Cost of Gaming Desktops vs. Laptops
Winner: Tie. A custom desktop is cheapest, but that’s before the display and peripherals.
You can't compare a laptop with a 1660 Ti Max-Q versus a desktop with a 1660 Ti. Those two cards are not even close in performance, despite Nvidia's deceptive naming scheme suggesting otherwise. The desktop 1660 Ti is over 30% faster than the laptop "Max-Q" variant, which isn't even as fast as a 1650 SUPER, a card that can be had for as little as $160. The desktop 1660 Ti even outperforms a laptop 2060, let alone the lower-powered 2060 Max-Q. And since graphics hardware will tend to affect gaming performance more than anything else, you should make a point of matching that more than anything. A closer comparison might be between a desktop with a 1660 SUPER versus a laptop with a 2060, or between a desktop with a 1650 SUPER versus a laptop with a 1660 Ti Max-Q.
And even on the other hardware, a desktop i5-9400 outperforms a 9300H by a decent margin. Even an $85 Ryzen 1600 AF should be a better processor for gaming than that. It seems like the article was going out of its way to prove a point that the desktop would cost just as much as a gaming laptop once you add peripherals, when that's really not the case if you actually attempt to match performance. This build should match or exceed the performance of that $1,050 laptop, while coming in at around $600...
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($85.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($72.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($72.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 660p 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($72.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB OC Video Card ($159.99 @ B&H)
Case: Phanteks P300 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ B&H)
Total: $613.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-11 18:55 EDT-0400
I went with a better PSU, but one could arguably cheap out on that like the article did to save another $25 or so. A lot of people may have a monitor and peripherals already, but those wouldn't cost much to add if needed. A 24" 1080p monitor can be had for as little as $100, or a 21.5" model for even less. And even a $20 keyboard will likely be as good for gaming as whatever the laptop has. As for a mouse, you'll need one for the laptop as well, since gaming on a trackpad isn't going to be practical. The same goes for speakers or headphones, since the one's built into a laptop are generally not particularly good. Who doesn't have headphones though?
Even if we figure in the cost of a Windows license from a proper retailer, the desktop would still be over $200 less, while providing a slightly better gaming experience. And of course, if we put that $200 toward the system, we could move up from a 1650 SUPER to something like a 2060 SUPER or 5700 XT, cards that will be around twice as fast. To claim that a gaming desktop would cost as much as a gaming laptop once peripherals are added in is a bit silly, when such a desktop would be running demanding games roughly twice as well.
There really should be a standard 9 inch by 12 inch by 1 inch notebook PC frame, and a standard notebook PC system-board form factor that would allow anyone to put together their own BYO notebook PC.
The problem is, different components will have different cooling requirements. What might work fine for cooling a low-end gaming laptop probably won't for a higher-end model. That's why higher-powered gaming laptops tend be rather bulky, making them a bit impractical from a portability standpoint. And non-gaming laptops would need less cooling still. You also have things like the size of the battery that can change depending on the needs of the system. The main advantage of laptops is that they are portable, but to make the system as portable as possible, you ideally need to build it around the components that it's intended to be used with.
If your power goes out your PC just sits there while your laptop will run for maybe 8 hours on battery.
Except you might not have internet access unless your router and modem are on battery backup as well, and in the case of gaming laptops, you probably won't be gaming on battery power for more than an hour before the battery runs down. If you just want to use it to browse the web or do other desktop tasks, you don't need a gaming laptop for that.
In my opinion, most people looking for a gaming PC would probably be better off with a desktop. If they want a laptop for taking with them places for non-gaming tasks, then they can get something like a thin and light 2-in-1 with the money saved, which should be a lot more portable, and will generally offer better run-time. So, better performance for gaming when at home, and better portability when on the go, rather than a single system that does kind of a mediocre job at both.
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