Do you want to buy a gaming laptop, and you are figuring out how to do that? Well, find out how to buy a gaming laptop when it is your first time purchasing one, especially when manufacturers are aggressively marketing them with slickly produced ads that did not tell you anything that actually helped.
Well, am considering how much you get to spend on even a crappy gaming laptop, it is very important that you know exactly how much you get to spend on even a crappy gaming laptop, it is important that you know exactly what kind of specs that you need to be searching for when sorting through your options and where you can locate them on the product page.
Luckily, we would be breaking it down for you so that you would be able to spend your hard-earned money on one of the best gaming laptops for your budget. And not a clunker that is able to carry the best PC games, much less run them very well.
How to Buy a Gaming Laptop
Look for Specs
Most of the manufacturers of today are making use of specs to market their products, and that is not a new thing. But anything that has to do with advertising and involves gaming hardware will look slick and is almost guaranteed to tell you nothing of value concerning the product that they would be promoting. The only thing that should be on your mind is your gaming laptop’s spec sheet.
Set Your Budget
Another important thing is knowing the amount you want to spend on a gaming laptop. With this, you would determine which specs you should really be placing your attention on.
No Matter Your Budget
- You are to be sure to get at least 16GB of RAM in your gaming laptop, regardless of any other concerns. 8GB is barely enough to run your windows 11, having only 8GB RAM would make your game slower.
- Don’t go for 4K Display. They really sound great and they look really amazing, but laptop GPUs are not as powerful enough to run games very well at 4K and 4K displays have lower refresh rates and are more expensive. At most, your laptop is expected to come with a 2560 X 1440p/1600p display (QHD or QHD+, respectively). With a 1080p/1200p display is You would barely notice the difference so getting a different size of the screen, with a higher resolution display is a waste of money for a gaming laptop.
- A discrete GPU is a must. If a “Gaming” laptop does not come with a discrete GPU with its own pool of VRAM, it’s not a gaming laptop. The alternative here is integrated graphics, where the GPU is built right into the CPU and is usually a lot smaller and makes use of the main system memory for its graphics processing work. They will work really fine with older GPUs, but playing AAA games that were released in the last few years, you would be required to have a discrete GPU to do it.
If you Have a Sizeable budget
- A gaming laptop’s most expensive component is its CPU and GPU, and they are also the two that are impossible to upgrade when you want to later on. If it is in your budget, prioritize the GPU. Both Nvidia and AMD make laptop GPUs, but generally, Nvidia is better, so if you can afford it, then go for an Nvidia GPU, and definitely an RTX 3000-series GPU like the RTX 3070 Ti or RTX 3080.
- The CPU also is also important, but its impact on gaming performance is secondary to the GPU. If you want to go for a gaming laptop, you should aim for a current-Gen Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 CPU. You really don’t need more than that for gaming purposes, and this can help save some money that you can put towards getting a much better GPU.
On a Tighter Budget
- The best cheap gaming laptop are not that powerful, but that does no mean that you cannot get a great gameplay experience using them. The point here is that you can get your hands on an Nvidia RTX GPU wherever possible, starting with an RTX 2060 or better. RTX GPUs can run Nvidia’s Deep learning super sampling (DLSS) technology, which would boost the frame rates and make an otherwise unplayable experience that is enjoyable.
- If affording an Nvidia RTX-equipped gaming laptop, then definitely go for an AMD Radeon RX 6000-series laptop or an Intel ARC A500M-series laptop. These are just beginning to enter the market, so some of them might be out of your budget, but they would still be cheaper than the Nvidia RTX-powered gaming laptops, and you can still make use of an AMD’s FidelityFX Super-resolution technology to boost the frame rates right on any GPU, not just the ones made by AMD.
So this is it in getting a great gaming PC. If you follow this procedure, then trust me you would not be missing out on the best gaming laptop around.
