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Topinio wrote:

Interesting, I've learned something.

Now not sure what the point of Intel limiting their laptop CPUs to 45 W is when NVIDIA are slapping 125 W GPUs in laptops.

Where do the performance increases come from?

@Chrispy_ um, yes they do. Well, technically 47W . Actually a quick check shows that Skylake is back to 45W. Why Intel cannot pick a number and stick with it. Makes my semi-OCD act up.


The reason to cap the CPU power and uncap the GPU power is that raising the CPU from 47W --> 100W won't give you very much performance in games compared to raising the GPU from 50W to 100W.

Case in point, the 980M, about a 100W GPU I believe. Maybe a little over. It performs in most games it generally performs close to and in many cases over twice the performance of the 960m when paired with the same CPU.

Moving from a 45W Skylake to a 91W skylake in a laptop realistically won't increase your performance in most games a significant amount. Personally, I tend to play a lot of RTS and CPU-bound games so it would be a good choice.

Topinio wrote:

:roll: at which point you have an expensive desktop with a relatively tiny screen, built-in UPS and probably annoying keyboard.

Which is luggable but harder to service and will most likely die earlier.

The price of portability!

Most gaming laptops sold are under $1500 to my knowledge. At the point where getting a separate laptop that is as high quality (I choose to believe people buying gaming laptops do need portability) and a desktop results in lower performance. Even though the gaming laptop might not be optimal if you're going to be unplugged for a long time.

For about $1200-1300 now a 970m (~GTX 960 I believe) can be had with a good 1080p display.

To get that on a separate laptop + desktop you're looking at least $600 for a laptop with a good screen.
Than at least $100 for a decent desktop screen
Than $600 for a desktop.

You won't get something much faster than a 970m generally speaking.

So you now have a laptop that probably has lower build quality and a worse screen-- but lighter and better battery life
A desktop that has a monitor which is potentially slower than the gaming laptop.