Are Gaming Laptops Worth It ?
In many cases, gaming laptops also offer flexibility that allows you to utilize your gaming rig for various tasks like word processing, video editing, and photo editing on the go.
Check out the Best Gaming Laptop here.
Before you rush to your favorite computer store and get the laptop with the best specs, keep in mind that aside from the specifications of the laptop, you should also look into other aspects of the device you are going to purchase.
In this guide, we are going to show you exactly what you should look for in choosing the best gaming laptop for you.
The key features that we shall discuss include the following:
- Graphics Card/GPU
- CPU – Intel or AMD, 6 core or 8 core
- RAM – 8GB or 16GB
- Storage – NVME or HDD
- Display – 15.6″ vs 17.3″, 120hz/144hz display
- Keyboard – Regular vs RGB, Layout matters
1. Selecting Your Graphics Card
To get things started, the first hardware that you should consider when buying a gaming laptop is the graphics card. Its the graphics card that actually processes all the game graphics, and without a good one, you might not be able to run the game at all.
Popular Graphics cards available in gaming laptop include:
A more powerful graphics card will let you run the game with higher graphics settings and also be able to run the game at higher resolutions and higher refresh rates.
2. CPU
If you have lots of money to spend, then you can get a top tier Intel Core i7 or Ryzen 7 series processor on your system which can come in handy if you plan to do some video editing and rendering work on your laptop.
If you want a cheap gaming laptop you can go for a processor like Intel i5-9300H which is a 4core/8thread cpu.
If you have a decent budget you can go for a processor like Intel i7-10750H which has 6core/12 threads, or AMD Ryzen 7 4800H which is a 8 core/16thread processor.
When it comes to cpus, amd processors are cheaper than intel ones, and perform better.
3. RAM
For simple day to day tasks like browsing and streaming videos, a laptop with 8GB RAM would work but we recommend 16GB as the base minimum. This will ensure that you don’t run out of memory when occasionally doing some memory intensive task.
Most gaming laptops, if not all, support RAM upgrades, so we strongly suggest that you upgrade it to at least 16GB if it does not come with the laptop by default.
4. Storage
One of the most important parts of your system is storage. We suggest that you look for a gaming laptop that offers both SSD and HDD. For capacity, a 128 GB SSD is enough to serve as your boot drive and match it with at least 1TB HDD for game storage.
Like your RAM, hard drives are also upgradable for most gaming laptops so if the 1TB storage capacity is not enough for you, then you can always opt for 2TB hard drives or higher.
We recommend getting a laptop with 512GB SSD with no HDD. Not having HDD will make the laptop lighter and process lesser heat. This will make the laptop more portable as well.
5. Laptop Display
As we all know, laptops come with their own screens so be sure to consider this when getting one. Check out some of the key points that you should look for on a good gaming laptop display.
While laptops are basically portable, most gaming laptops come with 15.6″ or 17.3″ display screen. In this case, selecting the size of your screen would also determine the size of your gaming laptop.
For the screen resolution, higher doesn’t always mean better. When choosing your display’s resolution, you should take into consideration your graphics card. Running a 4K resolution screen on a GTX 1650 graphics card is not a good idea. This will cause your system’s performance to go down since the GPU simply cannot handle 4K gaming well.
For most laptops, the refresh rate of its display would be 60 Hz/75 Hz. However, this is simply not enough for most gamers especially if you are playing online FPS titles or other fast response games. Getting a gaming laptop with a refresh rate of 120Hz / 144Hz or higher is recommended.
6. Laptop’s Keyboard
Last on our list is the keyboard. When it comes to this category, the deciding factor all boils down to the preference of the user. However, here are some factors that you should also consider on your laptop’s keyboard.
If you are spending a good amount of money on a laptop, it must have a backlight at least. Most gaming laptops come with backlit keyboards with some even equipped with RGB lighting that you can customize based on your preference.
