- Like
- SHARE
- Digg
- Del
- Tumblr
- VKontakte
- Flattr
- Buffer
- Love This
- Save
- Odnoklassniki
- Meneame
- Blogger
- Amazon
- Yahoo Mail
- Gmail
- AOL
- Newsvine
- HackerNews
- Evernote
- MySpace
- Mail.ru
- Viadeo
- Line
- Comments
- Yummly
- SMS
- Viber
- Telegram
- JOIN
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Kakao
- LiveJournal
- Yammer
- Edgar
- Fintel
- Mix
- Instapaper
- Copy Link
Behind us are the days when gamers thumbed their noses at laptops, which couldn’t hold a candle to desktop PCs at the time. A lot has changed over the last decade, though, and today’s mobile GPUs can easily tackle the latest games. There are even plenty of great laptops for casual players and those on a budget. Whether you enjoy games like Fortnite or Minecraft or you’re after a beefy battle station for enjoying new AAA releases like Elden Ring and Halo Infinite, this list of the week’s best gaming laptop deals can scratch that itch and save you some money.
Today’s best gaming laptop deals
With rebate
Bring your games to life like never before with this Gigabyte A5 X1 gaming laptop, featuring a buttery smooth 240Hz display and superb hardware to match. more
With rebate
With this gaming laptop, you’ll have all the space you need for your library and more than enough power to run AAA titles for years to come. more
With rebate
The Gigabyte Aero 15 Creator gaming laptop pairs fantastic hardware with a gorgeous 4K OLED display. It’s the last gaming laptop you’ll need to buy for a very long time. more
With rebate
Score a very worthy discount on the high-end Gigabyte G5 15-inch gaming laptop. With hardware like this and a 144Hz display, this thing could be the last PC you’ll need for years to come. more
OLED Touchscreen
It’s not as gaming-focused as its larger siblings, but if you want a sleek and powerful duty-grade laptop that can still game, the 13-inch Razer Blade Stealth gives the MacBook a run for its money. more
16:10 Touch Display
With its solid specs and 13.4″ 16:10 120Hz touch display, gamers will find themselves completely immersed in the Asus ROG laptop. Enjoy vivid graphics and great performance in a sleek package. more
How to choose a gaming laptop
The two main considerations when choosing a good gaming laptop are naturally going to be what you’re willing to spend and which graphics card you want (considering the GPU is what actually makes a laptop a “gaming laptop”), and these two are closely linked as your budget is going to determine what graphical performance tier you can afford. However, don’t overlook some of the smaller things that you might personally want in a gaming laptop – convenience features such as programmable button macros, customizable RGB keyboard backlighting, and so on – so that you don’t jump on that great deal only to end up with something that doesn’t actually meet your needs. For more detailed hardware analysis, read on.
What makes a good gaming laptop?
A good gaming laptop should first and foremost be affordable, but you don’t want to go for the first deal you find that simply happens to meet your budget. You can expect to pay at least $600 (usually closer to $700) for a gaming laptop with a dedicated graphics card, although you can find a few that have AMD APUs with built-in Vega graphics for less than that. Also bear in mind that Nvidia recently released its new line of 16-series GPUs which have completely replaced the older 10-series graphics cards as the entry-level and midrange GeForce GPUs. In 2020, you’re better off avoiding older laptop models with these 10-series cards and sticking with the best modern GPUs ones, as the price is about the same and they will generally come with more up-to-date CPUs as well.
In the budget-friendly price brackets, the most powerful graphics card you’re likely to find in a gaming laptop right now is arguably the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5600M, although you can expect to spend nearly your full budget for a laptop with this kind of graphical horsepower. If you’re going cheaper, though, then you’ll see cards in the GTX 16-series and RX 5000-series, pretty much all of which are still very capable of running modern titles at 1080p/60fps at good to high in-game settings.
For memory, 8GB of RAM should be the bare minimum (unless you’re going really cheap), and 16GB is a better mark to aim for in a modern gaming system. A higher refresh rate of 144Hz on the laptop display will also ensure a smoother experience when playing at higher framerates, but that’s something that you’ll typically find on gaming laptops sporting nicer GPUs like the GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060. That’s one of the sacrifices you’ll make with a gaming laptop, but if you know what to expect, you shouldn’t end up disappointed.
Should I get a gaming laptop or a gaming PC?
The primary difference between a gaming laptop and a gaming PC is portability. If you want a gaming computer to set up at a battle station, never to be moved again, then you should probably spring for a gaming PC deal instead. Since gaming PCs are bigger, they can hold more hardware, use bigger fans, and be easily customized. Laptops have the advantage of moving with you. To that end, a gaming laptop can be more than just a gaming laptop. You can take it to lecture classes for notes or use it as a work computer.
Are gaming laptops good for work?
A gaming laptop is still a laptop and can do everything that a laptop computer can do — that includes work. In fact, even a gaming laptop can offer some advantages: Faster processors and increased RAM will make all of your non-gaming software run noticeably faster, and graphical work such as video editing and rendering will go much more quickly with a dedicated graphics card. Even if you mostly use your PC for work first and only light gaming, it might be worth it to shell out a little more cash for a gaming laptop for the better hardware you’ll be getting.
We strive to help our readers find the best deals on quality products and services, and we choose what we cover carefully and independently. The prices, details, and availability of the products and deals in this post may be subject to change at anytime. Be sure to check that they are still in effect before making a purchase.
Digital Trends may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.
Editors’ Recommendations
- Best Microsoft Office deals for March 2022
- Best Buy cut $300 off this ASUS gaming laptop’s price
- The Mac Mini just got a $120 discount
- This Google WiFi Mesh deal knocks $164 off a pack of three
- Apple iPad Mini down to lowest price of 2022 at Amazon