If your favorite games don't use it, the lower-end Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti incorporates Turing, the last generation of Nvidia's technology, without the extra cost or power burden of the RT cores. RTX models also accelerate ray-traced rendering and provide intelligent upscaling (also known as DLSS) where it's explicitly supported.
The Max-Q versions run at slower frequencies than their full-size siblings - that keeps down the noise and heat and allows them fit into thinner designs. The fastest graphics card currently available in a laptop is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with the usual Max-Q variants. What do I need to know about a gaming laptop GPU (beyond speed)? No, you still can't play for 10 hours on battery power, but now you can find some great gaming laptops with 10-hour battery lives to make gaming on the road more feasible. That's been changing recently, as Intel, AMD and Nvidia have concentrated on improving their power management technologies. Processors would get throttled back and screens dim during hard-core gaming sessions, so a laptop that felt nimble when connected became a slog on battery power, turning your epic battles into battles of frustration. You also couldn't play most complex games - GPU- or CPU-intensive ones - on battery power. Do you still have to compromise on battery life?Ī compromise you've traditionally had to make has been battery life, which has typically lasted as little as 2 hours of nonstop gaming. It may be somewhat thin, but you can cram it with up to an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU, a 4K 100% Adobe RGB display and a Core i7-11800H. You can add some custom graphics to make the generic chassis a little more stylish, but it's the wealth of component choices that makes this 17-inch gaming laptop an appealing buy for a gaming beast - though not a cheap one, starting at $1,936. But budget gaming can be difficult if you're not shopping carefully and we all know that there's really no such thing as a "cheap gaming laptop."Ĭheck out our recommendations for the best gaming laptops below for more detailed advice, scroll down below them. So it's not a given that you'll need to bust your budget to pay for a new laptop. Throw in advances in cloud gaming, and you've got the ability to play more games on lower-end hardware than ever before. The good news is that battery life, at least for 15-inch gaming laptops, has gotten significantly longer and processors, both CPUs and GPUs, are a lot better. Or maybe you don't want to always use an external mechanical keyboard with per-key RGB backlighting, but the system's WASD keys feel like mashed potatoes under your fingers. Those powerful components may overheat at the worst moments, your battery may die or you might experience an instability that impacts your gaming performance.
You can pack it with the best graphics card, the fastest, most colorful display around, a gazillion-core processor, tons of fast solid-state drive storage to hold your games and a rock-solid hard drive for secondary storage, but it can still fall short. There's more to a decent gaming laptop than raw speed. Gaming laptops have evolved to keep up with the needs of even the most intense gamers, who know that having the right equipment can often be as important as skill to raise your stats.
A good gaming rig may cost you, but for those serious about their gaming experience - and with a budget to match - it's frequently worth it to drop some serious cash to build the ideal gaming setup.