Hardware Discussion Thread

[NaturalViolence]

DatKid20 Wrote:Laptops are only a year behind when it comes to graphics. The new gtx 980m is a beast.

Yeah....no. Only if you compare top end laptop year to midrange desktop gear can you possibly make that claim. Quad GTX 980 is the fastest desktop setup you can have right now. No sane laptop design should ever have 1kw worth of processors even if it were possible.

@teh_speleegn_my_name_is_too_long

I should point out that my use of the term "mobile" in that comparison was referring to android devices. As in the tablet/phone market. Since that's what the guy was talking about, not laptops. But I can see how that would be confusing enough to misinterpret.

Even so some of these points could still be backed up in a laptop v desktop debate. So I'll take a crack at it for fun.

teh_speleegn_polease Wrote:-Typing a document: why the heck would doing this on a laptop be less productive than on a desktop? I guess desktop screens are bigger, thus in theory allowing you to, well, see more and better, but this hardly supports the argument that desktops are far superios to laptops. (Notice I'm saying laptops specifically, and I'm talking about good ones (no chromebooks or netbooks...), since tablets, phones etc. are indeed FAR inferior to any PC.)

Bigger/higher resolution screens, better viewing angles (staring straight at a screen is better than staring down at it for extended periods), but most importantly better keyboards. Those big mechanical keyboards are a godsend and very few laptops have them.

teh_speleegn_polease Wrote:-Creating a powerpoint: OK, if you're using a trackpad it can be annoying. Get a mouse for $10.

teh_speleegn_polease Wrote:-Creating spreadsheets: Again, why?

See above. Plus if you end up plugging an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse into a stationary laptop this negates the disadvantages but basically turns it into a desktop setup anyways. So why not just get a cheaper desktop if you're going to do that?

teh_speleegn_polease Wrote:-Advanced image editing: I suppose if you're doing some intensive editing, and your laptop isn't particularly high-end, it can be annoying. Also same argument about using a mouse as above, and the argument about screen size applies as well.

-Editing music: having never done that, I have no idea how processor-intensive that usually is. See either above (image editing) or below (video editing) as appropriate.

-Video editing: Here it's a question of performance, and hence price. To match the productivity of a decent high-end desktop, you'd need a super-high-end laptop with a $3000+ price tag. Also smaller screens actually probably matter more here.

-3D modeling/rendering: Speaking from experience, you are correct. You need every bit of performance for that, and laptops just don't cut it.

Here you're basically agreeing with the sentiment so there is no need for a reply.

teh_speleegn_polease Wrote:-programming: ...And we're back to "why?...". No, really, you're basically typing out a text document, except you're also using a debugger and compiler. Any decent laptop can handle that.

Faster compiling, better keyboards, better screens. There are some high end laptops that are decent for programming with 17.3" 1920 x 1200 screens, good cpus, and full size keyboards with good keys. But they cost a fortune and are far from the norm.

Laptops are a mid point with decent but not great portability and decent but not great power/functionality. They're usable and pretty good for most content production, just not quite as good as a desktop would be. And they generally cost more for less results (3x-4x is pretty typical).

[DatKid20]

Mid range? I guess being R9-290 level makes a gpu Mid range.

[AnyOldName3]

@Datkid: Compared to four of them, yes.

@TSP, NV: You've also missed out the much better colour reproduction on the best desktop screens vs the best laptop screens, which can make a big difference to content creation too.

[teh_speleegn_polease]

@NV: Ah, if you were talking about tablets then it definitely makes more sense.

I'd just like to say that an external mouse can very well be used with a mobile laptop, especially if it's wireless. Say, if you're in a hotel, or a train, or a cafe, or some public waiting room/lounge thingy with tables. And I never mentioned anything about an external monitor or keyboard.

Speaking of which, mechanical keyboards are subjectively better... And personally I've always liked laptop keyboards. The shallower keys just make it easier to type IMO, compared to a mechanical keyboard where you have to press the key all the way down - often almost 6-7mm - with every letter.

But yeah, my main point was that laptops are not extremely inferior to desktops, only slightly. Since I had misunderstood that you were talking about phones/tablets.



Also, you can call me TSP, or teh, or whatever, if my name's too long for your taste. q:

[shreduhsoreus]

Man, I'm really loving this Dolphinbar. Amazon apparently upgraded my shipping for free to 2 day with Sunday delivery(without my consent or informing me, how dare they?! lololol), so the confusing knock at the door today(er, yesterday) left me ecstatic.


The mouse feature is sort of impractical because of the twitchy cursor, but I'm using it anyway because...I don't know, it's just cool pointing at my screen instead of using a mouse like normal people haha. The novelty of it will probably wear off in a few days and I'll be back to using my mouse.

Not seeing the click delay that the hardware review mentioned, which is a plus at least.

[DatKid20]

(12-17-2014, 04:05 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: @Datkid: Compared to four of them, yes.

@TSP, NV: You've also missed out the much better colour reproduction on the best desktop screens vs the best laptop screens, which can make a big difference to content creation too.

Okay you guys are the most unreasonable people ever. Be more realistic. The amount of people running Quad GPUs are not even worth mentioning. The GTX 980m is a year behind. 

[NaturalViolence]

DatKid20 Wrote:Okay you guys are the most unreasonable people ever. Be more realistic.  The amount of people running Quad GPUs GTX 980m are not even worth mentioning.

Fixed that for you.  Both of these setups are extremely expensive, rare, over the top, and probably not worth mentioning.  But if you're going to compare top of the line hardware from one platform you need to use top of the line hardware in the other do you not?

Comparing a top of the line super expensive super high TDP laptop setup against a top of the line super expensive super high TDP desktop setup is more fair imo.  Both setups are going to be extremely rare because of their obscene costs and TDP.  Decent 980m laptops start at around $2,200.  You could build a good single GTX 980 desktop for half that much easily.  Not exactly a fair comparison.  If we're going to assess how far behind laptop processing power is and you insist on using the most absurd over the top laptop setup possible (that almost no one can afford and is extremely impractical to use in a portable manner) for your comparison than I insist on doing the same for desktops.  That is only fair.  But there are other ways we could do this comparison.  If we go by average GPUs used instead laptops would be 5+ years behind since a much larger portion of desktops are used for gaming than laptops and as a result most laptops run off of terrible integrated graphics.  If we go by price same thing.  At any price range typical desktop configurations are way ahead.  If we go by model numbers things get a bit better but that's not entirely fair due to the tremendous difference in price among other things.  For example you can expect a midrange desktop to have a "midrange" graphics card but a midrange laptop likely won't even have discrete graphics.  You typically need to get up into the $900+ high end laptop models before you even start to see laptops with "midrange" gpus.  If we go by max possible specs then we arrive at the situation that I proposed.  Which properly factors in the advantage that desktops have to easily chain together many high TDP GPUs.  Something that is very difficult for laptop manufacturers to do due to the limitations of that platform.

[DatKid20]

Your argument almost makes sense except 980m laptops aren't the highest you can go. 980m sli does exist.

[NaturalViolence]

I couldn't find any on newegg *shrugs*. Fine, compare those then. The same argument can be made and still works. The desktop setup would still have a peak throughput around 3x as high and under real world conditions around 2x the performance. Which is about 3 years behind. As in a top of the line desktop from 2011 with quad sli GTX 580s would be about the same speed. This is pretty consistent across most price ranges. As you go higher up the price chain the difference in performance actually shrinks. Towards the bottom end it's more like a 5 year difference which is why I originally said 3-5 years.

Edit:
I'm curious what the battery life is like on a system with dual 980m (200 watt TDP from the GPUs alone). And what the power supply looks like to be able to cope with that. And the cooling system, my god. It's either got to be huge and heavy or very loud to cope with that TDP. At that point imo you might as well just get a desktop. The cheapest system I could find was $2,650.

[AnyOldName3]

I glanced at an MSI thing the other day, and it said it only actually ran its 980m at full power if it was plugged in and well charged. I know MSI aren't necessarily the best for laptops, but you're basically left with a desktop in this one case.