Need help making a decision on my setup - new member here

[MoistGamer]

Budget (including currency): N/A

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: games, modern fps, old rts'

Other details: (see below)

 

Here is my situation I have a new monitor coming and need to make a decision on which machine to hook it up to:

 

Monitor: Alienware 38 Curved Gaming Monitor - AW3821DW, 37.5" ,WQHD, IPS Nano, 1ms,144Hz, G-SYNC

 

Machines:

1) Alienware x17 R1:

17" 360hz FHD - i7 11800H - RTX 3070 8GB-  upgraded to32GB gen4 ddr4 ram

would use the display port on the back of the laptop.  Laptop has a cooling dock

 

2) MSI Desktop - 

Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7740X CPU @ 4.30GHz, 4296 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BaseBoard Product    X299 TOMAHAWK AC (MS-7B05)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    32.0 GB DDR4
GPU Name    NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8GB
 

Scenario:

One of these is going to get a regular dual monitor setup using 2 24" monitors.  Plain old vanilla 1920x1080 60hz.  because thats what I have rn.

The other one is going to get the new alienware monitor.  Id rather not play any back and forth games every day, and my desk only has room for one (I dont think its feasible to have the laptop docked on the same desk as the desktop, its a huge enermax case).  I also need a separate office for work anyway.

 

If the advice is to use the desktop with the 2080 with the new monitor, I'd probably use the laptop to play games with the 360hz screen, not connected to any monitors.  Only connecting it back up for work.

 

What would you do?  I feel like the CPU on my desktop machine is a major bottleneck.  I think its really old, Kaby Lake maybe?  I know it's a good problem to have, major first world problem, but the monitor arrives today and you know how it is... I'm gonna open the thing immediately and want to set it up because I am a man child.

 

Any advice = Appreciated.  Thanks!

[Forleb]

7th gen isn't ancient, you'll be fine. I'm pretty sure a laptop 3070 is comparable to a desktop 2080, and the same goes for the CPUs, so it's really just a matter of which setup is more convenient since they'll push roughly the same framerates.

[Jonathan Lee]

4 hours ago, MoistGamer said:

feel like the CPU on my desktop machine is a major bottleneck.

Don't think it's a major bottleneck, but you definitely would feel an improvement going with a more modern CPU. This will depend more on the game though. If you're a light-moderate multitasker, 8 cores will probably be plenty. If you tend to have multiple things running in the background as you game, a 12+ core cpu isn't crazy.

 

The 2080 may struggle on some newer games on ultra wide, it is really close pixel density to 4k actually.

 

Couple of options you can go with.

 

AMD if you want a nice stable platform:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor  ($483.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler  ($109.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $773.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-11-23 15:34 EST-0500

 

Or the latest and greatest, intel 12th gen:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor  ($418.88 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler  ($109.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($219.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $748.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-11-23 15:35 EST-0500

 

You can use you're current DDR4 on these parts.

 

I think for ultra-wide though, a GPU upgrade would be more noticeable. I feel like you're more in the do a new build territory though.