/long cable monitor connection hidden away.

Or for a completely different way to the same end - a gaming rig that sits in a cupboard / convenient location - and you use home stream to play it on a laptop, or one of those tiny factor desktop pc's (akin to gigabyte brix esque machine) which is just vesa mounted behind the monitor on your desk; no actual clutter at all yet still able to play games with ease (may be limited based on platform). The gaming rig does the effort, the other machine simply displays it and relays your controls.

For what that's about see something like: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3198089 ... where.html

I've never tried it, but first thought was you could have awesome desktop AND a relatively under powered laptop to get your play anywhere and started googling. I've zero idea how effective it is, but I'd be amazed if there weren't videos on youtube about it all.