New gaming rig or laptop + console

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Well my 3 year old rig has finally bit the dust, giving me the chance to get a new rig. I'm now undecided between building a new system for gaming, or just getting a cheap laptop for work while leaving gaming on the console.

Based on prices here in Singapore, building a new rig will really stretch the 1.5k, considering that 2gigs of decent ram alone will cost about 500, while a gefore 7900 costs around 400. Not to mention other misc stuff. A dell laptop will be less trouble, and i dont have to worry about upgrading either the laptop or console.

So what do you guys think?

 

Depends how much you're ready to spend. Laptops have been going cheaper. You need something to surf the Internet with and something to play games on. I don't really trust consoles and I'd rather be able to patch games easily, so that would be PC for games as well for me.

Therefore, I would buy a laptop with strong graphics, if possible, and skip the console.

 

Depends what sort of games you want to play as well and depends what else you want to do on your PC (like digital videos / music / photos etc).

 

Don't buy it just for 3 years, but something like 6 or 7. Consider this:

LAPTOP:
+ Portable (Internet where you go with WLAN).
+ Decend replacement for a desktop if you don't require too much from the hardware.
- Smaller screens and worse price/quality ratio.

DESKTOP:
+ Can be customized.
+ The best bang for the buck if you know how to choose.
- Stationary.

I would choose desktop if I knew I'm going to work and play at home, but laptop if I were going to travel. Especially useful during month-long trips if you want to stay online and have some fun too. Generally speaking, choose laptop if you aren't tech-savvy and just want to get work done. Or are going to travel a lot. I imagine laptops are harder to break.

Otherwise choose a desktop.

 

But with the amount of money needed to build a powerful laptop, I could build a REALLY spiffy desktop. My old PC has been for work (basic word processing) and gaming.

Right now, the only game I'm looking forward to is neverwinter nights 2, while there are tons of old ps2 games i have yet to play. But I'm also sentimentally attached to a mouse and keyboard...

 

@Mongerman: I had the same problem as you a couple of years ago...i.e choosing between a gaming rig or laptop...I went with the laptop & Console option and I am not fully satisfied with circumstances.

I'm getting rid of my laptop and picking up a gaming rig at the end of the year though...so yeah.

A HUGE issue I had with laptops which I kinda only realised after I'd bought one...is that you can't upgrade a laptop...

2 yrs ago my laptop had this configuration:

P4 3.2 GHz
1 GB DDR 333 MHz RAM
100 GB HDD
ATi Radeon 9800 256 MB
4x DVD RW drive
etc etc...

Only, now I have a load of trouble trying to play Oblivion and NWN2 on my computer because I cant just upgrade my video card!

So definitely take that into consideration...

 

I understand a laptop will always be subpar gaming wise to the desktop, which is why I included the console option to take care of gaming needs. Just the PS2 alone, which is going rather cheaply now, has 6 years of titles for me to fall back on (ff10, RE4 etc etc), whereas the PC only has nwn2 and medieval 2 coming up.

 

But if you save for a bit longer and splurge on a PS3, you get those 6 years of gaming titles PLUS all the AWESOME new games coming out for the PS3!!!

Assassin's Creed...Tekken 6...NFS Carbon...FF XIII...

 

Yeah but it will definately blow my budget. Its expected price in Singapore is $800 ++. For that price I can get a PS2 AND a LCD monitor to go with it. I held off getting a PS2 for the same reason, and finally I'm rewarded with being able to get the PS2 for $250 instead of 500 odd dollars.

 

Plus, you can buy PS2 modded and be a filthy, cackling warez-downloader for free.

Okay, not free; you still need to buy blank DVDs to burn the ISOs on. That might actually cost something like 200 € per 100 games.

Might also mention that Sony recently shut-down Lik-Sang and bypassed the legal system (even though Lik-Sang did quite stupidly in hiring too expensive lawyers). Their new console is not only expensive, but the company behind is catching up Micro$oft in infamity. In fact, the next generation of consoles might be nothing but a big bubble. Why change at all when PS2 has so many good tried'n'true games?

 

Because you want to play the new ones??

 

Who says there won't be new ones on PS2?