I am back to gaming after nearly 10 years now. My current laptop is an Asus Rog Zephyrus G.

The specs are an AMD Ryzen 3750h, 1660ti max-q, and 16gb of RAM. Pleased with my purchase as the battery life is stellar. I get nearly 9 plus hours for office work.

Pretty much all my games run well on very high/ultra except for RDR2. I have a decade of gaming to catch up on so I can live with that.

I used to have similar experience with desktops, but I admit it might be different today. I dunno, maybe all the port and connector standards on motherboards etc. stay the same longer nowadays. Or maybe the upgrade options on desktops is more meaningful to those who upgrade components (like CPUs and GPUs) much more often, trying to constantly stay on the bleeding edge.

I never e.g. replaced a CPU on a motherboard. By the time I felt I wanted a new CPU, the newer CPUs usually seemed to require a different kind of CPU socket and motherboard. Buying a new motherboard would usually allow using some faster and more advanced RAM too.

Once, my power supply got fried so I went to buy a new one and replaced it... only to learn at that point that it used a different kind of power supply connector than my motherboard. So, apparently the "power supply motherboard connector"-standard had changed in the meantime, and my older motherboard had the old obsolete connector. However, I did find and buy some kind of adapter so that I could use the new power supply on that motherboard.

GPU (graphics card) is one that I once upgraded to an existing desktop.

So, yeah, by the time I usually felt like replacing my CPU and/or GPU to faster ones, I felt it made more sense to buy a whole new desktop PC, with a new motherboard, RAM and case. Mouse, keyboard and maybe the monitor may have been the ones I kept with the new PC, sometimes not even them.

LOL, you're over thinking it. It's mostly that they're expensive. If gaming laptops were the same price as comparable desktops, most gamers would have one*.


*Not necessarily as their primary machine.

I don't think anyone has suggested that desktop PCs wouldn't offer more power per buck. Laptop gamers are obviously willing to pay some extra (and/or stay at a lower performance level) for the portability.

That said, I've been a bit surprised lately that... me buying a gaming desktop instead of a laptop, wow it doesn't seem that cheap after all. Like, when I am targetting to some 8-core Ryzen processor gaming machine with a pretty capable mid-level GPU like RTX 2060, we are still talking about 1500-2000€ prices, especially if one is to include the price of a monitor and Windows 10 license to the price.

https://www.jimms.fi/fi/Product/Tietokoneet

So to me it doesn't necessarily appear that desktop gaming is cheaper... but that you do get extra power for that 1500-2000€ you have to invest to the gaming PC, mainly because desktop CPUs and GPUs run at higher frequencies than their laptop counterparts.

Also one has to take into account that there seems to be a very great variance in (gaming) laptop prices. Many people seem to think a capable gaming laptop always costs like 3000€ or so, but my experience with those ultra-expensive gaming laptops tends to be that you are mostly paying extra for everything else but extra power, like that the laptop is thinner, has a cooler look/design etc.

My target price for my next 8-core (Ryzen) CPU gaming laptop with something like RTX 2060 GPU is 1500€, or less. This price obviously includes the "monitor" (laptop screen) and the Windows 10 Home license.


As for the suggestion by many that one has both a gaming desktop, and a gaming laptop... to me that sounds the most expensive solution, UNLESS this always includes the idea that the laptop is some silly 300€ student laptop that can barely play any games at all. If I buy a capable 1500€ gaming desktop PC, and a 1500€ mid-range gaming laptop... that's the combined price of 3000€. Sure it would be sweet to have both, but then maybe I would spend that 3000€ to an even better, first class gaming laptop?

If price was all that mattered to me, I guess I should save up for a 300-500€ gaming console (depending if I'd buy current gen, or next gen, console).

I think I've found the (gaming) laptop where I have no real reservations to buy, even right now: XMG Core 15 (AMD).

https://www.xmg.gg/en/xmg-core-15-amd

Two days ago I saw this video (Eluktronics RP-15):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psb85kok_3Q

However, I was dismayed to find out that is only sold in America apparently... but then in the comments I saw it mentioned that XMG Core 15 is basically the same machine for the EU market. I also saw this video which is kinda interesting (the same XMG Core 15 system AMD vs Intel):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x8SAAk_J4c

I checked yesterday how much it would cost, and when I set up a sweet configuration like:

Geforce RTX 2060
32GB of 3200MHz RAM
1 TB SSD
(No operating system)

It costs like 1652€ including tax and delivery, which is pretty much in the upper limit I am willing to pay for a gaming PC. Now I am heavily considering this. That latter video also showed that this laptop does have design decisions I like, like that it uses the metal chassis as a big heatsink to cool down e.g. the SSD inside (the heat from the hot components are partly moved to the metal chassis).

If I wasn't currently considering buying also a new car (electric car possibly), I'd already put an order for that XMG laptop. The only little drawback I can find is that the laptop screen does not support gsync, but I guess I could live with that, and you still get gsync when using an external monitor with it (that supports it).

Two questions remain:

1. XMG offers either 2666 or 3200MHz RAM. Do gaming systems, including laptops, benefit much from the faster RAM? Selecting faster RAM (for 32GB) is merely 39€ extra, but is it worth even that?

2. I didn't select Windows because it is quite pricey (close to 100€ for Win 10 Home), comes with an installation DVD. Doesn't Microsoft offer cheaper pre-installed Windows licenses anymore, or what would be the cheapest legit way to get Windows 10 Home?

XMG offers "Preinstallation Microsoft Windows 10 Home (without licence)", what the heck does that mean? Do I have to buy a 10 Home license for that separately, and how much would that cost then?

Nice that they offer the option to buy the laptop without any OS (in case I install e.g. Linux on it instead for free), but I am unsure how to get Windows 10 Home cheaply separately.

EDIT: Still time to ponder, the XMG is not available now, as in now-now, but availability is expected to mid-October. Oh ok, I am not in a hurry, but keeping my eye on this one for sure.

Don't US laptops have any warranty? E.g. that XMG laptop in EU has 2 or 3 year warranty.

I've had the cooling fans on my laptop go bad only twice so far. Like about 10-15 years ago I had an IBM ThinkPad T40 or T41 as my work laptop, and as it aged, yeah its single fan stopped working, but it was quite an old laptop at that point.

Also, on my ASUS ROG G75VW gaming laptop, which is now over 8 years old I think, one of the two fans started giving extra sounds like two years ago (after using the laptop for over 5 years almost daily, bringing it with me to Thailand and who knows where), so I ordered replacement fans online and changed them myself, before the fan(s) would stop working altogether. The fans were quite cheap IIRC, changing the fans was a bit of work as I had to remove both the lid and the keyboard to remove the fans, but it was still fully doable. That system still works great with the new fans.

I see in many newer laptops the fans are easier to replace, accessible even without removing the keyboard. So at least for some laptops things have progressed in maintenance as well.

I am now writing this message on a cheapo ancient Acer EMachines G730ZG laptop (running Linux Mint XFCE 20 and Windows XP), and its fan seems to be still working fine even though this laptop is like 10 years old, and was a cheap model back when it was bought. Even its integrated keyboard still seems to work fine, even though it is a cheapo unresponsive keyboard (I wouldn't want to write a novel with it, but use an external (wireless or USB) keyboard instead).

I opened this EMachines up a couple of years ago for the first time, just to clean its innards. To my surprise there wasn't much of any dust inside, there was really not much at all to clean. (Same can't be said about the ASUS G75VW, it certainly needed a proper dust-off when I opened it up.)

I dunno, maybe I am just lucky I guess.

1. Yes, but AMD a lot more than Intel. If AMD, definitely go for the faster RAM.
2. See PM.

If you're not in a hurry, I'd wait for Nvidia's new GPUs (October?).

For people who can't or don't want to install Windows themselves. And yes, there's no license involved.

Not sure if they are bringing anything for laptop gamers though?

I am targetting for a RTX 2060 gaming laptop because according to several reviews, it seems 2070 or 2080 don't offer that much extra ooomph on gaming laptops (over 2060) because the laptop makers won't or can't give enough power to those faster GPUs due the thermal throttling, or something. Desktop GPUs don't have the same issue as there is more room for extra cooling (nowadays a desktop graphics cards seem to have more fans than a whole dual-fan gaming laptop, LOL).

So in essence, the power disparity between mobile and desktop GPUs is much wider with RTX 2070 and 2080, than it is with 2060. On laptops, currently 2060 seems to be in the sweet spot with the price/performance ratio, as far as I can tell. That must be why so many RTX 2060 gaming laptops get so good reviews for good price/performance ratio, including XMG Core 15 AMD.

Maybe Geforce will slash the price of RTX 2060 when they introduce the new GPUs, so yeah I might be able to save some money by waiting. That has been always true though. It seems I will not be buying (or at least getting) the XMG before mid-October anyway.

I'm sure that's true for some laptops, but not all. You'd need to read reviews/benchmarks for each model (always a good idea in general).

Of course they will! It just depends on how long you're willing to wait.

EDIT: ok you answered the question about cheap Windows 10 in PM.

This whole Windows licensing model and whatnot sometimes makes my head spin. At work earlier this week, one of our clients needed two Windows 10 Enterprise (virtual) machines, and since our primary Windows-guy was on summer vacation, I got to do it (I mainly maintain Linux systems nowadays, occasionally Windows).

Ok so I figure I make one system, clone it to the other system, and then validate both separately as I wasn't sure what would happen if I validate the first system and then clone it to the other system. Do MS validation servers give a hissy fit if I do that?

Anyways, I finish one Windows 10 Enterprise installation from a DVD image, don't validate it, and then I learn hey I can't just freely clone these machines like I can with Linux virtual machines, but I have to "sysprep" the system because otherwise the cloned systems may somehow clash with each other and blaa blaa blaa.

Well, sysprep failed, it just wouldn't finish correctly. After lots of googling, I find out that if the Windows 10 system has any Windows Store applications installed, sysprep WILL fail. Something to do that sysprep requires that all applications are registered to all users, which is what Windows Store applications are not...

Trying to find an easy solution, I ended up installing both systems separately from ground up instead of cloning them, without having to use that damn sysprep. Slow clap to Microsoft, making their own sysprep tool fail with Windows Store. Apparently some Windows update had installed some Windows Store apps before I ran sysprep.

Anyway, the next problem was that the key which was supposed to be for Enterprise, turned the virtual machines into Windows 10 Pro machines. Oh, nice. Someone was finally able to get the Enterprise key for me so that I could finish the ordeal.

This reminded me why I rather administer Linux systems at work... No sysprep, no registration, no nothing.

I sent you a private message about it.

OEM still exists and is locked to one single piece of hardware (the motherboard, I think).

I don't find that Youtube review for now which discussed this more in detail, across all gaming laptops. It just seems to be the case overall, even when talking about the higher-wattage non-MaxQ variants of 2070 and 2080.

I stay away from them for now, unless someone shows me a cheap 2070/2080 gaming laptop. :)

I would be fine with that, if it is considerably cheaper. Not sure why XMG is not offering such OEM option, apparently.

For instance, even if my ASUS G75VW had an option to transfer its license (which is eligible for both Windows 7 and Windows 10 Pro) to another PC, I still wouldn't want to transfer it at least not until that laptop dies for good. I still intend to use that (either with Windows 7 or 10) even if I buy a new PC/laptop.

I guess the transferrable license is more relevant to desktop users who have room only for one desktop that they keep upgrading (or replacing), and maybe laptop users who either use their old laptop until it totally dies before buying a new one, or tend to replace the Windows with e.g. Linux on their old laptop.

I guess "cheap" is the reason here.

AFAIK, retail Win7 licenses turn into OEM Win10 licenses when using the free upgrade.

Ok, but I guess my Win7 license was also OEM as it was preloaded on the ASUS, and I didn't get an installation media. In fact, I was supposed to make an USB recovery media from which I could "reinstall" Windows 7 to that specific system, if needed.

Then again, I found out that I can also clean install Windows 7 from a DVD and then activate with the Win7 key that is on a sticker on that laptop. Not sure if that activation would work on another PC.

You don't need the recovery media or physical DVD, you can just download the ISO:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7
(better than recovery, because no pre-installed bloatware)

OEM, once activated, doesn't work on another PC.