Choosing between a laptop and a desktop in 2025 can feel like a difficult decision. With technological advancements making both devices more robust and versatile than ever, it’s essential to pick the one that best fits your needs. Whether you’re a professional looking for a dependable work setup, a gamer chasing high performance, or a student needing a device for studying, understanding the strengths and boundaries of each option is vital.
In this guide, we’ll break down the key differences between laptops and desktops, explore their pros and cons, and help you decide which one is the better choice for work, gaming, or study in 2024.
Laptop vs Desktop: Difference in power
With a few exceptions, desktop graphics cards and processors are always more powerful than the models produced for laptops. The reason for this is that desktops, due to their design, can reach higher power limits. Since laptops are focused on portability, they cannot reach as high power limits as desktops.
For example, if we have a desktop and a laptop with an RTX 4080 graphics card, the performance of the 4080 on the desktop will always be higher. Therefore, if your priority is high performance, a desktop would be a better choice for you. Which one should we choose based on the use case? First, you need to determine your use cases. For example, will you be working on tasks like 3D modeling or video editing? Or, if you’re going to play games, will you be doing it professionally? Are you going to stream?.
3D modeling and rendering
In these types of tasks, while the modeling phase might not be too demanding, during the rendering phase, the computer has to run for long hours at high temperatures. Video editing is quite similar to this. Although these tasks can be done with a laptop, a desktop is a better choice, because its cooling system is much more capable.
A desktop is more suitable for working at high temperatures for extended periods. If you’re involved in such tasks, try to opt for a desktop as much as possible. However, for lighter tasks like music production and office work, a laptop would be a much better choice, because in tasks like music production, you’re not even using the device at full performance. These kinds of programs don’t require high performance, and you might even benefit from having a portable setup, which makes a laptop a better choice for such areas.
Gaming
Common statements like games are not played on laptops, they should be played on desktops, are wrong. Games can be played very well on a laptop if the cooling system is good. However, I need to point this out. For example, if you compare the NVIDIA RTX 4000 series laptop and desktop GPUs, you’ll see a significant performance difference in all models except the RTX 4060. I understand that desktop GPUs are much more powerful than laptop GPUs. Although this statement is incorrect, there is a bit of truth to it.
Now, let’s look at this topic from a different perspective. Are you a professional gamer? For example, let’s say you play Valorant professionally. To compete with other professional players, you will need a 24-inch 360Hz monitor. So, forget about using the laptop’s screen. The only thing you can do is to use the laptop just like a desktop by connecting an external monitor. In this case, there’s no point in getting a laptop.
It’s more sensible to use a desktop rather than using a laptop like a desktop, right? Additionally, if you want to get a 360Hz refresh rate from your monitor, your laptop needs to have a USB-C display port connection. You can check this in the laptop’s technical specifications. If your laptop doesn’t have a display port, you’ll have to use HDMI, which will only allow you to get a maximum of 240Hz refresh rate.
As most monitors don’t support 360Hz over HDMI, you’ll need to use a display port. So, if you’re considering professional gaming, you should definitely avoid laptops. However, if you’re a casual gamer, you can still play games quite well on laptops with good cooling systems. Another advantage of desktops compared to laptops is that they offer better price performance. No matter what your budget is, the desktop you build will be more powerful than the laptop you buy.
One of the reasons for this is the design difference I mentioned earlier. Desktop hardware can be designed to be more powerful. Additionally, there’s another downside to this design difference for laptops. Since laptops are redesigned every generation, R&D costs are reflected in the price tag. So, when you buy a laptop, you’re not only paying for the components but also for the R&D work.
The difference in the cooling system as you might expect, it’s much more difficult for a laptop running at 300 watts to dissipate the heat from its chassis compared to a desktop operating within the same power range. The lack of sufficient cooling space prevents laptops from staying cool, which in turn limits their top performance.
Additionally, the fact that laptop fans are much smaller and run at higher speeds makes laptops much noisier. As a result, when you try to play games on a laptop, the fan noise can become annoying. There are laptop models that use effective cooling solutions to lower the noise level. I could test and show you the fan noise levels of laptops and desktops, but unfortunately, I don’t have any samples for comparison. Upgrade limitations on laptops.
Laptop Vs Desktop: Upgrades
Another area where laptops fall behind desktops is that upgrades are much more limited. Since laptop components are designed to be more portable, the designed components can only be used within that specific generation.
However, desktop components can use similar connections or operate within similar power ranges across multiple generations. This allows components like the motherboard, case, and PSU to be used across multiple generations. In laptops, on the other hand, a motherboard design is used for only one product line, so upgrades are not possible. In other words, when you buy a laptop, it’s very difficult to change or upgrade components other than RAM and storage. Keep this in mind.
Insufficiency of Laptop Screens
This topic isn’t one where desktops are vastly superior, but they do hold an advantage. Desktop monitors usually offer much higher image quality compared to laptop screens. Only high-end laptops feature screens with high color accuracy. In mid-range and entry-level models, the screen quality is insufficient for tasks like photo and video editing. Therefore, if you’re working in areas that require high color accuracy, you’ll either need to opt for expensive laptops with high-end displays or use a desktop monitor during these tasks. This will affect your workflow.
Limitation of Ports on Laptops
While this isn’t the case for every model, the number of ports and connections on most laptops might be insufficient for some users. The absence of a display port, a full-size SD card slot, or having only a few USB ports on laptops might require you to carry a hub or dock with you. So if you’ve already added a laptop to your cart, you might want to add a hub as well. Of course, as I’ll mention shortly, when portability is the priority, desktops can’t even be compared to laptops.
Portability
We’ve arrived at the most cliche, most boring topic. Don’t worry, I’ll explain it quickly. Portability is the biggest advantage of laptops. A laptop is always ready to move and doesn’t require you to stay in one place.
Additionally, with each new generation, battery performance improves, further increasing laptops’ advantage in this area. The most portable and performance-focused desktop build is an ITX build, and even those don’t include peripherals like a keyboard or monitor. On a laptop, however, everything is contained in a single device.
So, in conclusion, if portability is important to you, a laptop is the best choice. Be very careful while choosing a laptop model.
Involvematrix has already written an article where you can learn everything about this topic from start to finish, but I want you to know this. You need to be very careful when deciding on a laptop model. With a desktop, if you’re not happy with any component, you have the option to upgrade it later, so you don’t have to worry too much.
But, when choosing a laptop, you need to find the model that best suits your needs during its active use. Upgrading or replacing components in laptops is much more difficult. For example, in the latest MacBooks, you can’t change any components. If the MacBook you bought has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and you’re not happy with that, you can’t upgrade these components and will have to use it with that configuration.
In Windows laptops, we’re not as restricted. We can upgrade the RAM and the storage, but still upgrading components like CPU or GPU is impossible because of the design limitations that I’ve mentioned before. So don’t rush when deciding on a laptop model. Don’t have unrealistic expectations. If you think you’ll be able to sit with your laptop on your lap and play games after buying it, you’re greatly mistaken. If you’re going to play games, I don’t think you’ll choose a MacBook.
However, except for ARM laptops like the new MacBooks, if you want to get full performance from a laptop, you need to keep it plugged in. If you try to use it on battery, the processor and GPU will reduce their performance to save power, which will lead to stuttering and freezes in mid- to high-level games the same applies to rendering. If you try to render on battery, expect long render times.
However, you probably won’t need to worry because your battery will likely die before the render finishes. Additionally, there’s an issue with battery health that no one talks about. If you don’t keep your laptop plugged in, the battery health will decrease rapidly. Over time, you’ll notice that you’re not getting the same battery performance. When you see the battery health percentage dropping quickly, you’ll probably feel disappointed.
To slow down the decrease in battery health, you’ll try to keep your laptop plugged in, but then the main advantage of having a laptop diminishes. It becomes a weird cycle. In short, I recommend being as realistic as possible when deciding between a laptop and a desktop. It’s best not to have wild expectations, but to make a decision based on your needs, priorities, and budget.