{"id":104883,"date":"2016-09-27T18:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=104883"},"modified":"2016-09-27T18:03:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T16:03:51","slug":"is-it-worth-buying-a-gaming-laptop-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/104883-is-it-worth-buying-a-gaming-laptop-in-south-africa","title":{"rendered":"Is it worth buying a gaming laptop in South Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

While most PC gamers in South Africa use a desktop for gaming due to the relatively cheap price of parts and customisation options, the latest advances in mobile GPU technology have increased the viability of using a gaming laptop.<\/p>\n

However, with local hardware being relatively expensive and gaming laptops historically performing worse than their desktop counterparts, is it worth buying a gaming laptop in South Africa?<\/p>\n

We’ve compared the performance of modern gaming laptops and desktops along with their pricing in order to determine whether a gaming laptop is a viable option for South African gamers.<\/p>\n

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Next-Gen Graphics<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Previous Nvidia\u00a0graphics card\u00a0generations featured specific mobile-class GPUs which were cut-down, under-clocked versions of their desktop counterparts, with the exception of the GeForce GTX 980 mobile card.<\/p>\n

However, the launch of the GeForce GTX 10 Series Pascal-based graphics cards has ushered in a lineup of mobile cards which are supposedly identical to their desktop components.<\/p>\n

These graphics cards finally allow laptops to enter the VR market, with every current Pascal-based gaming laptop featuring VR support.<\/p>\n

In order to test if this mobile performance gain was accurate,\u00a0Tom’s Hardware<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0conducted a series of benchmarks testing the performance of the mobile GeForce GTX 1070 with the desktop version of the card.<\/p>\n

The results indicate that the two deliver essentially identical levels of performance, with the desktop card beating its mobile counterpart by a miniscule margin.<\/p>\n

\"mobile-pascal-benchmarks-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"mobile-pascal-benchmarks-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"mobile-pascal-benchmarks-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Pricing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Gaming hardware is not cheap in South Africa, with Nvidia’s latest graphics cards priced relatively high compared to international pricing.<\/p>\n

However, the latest generation of gaming laptops are also rather expensive, with the lower-end Pascal-based gaming devices priced at around R29,000.<\/p>\n

We’ve included the South African\u00a0pricing of three different GTX 10 Series laptops below in order to provide a general idea of price difference:<\/p>\n