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Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
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Credit:
Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.
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The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is a beefy gaming laptop that’s great for gaming and productivity, and undercuts competitors by several hundred dollars. Read More
The Acer Nitro 5 may be a budget PC, but it gets the details right on the hardware and the design. Read More
The ROG Zephyrus G14 from ASUS is light and portable, has a brilliant display, and its gaming performance is top-notch. Read More
The Dell G16 packs in plenty of cooling hardware and doesn’t put limits on its power draw. It's a great choice for utility-minded gamers. Read More
Razer’s Blade 14 delivers performance only a hair behind the larger, Intel-powered Razer Blade 16. It's also attractive, compact, and still expensive. Read More
The best gaming laptops have high refresh rates, high-resolution displays, and the latest graphics cards and processors. Portable, great gaming performance without the hassle of building your own desktop gaming rig sounds pretty great, huh? Not to mention it can be cheaper to get a gaming laptop instead of a desktop.
Our pick for the best overall gaming laptop is the Asus ROG Strix G18 (available at Best Buy for $2,299.99) , a powerful, fun machine that delivers superb performance for gamers and streamers. But if you have specific preferences like keyboard placement, battery life, portability, or other features, we’ve reviewed plenty of other great laptops so you can find the model that’s perfect for you.
It's not the fanciest laptop around, but it can still perform with the best.
Sturdy chassis
Good performance
Great screen
Awful battery life
Thick
Compact and attractive
Strong GPU and CPU performance
Useful connectivity
Battery life could be better
Mediocre keyboard
Expensive entry-level MSRP
Incredible performance
Vivid high-refresh screen
Slim chassis
Battery life
Quiet audio
Great gaming and app performance
Decent display
Super-speedy SSD
Poor construction
Only 1080p resolution
Good value
Full-size keyboard
Solid gaming performance
Poor battery life
Low peak brightness
Poor color gamut
To help determine a gaming laptop’s ability as a portable powerhouse, we first push each machine’s processor to its brink. These tests help us determine the responsiveness of the laptop and whether it’ll be able to handle streaming or running Google Chrome in the background with simultaneous gameplay.
We then run a series of tests on the graphics card to figure out how fast graphics and images are rendered on a particular machine, and whether your gameplay will run smoothly.
Since gaming laptops are smaller and thinner than gaming desktops, we tested the heat output and fan noise of each machine during sustained gameplay. If you plan to use a gaming laptop for everyday tasks, you might find the sound of whirring fan blades to be distracting.
Once that’s established, we run a battery test overnight. We unplug the laptop, set the display brightness to 200 nits, and then cycle through popular websites like Discord and Twitch until the battery dies. This is how we figure out how much action we can get on a single charge.
The idea is to emulate daily tasks. Even if you’re buying this laptop solely to play Fortnite, you’ll also likely use it for web browsing.
Lastly, we evaluate the overall build quality like how sturdy the hinges feel and if there’s any flex to the display. We also take into account how light the machine is—under five pounds is ideal—and how many ports it offers.
We test everything from processing capability to screen brightness.
When you start your search for gaming laptops, you’ll notice that there isn’t much variety when it comes to internal hardware. The most popular graphics cards these days are made by Nvidia. Companies like AMD also manufacture high-performing graphics cards, but most of the laptops we tested have Nvidia hardware powering their insides. However, with AMD's newest mobile GPUs now coming to market, we'll most likely start seeing more laptop configurations include them.
The latest Nvidia graphics cards are the RTX 40-series, but you can still find older laptops offering 30-series and 16-series options. The 40 series includes the RTX 4090, 4080, 4070, 4060, and 4050. Not only are these mobile GPUs significantly more powerful than the previous 30-series generation, in both non-ray traced and ray tracing performance, but they also consume less power. Gaming laptops with any of these cards will be the most expensive options, but they've earned those prices thanks to that performance.
The 30-series includes the RTX 3080, 3070, 3060, and 3050 (and Ti versions). and they’re considered some of the best cards in their class. Like the 20-series, these cards also support ray tracing and can easily facilitate gaming on a 4K monitor. Thanks to a new GPU architecture these cards are miles ahead of the 20-series.
The 16-series includes 1650 and 1660 Ti cards. They perform alright at 1080p and 1440p resolutions and offer better memory bandwidth so that graphics continually render smoothly at high frame rates. The only caveat of the 16-series is that they tend to ship with less virtual memory, which can become a future-proofing issue down the line.
AMD has its mobile GPUs, too, its Radeon RX 7000M and 6000M series, both of which rival and surpass Nvidia’s equivalents in non-ray traced performance in most games. If you're mainly into esports and cranking out the highest frame rate possible, these are the cards you'll want. However, they fall behind in ray tracing. The 7000M cards’ ray tracing performance is closer to Nvidia’s 30-series and the 6000M cards are closer to the 20-series.
The processor inside your gaming laptop won’t directly affect your gaming prowess, but it does matter for day-to-day tasks and simultaneous streaming. Most of what you’ll find on our list comes with Intel Core 12th-gen chips, although there are now 13th-gen mobile Intel chips on the market.
AMD's Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 5000- and 6000-series processors are also in a lot of good gaming laptops, with AMD 7000-series chips on the way. They're usually a tad slower than Intel's chips in terms of single-core performance, but they shred in multi-core performance, which makes them a great choice for anyone who needs a machine for content creation and gaming.
Laptops with 6000-series Ryzen processors typically achieve slightly better battery life than their Intel counterparts thanks to AMD’s more aggressive power management.
If you’re looking at budget gaming machines, you’ll want a laptop with Intel’s Core i5 or AMD's Ryzen 5 processors. They’re capable chips, but you will see a performance difference as you push the machine to its capacity.
The standard screen size for gaming laptops is 15.6 inches with a 1080p resolution. It’s enough screen for partaking in action without carting around a laptop that’s breaking your back. There are 17-inch gaming laptops available, too, but you might want to avoid that much screen if portability matters to you.
You may have noticed that a majority of our picks include a 144Hz refresh rate, with machines like the MSI Delta 15 with RX 6700M graphics clocking in at 240Hz, but the Asus ROG Strix G15 has a 300Hz refresh rate. The higher frame rate effectively smooths out gameplay and leads to fewer stuttering issues.
It used to be impossible to find a competent gaming machine under a grand, but not anymore. Now you can find plenty of options starting with decent processors and enough graphics power to fuel your third playthrough of The Witcher 3.
Anything over $1,000 belongs in the mid-range category, though that label doesn’t necessarily refer to a laptop’s specifications. You’ll still be able to find machines with current-generation hardware, decent battery life, lots of memory, and plenty of storage space. Some last-generation gaming laptops may also appear at this price point.
Laptops that cost well over a grand are considered top performers because they’re equipped with top-tier specs. Machines in this category also tend to offer better display options, and in some instances, allow you to upgrade components down the line.
Adrien is the PC staff writer for Reviewed with over 4 years of experience covering laptops, desktops, software, games, and more.
Matthew S. Smith is a veteran tech journalist and general-purpose PC hardware nerd. Formerly the Lead Editor of Reviews at Digital Trends, he has over a decade of experience covering PC hardware. Matt often flies the virtual skies in Microsoft Flight Simulator and is on a quest to grow the perfect heirloom tomato.
Joanna specializes in anything and everything gaming-related and loves nerding out over graphics cards, processors, and chip architecture. Previously she was a staff writer for Gizmodo, PC Gamer, and Maximum PC.
Our team is here for one purpose: to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and lab technicians obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.
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