Hey everyone, coming here for some advice to hopefully rationalize a decision I'm trying to make for an upgrade. Currently running a desktop PC with a 4790K/16GB/980Ti with 2x Dell 27" G-Sync 1440p 144Hz monitors that's getting a bit old (PC in Sig).
I've moved to the south and now work 100% from home using my machine. I've noticed that my office now is a good 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the house, and a kill-a-watt is showing my machine averaging 250W+ under normal circumstances. I've already pushed the CPU back to stock (was running 4.7), adjusted my monitors to 120Hz/60Hz instead of 144/144 as I found my GPU was idling at 1GHz instead of the normal 100-400MHz. I'll push in to the upper 300Ws during gaming. I work IT so do quite a bit of multitasking during the day running multiple applications at once (20-30 chrome/firefox windows, remote software, management consoles, etc...). When I game it's nothing real intense - just League Of Legends, HOTS, SCII.
I've been considering getting a gaming laptop 8750H/16GB/1060 or 1070 which I've seen some deals lately for $600-$700. My thinking is that this machine would still have the power to do my work, and give me 100+ FPS on the games I play, maybe not maxing at 144 while reducing power consumption and heat output. I've also considered building a new desktop PC (SFF) but am thinking that's going to take more power and generate more heat than a comparable laptop and possibly even cost more. That said, I am not 100% sure if newer components in a desktop would be much more heat/power efficient than that I have now. I'm not 100% sure that the high idle clocks on newer cards would be avoided running 2x 1440/144Hz monitors either. It's a real pain to switch refresh manually every time I play a game, then I forget it's turned up for a day or 2.
I also would probably never move the laptop from my desk, and if I did I wouldn't be gaming on it - I would just be using it for normal browsing/office/etc.
Hopefully there are some good suggestions here, and I apologize if this is in the wrong section!
I've moved to the south and now work 100% from home using my machine. I've noticed that my office now is a good 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the house, and a kill-a-watt is showing my machine averaging 250W+ under normal circumstances. I've already pushed the CPU back to stock (was running 4.7), adjusted my monitors to 120Hz/60Hz instead of 144/144 as I found my GPU was idling at 1GHz instead of the normal 100-400MHz. I'll push in to the upper 300Ws during gaming. I work IT so do quite a bit of multitasking during the day running multiple applications at once (20-30 chrome/firefox windows, remote software, management consoles, etc...). When I game it's nothing real intense - just League Of Legends, HOTS, SCII.
I've been considering getting a gaming laptop 8750H/16GB/1060 or 1070 which I've seen some deals lately for $600-$700. My thinking is that this machine would still have the power to do my work, and give me 100+ FPS on the games I play, maybe not maxing at 144 while reducing power consumption and heat output. I've also considered building a new desktop PC (SFF) but am thinking that's going to take more power and generate more heat than a comparable laptop and possibly even cost more. That said, I am not 100% sure if newer components in a desktop would be much more heat/power efficient than that I have now. I'm not 100% sure that the high idle clocks on newer cards would be avoided running 2x 1440/144Hz monitors either. It's a real pain to switch refresh manually every time I play a game, then I forget it's turned up for a day or 2.
I also would probably never move the laptop from my desk, and if I did I wouldn't be gaming on it - I would just be using it for normal browsing/office/etc.
Hopefully there are some good suggestions here, and I apologize if this is in the wrong section!
Last edited: