Gaming Laptop vs Compact PC

[FBastiat]

Hi everyone, my 4 years old laptop is dying and so I am in need of a replacement and come here for some advise. The reason I had a laptop was because I didn't want to have a big tower in my living room. However not being a student anymore daily mobility is not really that important to me. What I hate about laptop is seeing them become obsolete after a few years, being unable to upgrade them and having to throw away the whole thing. For this reason I am looking for a compromise between a bulky full blown desktop pc and a disposable laptop that will provide both a small spatial footprint and be future proof.

Here are the two solutions I am looking at:
1) Gaming laptop with external GPU : Alienware 17 R2. I like the fact that you can use the Graphics Amplifier with a desktop GPU for when the laptop's GPU becomes obsolete. Given its obvious limitations (non-upgradable CPU and PCIe 3.0 x4 cable) I am curious to know what people think of it in terms of future proofing a gaming laptop and upgradability. I know MSI also has a similar Gaming Dock Station but I really don't like the fact you have to use a additional screen and keyboard with it plus the fact that it is only compatible with one laptop model.

2) A custom built compact pc. Since I have little experience building a desktop pc and compact pc are notoriously trickier to build I am leaning toward having this one built by Chillblast. I have never heard of them but they seem to be well regarded. Any other good builders?

What do you guys think? Any alternative I haven't considered?

 

[pr0cl1v1ty]

If you don't need portability, always go with a Desktop build, more "future proof" with better cooling, more room to upgrade stuff, faster components in general.

 

[FBastiat]

That's what I thought. What do you think of this rig?

Aerocool Dead Silence Black and White Gaming Cube Case
Intel Core i5 4690K Haswell Refresh Processor 3.50 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.3GHz)
Corsair Hydro Series H55 Liquid Cooler
Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI M-ITX Motherboard - Haswell CPU only
16GB Corsair/Crucial/Samsung PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 Memory (2 x 8GB sticks)
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Graphics Card
120GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive
Seagate 1000GB SSHD Hybrid Drive
Corsair CX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified PSU
Onboard High Definition Audio
23" Asus VS239HV IPS Widescreen LED Monitor

 

[pr0cl1v1ty]

Great looking build my man!

My Recommendations are as follows.

1) Being that you are wanting to OC, I defiantly think you should go with a 240mm liquid cooler, such as the corsair H105. I have one and with the same CPU as you, pushing a 4.5GHz with 1.26v never going above 55C with BF4 and GTA5 on all ULTRA.

2) I personally think 120GB SSD is too small, your OS will take around 40-60G I believe, and most SSD wont giv you the full 120G, more like 110. So you have 110G - 60G for the OS, leaving 50G for other things, programs / games / etc. Meaning you don't even have room for GTA5 thats over 60G large.