Thinking of upgrading to a laptop or desktop

[rayres]

I currently own a desktop and a laptop and have some questions about upgrade possibilities.

1. I noticed that graphics cards have "CUDA". If I am running a non-graphically intensive game, will these cores in any way enhance the speed of calculations? For example, will the time it takes to process a turn in turn-based strategy games be quicker?

2. I am thinking of replacing both my desktop and my laptop with a new computer. Budget is $5k Canadian. Will a fully-loaded laptop use significantly less power than a desktop that is the same price?

3. I am having trouble finding benchmarks for the following 2 GPUs:

MSI (R9 390X GAMING 8G) AMD Radeon R9 390X 8GB GDDR5 (for my desktop)

Dual 8GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M with G-SYNC (for my laptop).

If I don't plan to run games at greater resolution than 1920 x1080, will the dual GPUs actually make a difference over a single GPU? (and again, would the 2nd GPU's Cuda benefit CPU performance?)

4. I am currently running Windows 7 32-bit on my laptop and desktop. Would 32 GB of high-speed memory dramatically speed up my computer, in addition to the processor, including in games where calculations are done at the end of a turn?

5. The main concern with buying a laptop is that the CPU just isn't as powerful as on a desktop, and I don't want to get behind the technology curve too much. I read that CPUs generally aren't the bottleneck and that a good cache helps me with other bottlenecks. Basically, I am wondering if memory and GPUs will be more important than the speed of the processor. I can get an 8 core processor for a desktop but only a quad-core 4.2 GHz processor with a laptop.

6. Is there a way to tone down the GPUs if I need more battery life? What about switchable graphics cards (in which case I would not have a dual graphics card in my laptop)?

Sorry for the long post.

Rob

 

[popatim]

1: not unless the game has been programmed to use cuda cores. I know of none that use them for calculations.

2 less, yes but that is because the mobile products are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts. a GTX980M[/m] is not the equivalent of a desktop GTX980. not even close.

3: if google cant find them then neither will I

4: not at all. You have 32bit windows which can only address 4 gb of ram. Everything above that will not get used. And before you ask -There is no upgrade path to 64bit windows. it requires a full reinstall.

5: depends on the application. Some are cpu intesnive, some are GPU, some are memory, and some are a combination of the 3.

6: gaming laptops these days usually use the integrated graphics until an application that needs the big gpu runs. This is what switchable graphics is.