Well, in my experience, GTA 4, Dead Space, Fallout 3 and Oblivion don't run well on anything but a desktop

Prime 95, Intel Burn Test, LinX, cpu-z, realtemp, 3dmark vantage, PCmark, Sisandra Arithmetic... are there any other programs than that?

All joking aside I need it primarily for games like Empire Total War, Mass Effect, Crysis, Oblivion, and of course, folding@home (smp+vmware and gpu)

No apps I use strictly require a desktop. Rather, I use a desktop for the massive speed gains running macro's, computing finite element methods (ANSYS and NX Nastran), using parametric solid modelers (CATIA, Solidworks, UGS NX). Running any of these on a desktop is faster (given the same price level), and much quieter. Also very easy to hook up dual monitors to a desktop.

Games.

I still use a desktop mainly because I don't like buying from brands such as Dell, HP...etc. Building a custom desktop can be a lot of fun, and save a little bit of cash while doing it.

I use Daz3d, Softimage XSI, Adobe CS4 Extended and quite a number of games.

I have a fairly powerful laptop, a Dell XPS m1530 with a 2.33ghz Core 2, 3gb ram and an Nvidia 8600m GT 512mb.

Rendering video or 3d still absolutely chugs on the laptop.

I will always prefer my Core i7 for heavy graphics work because the quad core is a huge speed boost and I like having huge dual monitors.

My laptop is great for light work, but serious stuff i turn to the desktop

I prefer a desktop because I find that Windows Me runs much better on a desktop form factor.

Well....errrrr....games obviously, to get a laptop capable of doing what a 1000$ pc does you would need...hmmmm ~3k laptop? And I have no reason for portability at the moment. Except for mobile browsing a bit on my iPod XD

Desktops have countless advantages over notebooks and netbooks but the majority of people only use their computers for checking emails and the like.

This is why the netbook buzz is so strong. They are cheap and they provide the functions most people require.

Nothing. Haven't owned a desktop in years. Don't compile anything too large at home.

Mobile computing is for chumps.

But seriously, I like to have all of my stuff in one place and I like to have a computer that I can do ALL of my stuff on. So therefore, a high-end desktop is the only choice for me.

However for other users it depends on their needs. It all depends on who you are and what your computing needs are.

for a powerful laptop you'll be spending a lot more than on a desktop. use my laptop for class but my desktop is my gaming. i like having steam, itunes, aim, virus scan, and a million folders + browser windows open at the same time and only my desktop can handle it.

I have a desktop at home because I want a larger screen and I want it to be set up permanently.

At work I need a desktop because we run pretty demanding cad apps.

I have 2 laptops but I only use them when I need portability.

VM is my biggest motivator as I have consolidated from a rack full of lab DL380s to a single quiet PC. The cost savings and power consumption are reason alone. Other than that restrictions on processor cores, memory and RAID are definers steering my purchasing. My laptop is a toy by comparison, good for web and office applications. $3k in PC dollars has no comparison in the notebook world, at least today...

the reason why i have a desktop is because i dont feel like getting riped because i can't build it and pick parts

I don't have a laptop and I'll probably never have a laptop. If I'm going to go portable, I'm getting something tiny and durable with an ssd, maybe a smartphone. If I want to do something demanding proc power, I'll use a desktop. I'll get a laptop when we can start choosing our own psu's and cases and monitors and cpu's and memory and mobo and graphics within a few seconds and it can all be packed in a slim ultra durable case with at least 12 hours of full screen gaming power on the battery. Until then, buzz off, laptops. I love my desktop and my (future) smartphone

Desktop > Laptop all the way to my grave...

Anything more intensive than Office and Solitaire on a computer. When will fools wake up and stop complaining about their slow Dell laptop and just build their own desktop.

I require a desktop or even server to run my MatLab code. It takes far too long to run on a laptop (currently using a Core Duo 2 @ 2ghz in a Dell Studio). Laptops are not even close to desktops wrt processing power.

Any game that requires discrete graphics (unless you have a gaming notebook.)

Folding@Home (because long amounts of heat in a laptop is bad.) (I'm counting similar programs with this, too)

Virtualization (because the more RAM and cores, the better.)

Remote Access (it's easier to keep a desktop on all the time.)

Graphic Imaging (If you use Adobe's Creative suite, more than one program at a time can become taxing, so more RAM and cores will come in handy.)

Digital Video Recording (Because it's easier to record video with a tv tuner. Very rare for a laptop to have this, and expansion cards usually have limited quality.)

Audio Editing (because high end speakers, microphones, and sound cards are nicer when they are stationary.)

Now, I kinda listed more than what I actually do myself. However, I believe all of those to be true. Also, I was under the assumption that we are not counting Desktop Replacements as notebooks.

Most modern games and CAD programs, simulators like flight simulators that are advised to be ran on multi monitors; Video encoding programs especially those that encode HD video to mpeg4 like encodings, Studio recordings that require an internal soundcard for most optimized latencies,...

Just about any professional program that is advised to be ran on 2 or more monitors; servers that need to serve on gigabit lan networks, or that need to store more than 1TB of data,....

In short, there are plenty of programs out there where a desktop is preferred.

All of them, I have a netbook and you can't run anything on it. /Joke
I'm a hardcore desktop guy and swore of laptops for the longest time. My me I saw no reason I needed to pay more for a smaller screen and less powerful computer that I couldn't build myself and wasn't ever gonna leave the desk. Building is fun choosing the best components that fit my needs and I don't have to remove crapware from a maJor oem.
I don't like much of anything about laptops honestly. My aspire one though is perfect, when I need a computer on the go its less then 3 pounds, has a great battery and fits in my Jacket pocket.
More fitting answer to a different question. I need a laptop to run a browser and a messenger while I'm out of the house.

It is true that notebooks today can handle a lot of tasks the average person requires. The exceptions are of coarse (like previously mentioned above)advance Video games and Virtualization. But for me what is really comes down to is comfort. I just feel much more comfortable around a traditional desktop setup. All the wires gets on my nerves buy hey, small price to pay for comfort. Also I can build my own desktop just the way I want it.

Yeah, Mostly gaming, plus theres no way u can use a 28" monitor and still get decent fps rates. Also, I do a lot of multimedia stuff for school where I use 3Ds Max, photoshop and other apps like those...and rendering even on my C2Duo laptop is js a pain in the arse

Games. I mean who wants to play quake 1 on a laptop

Besides running a few games every now and then, a lot of applications. Specially if you are working in anything IT related, or that requires raw speed.

I did three years as a graphics designer in university before changing to computer engineer(2nd year now). I still use a lot of programs for freelance jobs every now and then.

Since two years ago I started working for an international corporation and there's a whole lot of other tools that makes it necessary for me to have a desktop.

Applications:
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InDesign(rarely)
- VMware Workstation (2-3 machines for environment testing with Windows Server2003/2008)
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.
- Microsoft SQL Server.
Those are just the ones I use most frequently, but I'm sure there's a lot more someone can come up with.

More than any one application, it's the massive amount of multitasking I do that makes it unbearable to work in a laptop(more than 10 apps open at any time, without counting the ones inside the VMs). It's slow, specially the harddrive. On the other hand, in the desktop computer, I have a quad core, 8gigs of ram, and two monitors. It's day and night working in one and the other. The laptop is always there to save the day when something happens to the desktop(since there's a server with everything), and when I need to take my computer somewhere. But for serious work, there's nothing that can beat a desktop(for the money).

Music production, really. The power just isn't there with laptops. Besides, I can't lug around my two 24" monitors now, can I?

what we do every night pinky, try to take over the world

Adobe Photoshop, RipBot264, and games.

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Real gamers don't Wii

I have a Qosmio X305-Q706 and although it isn't the best of gaming laptops, it's certainly powerful enough to run Fallout 3 on 1680x1050 without slowing down. If it does that it can certainly play Oblivion. I even played Crisis a few months ago and although it was running smoothly at ~20fps (60 is for a dream machine) it was definitely playable.

The only game that presented problems was Prototype. It would seem that the mobile graphics cards are slow at rendering and since the game had a quick pace to it, whenever the screen starting zooming fast and new meshes and figures starting popping out the computer would slow down for a bit. I still beat the game because I got used to it.

So to finish it off, I wouldn't say that games are an exclusive reason to get a desktop. Maybe the price of the equivalent hardware found on a desktop is a good reason but games by themselves sure aren't.