Anyone here have an ITX and gaming laptop

Like the title says if you have both, why and what do you prefer? I'm trying to decide to upgrade or keep what I have and build an ITX.

 

The desktop PC in my signature is an ITX motherboard inside a Fractal Design Define Nano S case. I do most of my computing at home on it. It also serves as the host for streaming to the Steam Link in my living room. The Lenovo Y545 is mostly for content consumption when I want to do so on the couch or in bed. I only really play games on it when I'm on the road, which is not often.

 

Sort of yes?

7700k + RTX2070 in a small ITX case (moving back to a nice and chunky Ncase M1 in a month, though).
XPS 15 i5 + GTX1650

Not really a gaming laptop, but I do use both for gaming (SC2 Coop and Apex Legends). Tried Fortnite once, but I didn't really like it.

 

This is easy for me. I prefer my ITX desktop because:

1. I can completely customize every component to my special demands. It's all modular, from screen to motherboard to GPU. Not so with my laptop.

2. Much higher performance in gaming, applications, and all benchmarks.

3. It's cheaper to build a gaming desktop than purchase a gaming laptop, and I don't have to worry if something breaks.

I've recently made the decision to get rid of my gaming laptop in favor of a cheaper laptop without dGPU. The only area where a desktop is inferior is portability.

FYI my desktop specs are i5-4690K, GTX 1060 3GB, 1080P monitor.

 

I very recently (the last 2 weeks) switched back to a desktop from a gaming laptop (Alienware 15) and I much prefer it honestly.

I originally had the laptop because I needed to move it around, now I don't and it was just sitting on or under my desk all the time.

If you aren't moving it around don't bother with a laptop. Laptops run hotter, slower, aren't at all modular from any significant performance standpoint (RAM + HD), so if you don't need the portability theres no need to live with those drawbacks imo.

As far as keeping both I think the same answer applies, if you don't need portability might as well sell the laptop and put whatever you get for it towards a desktop.

 

Personally, I like to have (at least) two PC's.
One low-power high-efficiency desktop/notebook/laptop for general usage. And another desktop/notebook/laptop only for gaming.

I use my under-volted laptop with GTX 1050 as a general usage desktop which runs 24/7. The low power consumption (especially at idle) is fantastic.
For gaming, I am "building" a micro-ATX desktop PC which will only be for gaming and as a backup if/when my laptop stops working.
The reason I choose micro-ATX instead of ITX is because there are a lot more micro-ATX motherboards and the price is less, sometimes much less.

 

I have one those zotac zbox with a 7500t cpu and 1070 and laptop. I see zbox hooked up to a TV in the living room to watch movies when I am at home but I use the laptop for the road.

 

Have multiple ones,
Laptop: Thinkpad P52 (with Quadro P3200 (performance between 1066 and 1070)), M6700 (with RGB LED IPS panel and quadro P5000m/ GTX 980m)
Laptop & eGPU: X1 tablet and Razor Core v2 +GTX 1080 ti
Small PC/HTPC: Asrock deskmini Z370 with i9 9900 and GTX 1080
itx build: Fractal design Node 202 with X370 itx, R7 1700x and GTX 1080 ti, been put the same build in A4-SFX

Quick comment:
1. There are situations where Laptops are irreplacable. However if winbugs 10 means a lot of suffering to you, you might wanna reconsider this option. As upgrading from old laptop is very tricky and cost inefficient.
2. mini-PCs are very awkward, while being smaller than the smallest itx build, they are very niche and cost inefficient.There are situations where they plays well. But not many.
3. ITX build, it gets tricky. The smaller you go the more cost inefficient and awkward it gets. usually one would not expect to spend over $200 on heatsink and case. But for itx build as small as RVZ/FD202 and AM4 ports you are looking at ~$150, or $200+ with AM4. As for A4-SFX we all know how costly that is.

Which one do I prefer? If not taking winbugs 10 into account then I'd definitely vote for laptop. There are situations where a RTX 2070 laptop is more useful than RTX 2080 ti itx build
If your budget is as tight as your desired volume of the PC and you have some requirement for performance, then maybe go for those slightly larger itx build.
If you are aiming for some ultra compact itx build then you'd better forget about those 95W or above CPUs. And only go for those with LGA115x holes (that includes the new ASRock X570 itx motherboard)

 

I used to have a laptop only but once I started to do heavy work on it I was left without a PC to use specially if I did video render work.
So I got a desktop, and then I started gaming on the desktop the plan was to only use the desktop for video work but it having Vega 56 and my laptop having 1060, the choice for gaming was obvious and then I started to remember why I used to love PC's back in the day when I was a kid with consoles and then I got my first desktop PC that was built for gaming, never looked back.

Playing games is just vastly better on a desktop, better performance, cheaper to own in general, cheaper to upgrade, VASTLY EASIER to upgrade, way better keyboard and monitor as you can buy whatever you want and plug them in.
My desktop is not very big, its basically a Raven chassis with ITX board but guess what, it works I even overclocked my Ryzen and Vega to stupid levels and while it heats my room up nice and cosy I never found myself utilising the mobility of my gaming laptop, in my 7 years of owning one, I never ever got much use of "gaming" on the move, as in take it with you wherever you go and play on it when you bored such as when you travel.

For one it was heavy and cumbersome and secondly I prefer to travel light and I mostly had better stuff to do when I was travelling than to sit down and play.

The only legit use I could see the need for a laptop if you travel and live there for a few weeks or months or you need something powerful for work related tasks and gotta carry it with you, laptop gaming is pretty idiotic if you got space for a desktop and rarely move it around, just do not bother, get an ITX desktop is my word of advice.

And specially today gaming laptops are just moronic, too overpriced, they are still heavy and those who are not heavy throttle because well its thin, and the fact that upgrading these days is, lets just say PRICEY thanks to a certain GPU manufacturer.
You be better off just buying an entire new laptop cause new MXM GPU's costs literally half their price.

 

I run 3 laptops now. My Ranger being my DTR and my T440p being my day to day work machine.

The AW13 R3 has been filling the gap between the two for a while but I may be consolidating in the near future.