I’ve been building PCs for 20 years — trust me, buy a gaming laptop instead

[WhatTheActual]

I don't think you're really on the bright side dude... May want to find another hobby.

 

[Roland Moore-Colyer]

I can't talk for Dave here, but I can say at Tom's Guide we write about our personal experiences and this is his take. PC gaming has and almost certainly always will be, nuanced. What works for one person won't work for another.

And the wider array of knowledge needed for troubleshooting some PC errors, means some people know things others don't and vice versa; no one knows everything. For example, I've also got a reasonable amount of PC knowledge but found my PC kept crashing after a perfectly normal Windows reinstall; turns out I had to re-seat the RAM to get a steady boot, so a bizarre hardware problem from a software task.

As for gaming laptops, Dave and everyone else knows a laptop won't match the power of a desktop. But ever since Nivida came out with the Pascal architecture, the gap has narrowed a lot (modern gaming laptops are generally excellent for 1440p gaming at solid refresh rates). I'm talking about real-world fps/gaming experiences, not benchmarks or pure numbers. Speaking from experience, I have a gaming laptop, which, while dated now, kept up with most games for at least 5 years. Add in a very good G-Sync panel, and at the time for £1,300, I couldn't get much more from a desktop for the same price.

Sure, gaming laptops are expensive, but then so are PC parts at the moment. And there's the added issue of tricky support and warranties with DIY rigs. Yes, you can go pre-built but they are also hugely pricey (I write this with a $4,000 RTX 4090 machine beside me). If something goes wrong with a laptop, decent warranties and support can have them fixed or repaired rather quickly.

So buying a laptop that has more than enough power for pretty much any game (especially when optimization not power seems to be the problem for PC gaming right now), as well as throwing in a high refresh rate display and the ability to actually easily move it at a moment's notice, is a perfectly fair thing to do. If it wasn't Asus, Acer MSI and others wouldn't be selling them.

I get that it won't suit everyone, and there's a hardcore DIY PC gaming community that won't trust pre-built desktops let alone laptops. But again, everyone's experience will vary, and some people just want to sit down and play a game, with the benefits of Steam and so on, without needing to dig into BIOSes etc.

 

[johnadamturbo]

Gaming laptops are the worst. Theyre not upgradable and go out of date within a month of purchase. They're overly expensive and you can buy a better built PC for less. I have 3 custom PCs in my house and the only one with issues is the one my teenage son uses. Sorry but this is a you issue, you need to study more before trying to slap parts in

 

[Roland Moore-Colyer]

On top of all this you're a staff member on a tech site exposing your lack of experience to your employer. I suggest you remove this before you're fired, i'd fire you for this. Toms guide lost creditablity over this. Just read the comments.

This isn't how jobs work. Dave has plenty of experience and this is an issue anyone can fall foul of. Tom's Guide is aimed at a general audience, not specialists (you may be thinking of Tom's Hardware) so our job is to flag and offer stories on things people could encounter, not just cater to a hardcore PC building community.

 

[Roland Moore-Colyer]

EVERYTHING YOU SAID IS WRONG.

Weird how you've done this for "20 years" and can tell people "buy a gaming laptop instead". from reading this article you clearly need to reinstall windows on your BOOT DRIVE, if you use your pc for work, have 20 years experience, and dont think to back up your work once in a while, you should have known better.. it's in the errors name dude.. I only have 4 years experience. I bought a gaming laptop in 2021 after building my first gaming desktop in 2020= 4770/2060 desktop. To a Razer 10i7/3070 laptop.. If anything happen to a laptop you have to throw away the whole thing wasting $2000+ and laptop gpus use only a percentage of the same wattage when it works. My 3070 only has 1/4 the power of a desktop 3070. I paid more and got less out of a laptop, laptops are for lazy folk who dont care about power or longevity, once its out dated, its a paper weight. I also can't clean out the internal dust in my laptop unless I completely take it apart. I since "upgraded" to a desktop I built again, 11 series i5 and a 2080 super gpu, 32gb@3200hz. My drive did the same thing yours did, I reinstalled windows on my m.2 and it's now back perfect. You wrote a whole article show all of us who know what we're doing, that you didn't know what you were doing. Today's computers are easier to put together than Legos. This same exact problem can happen on a laptop harddrive. It's a HARDDRIVE issue. Laptop and desktop both use them. I think you ment you have 20 years experience gaming on computers, because if you've spent 20 years installing windows, and actually putting them together regularly this article wouldnt exist over a harddrive error nor would you be suggesting a underpowered and overpriced gaming laptop to everyone.

Laptop RTX 3070 is about 30% slower, not 75%, than the desktop RTX 3070, as seen here: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-3070-Laptop-vs-Nvidia-RTX-3070/m1445007vs4083

 

[Roland Moore-Colyer]

Seeing a poorly thought out, poorly researched article like this on my feed makes me not trust TH as much. Click bait, or people literally shilling bad product? Every gaming laptop is good when you get it for free, and they're especially good when you don't have to daily drive them for 5+ years.

This is Tom's Guide pal, not Tom's Hardware.

 

[Roland Moore-Colyer]

Tom's guide used to be a pc enthusiast and supporter of the community. After reading this article, think what remained is just the name. Author, despite 20 years of questionable exlerience, during which he most probably build just those two pcs, is as skilled at pc building as unfamous experts hosting PC building video guides for the Verge. In addition he's total snowflake and whiner with an urge to share with his first world problem and stupid solution supported by foul arguments with us. Article is pure insult to all and every PC enthusiast reader, becase author wasted our time making us read this pile of half-truth statements or pure bolocks.
PC building is at faukt because:
Author does not back up at regular basis
Author is uncapable of doing his homework before attempting to install new components
Author is uncapabke of updating BIOS when he finaly finds out he needed one step before this one
Author is uncapable of using google
Author is uncapable of fixing his own mess

These bollocks are pure gold:
"At least this SSD-ruining experience has taught me one thing: laptop gaming rules." - No, it's not
"Oh, and playing games from the comfort of my sofa, rather than a spine-pummelling office chair? Bliss." - this is a blatant lie. Any office chair with even basic lumbar support will do much better than any couch. Not mentioning
tons of dust introduced into the suffocating fans resulting in cooling problems, sweaty lap is a cherry on top

What hes gonna do when his allmighty laptop will need dedusting? Write an article whining about hot laptop urging readers to move to tables or promote tossing it away and buying a new one?

Please, dear author, leave our community and return to your ps2 where you belong.
QQ

You're thinking of Tom's Hardware. Tom's Guide has always been a generalist site. Also, it's "incapable."

 

[hashsnob]

After my expensive rig broke yet again, my eyes have been newly opened to the delights of laptop gaming.

I’ve been building PCs for 20 years — trust me, buy a gaming laptop instead : Read more

It's not really a good look for a Tomsguide employee to be so bad at.. ya know.. computer stuff

 

[COLGeek]

This thread has run its course. Thank you to all who contributed.

As a reminder, civility and respect is required by all. Even if you disagree with someone.