I got accepted to a four year college and was wondering if I should get something more mobile when I come home for vacation. I might live off campus or dorm. I will be traveling on plane, bus, or car ride. It 16 hours away from my current location were my family lives. I don't like laptops for gaming but don't know if I want to lug around my fractal design r4 (I love that case). I was thinking about doing a Bitfenix prodegy so I could just carry it around on the plane or though in the back of the car. Also want to lower my luggage load. Any advice? I am 24 and would like some insight or experience. I need power for gaming and want to run them on mostly max setting for upcoming titles. I will be studying biology ecology and biodiversity and will be getting a certificate in bioinformatics if you guys wanted to know. If I get a laptop I will be getting a $1500 ish for price.
Don't know my course load. But I will be bringing my PS4 and PC (Depending what I pick for PC). I am pretty much a avid gamer. Play everyday on my spare time. I know the power difference I will get and that is why I am thinking micro or mini atx. I am satisfied with my build right now and really have no need to upgrade other then for selfish reasons. I will be traveling probably once or twice a semester but don't want to leave my gaming rig for someone to steal at the school.
You have plenty of options. The Define R4 is a terrific case, but yes, a smaller build might save you some headaches. Gaming laptops are fun, but you really have a lot more flexibility with a desktop build, and small form factor builds are a much more viable option for gamers than they used to be.
If your primary use-case is gaming, micro-ATX will meet the needs of all but the most demanding builders. There are plenty of motherboard and case options to choose from. However, getting an mATX case on a plane can be tricky, certainly if you want to carry it on and fit it into an overhead compartment. Although I have transported ATX systems by checking them in luggage under the plane before, you are really taking a huge risk by doing so, and I wouldn't recommend it.
This is where Mini-ITX becomes more attractive (is that what you meant by "Mini ATX", perhaps?). There are some truly tiny mITX cases out there that can house a decent set of high-powered components and fit into a carry-on suitcase. The Prodigy is on the extreme large end of the spectrum, and I'd wager that you would find it hard to carry on an airplane, although car or bus travel should be fine. Additionally, having built in the Prodigy, I personally found it to be quite heavy, a bit wobbly, and the plastic handles can actually cut into your hands if you're lugging a system around a lot. For a truly portable system, I'd look at something more like Fractal's Node 202 or Node 304, Silverstone's RVZ02, or the Cooler Master Elite 130. These are all well-regarded SFF enclosures that are both easy to transport and fit many standard components. I love my Ncase M1, but for your needs and travel frequency, it would be hard to justify the expense. I'm assuming you've seen Logan's Colugo build from a couple of years ago? You could squeeze a pretty powerful system into an enclosure like that one, but you'd probably have to replace almost all of your parts, and you'd need a very short graphics card (boo).
With mATX, you can very often just chuck in whatever components you like and not worry about it too much, but with tiny mITX cases you often have to check the dimensions and thermals very carefully. Which is more important to you, flexibility or portability? What components are in your current build? Crucially, do you need more than one PCIe slot for e.g. SLI / CF?
It's pretty broad reaching, all the way from 200 to infinity, of course not ever needs the power of a desktop exactly, but it's advantages are pretty large
Ya, for either or. Maybe more wiggle room. I know I will probably be ditching the laptop after about 2 years after and maybe the "portable" desktop because I will be wanting a beast that can hold everything I need and more.
I want to to be able to play at 60 frames for all games I though at it. Enough room for a decent but preferably lark GPU (that sounds naughty lol). I want to make sure I am not noticing the difference when I am using it compared to my current build. My spending limit will be 1500 or a bit more.
For the longest time I've had a respectable desktop pc and an okay laptop for travel. I would remote in if I had to do anything demanding. It's an okay way of doing things I suppose. A few months ago I got a laptop with a nvidia geforce gtx 970m, 16 gigs of ram, and a core i7(I forget which one specifically atm) and I'm super happy with it. No more syncing files between machines or forgetting which machine I was working on at the time.
If I'm being productive or if I'm playing a game that requires a more intimate screen like osu I have my station on a desk. When it's time for that badass survival horror game with the scary space monsters I just hook it up to my t.v. via HDMI and BAM! I'm shitting my pants in front of 50 inches of 1080p awesomeness.
I got 16 gb ram, the smallest m.2 ssd (for my OS only) and I had them include just one 500gb hdd and I installed an ssd that I already owned. Thats right! Three hard drives. Tons of features too.
Excluding the cost of the ssd I already had, the computer cost something like 1,450.00 (don't remember the exact number). And! It ships from a state that doesn't have sales tax. Whaaaaat!? My only complaint is that the power brick really is a brick. But from what I've seen all high performance laptops have a brick.
I wanted to get the 17.3 inch version with the sub woofer but I couldn't find a suitable vinyl backpack. I didn't want one of those cheapo clear vinyl backpack's so I settled on the 15.6 laptop. Why vinyl? It repels water.
A laptop isn't going to be super good for gaming, but you shouldn't be spending a lot of time gaming anyways. I'd probably say get a laptop so you're less tempted to game.
Up until college, a lot of people find education a piece of cake. College will test you academically, and its super expensive and potential future employers will look at your GPA and unless there is super high demand for your degree, you will never get a job for your degree if you don't have a high GPA. If there is 1 time to work hard in your life, its college. When you aren't studying, you should be "networking" meeting and befriending people. While gaming can be social inside of a college and i wouldn't say don't game at all. If you currently in the habit of gaming frequently, that habit should be broken.
Most of what you said was true, but I've yet to have anyone ask to see a report card... and also my gaming laptop is the pimpness! I play all my games on maxed out settings. The only gaming issue I have had is controller compatibility. Got me Xbox 1 controller and the wireless dongle, problem solved.
Gaming laptops can be a good solution, as long as you won't mind not being able to upgrade after a couple of years. It's certainly the most portable option.
Thanks for posting your specs. If you do decide to go with a SFF desktop, here are a couple of ways you could go.
This one uses as many of your current parts as possible, and crams them into a tiny mITX case. You wouldn't lose any gaming power compared to your current setup, and you could slip this one into a backpack. Plus, you'd have enough money left over to nab yourself a very nice laptop for taking to class.
This one keeps your CPU, RAM, storage, and PSU, but upgrades everything else in an mATX case. It's still portable, but significantly bulkier than the Cruiser, and more expensive, but this will absolutely smash the performance you're getting now, and keep you going for years to come. Overclocking, G-Sync, 4K--bring it on.
EDIT: Theoretically, you could use a swifttech 120mm or 140mm kit and get a block for the nano and watercool the whole thing, but I don't like the idea of water in a portable pc. That is just me though.