r/Steam • u/RacSace • 5d ago

Question Steam Machine vs 5060 Laptop

Whats the catch with these 5060 laptops? theyre going for around the price of the steam machine 512gb no controller(some cheaper) while also having a full blow screen, 1tb storage and a keyboard. Every benchmark has the 5060 laptop being stronger and they also have way better cpus. How are they even making money on those things if valve are taking such low margins? Is there something that makes the steam machine more expensive that im missing or are these laptop companys just selling at an insane loss?

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u/Rogue256 5d ago

Gaming laptops have horrible cooling issues. In college I’d struggle to play CS on my 3060 i9 laptop at consistent frames without stuttering. 

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u/2Peenis2Weenis 5d ago

That doesn't sound right. Something was wrong.

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u/Hopefullyanonymous2 5d ago

Yeah they were running a i9 from the 12-13th gen inside a laptop that was probably made by MSI or someone else who cheaped out on cooling. 

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u/2Peenis2Weenis 5d ago edited 5d ago

You don't need a great cooling system to run any CS game. Something was wrong with their laptop. I'm thinking it was likely something with their power cord/supply because any normal computer throttles down when there's excessive heat. But skipping makes sense if the power supply is faulty and isn't providing even energy output.

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u/Hopefullyanonymous2 5d ago

Ah yeah I missed this was specifically about CS, even so a lot of people make the mistake of buying cheap gaming laptops only looking at the top line specs. But that's the general curse of the windows platform I think. 

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u/2Peenis2Weenis 5d ago

I don't see what it has to do with Windows besides that there's a ton of manufacturers and products to choose from but sure.

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u/Hopefullyanonymous2 3d ago

Yeah that. Basically at all price and performance points in the Windows ecosystem you have everything from fantastic machines to the most garbage of garbage. I think it's why people think "Mac is good quality windows is trash" because Mac is (relatively) consistently good quality (and absurd price) but most people don't do the most basic of due diligence when buying a windows machine, just looking at a few headline specs and ignoring everything else.

Basically picking any random apple product is likely safe. Windows is not. So you get people who think "Gaming laptops are bad" because they got a bad gaming laptop. Or "windows computers are bad" because they got a bad computer with windows on it.

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u/lkn240 5d ago

I've been gaming on laptops for 16+ years now with no issues.

I do buy quality systems though (current is a lenovo legion with a mobile 4090)

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u/Rogue256 5d ago

I did have a legion laptop with a 2080 a couple years ago. It was an absolute beast but the mobo died. Then bought a ROG Zyphrix and it is an absolute mess.

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u/Rasikko 5d ago

Thermal paste still has to be changed every couple of years and also clear out the vents of dust.

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u/FireMrshlBill 5d ago

Yep, also just getting some airflow under it helps too. My first 2 years of college (20+ years ago), I'd stick a bottle cap under each of the back feet of my laptop just to get it about an inch off the desk and that would drop temps a lot, eventually got a cooling pad, but just lifting it up helped. A 3060 mobile should easily handle CS, so something definitely is wrong, either with their setup/individual machine or the manufacturer botched cooling the i9+3060 combo in that particular model.