A Buying Guide to Gaming PCs and Laptops

Gaming laptops are the most crucial components to one’s gaming setup. With most games, input speed and frames per second define a seamless experience. However, not all laptops or monitors offer this. One has to be careful about making the right purchases, especially while buying gaming laptops for sale.

Additionally, laptops can be much easier to transport and allow people to take their gaming experience with them. Read on to understand what to look for and what makes for the best gaming laptop.

Gaming Laptop vs Gaming PC

While choosing which one to purchase, one should consider the benefits that come with a gaming laptop.

Performance

In the past, many had performance concerns when it came to laptops. However, with technological advancements, laptops have come to perform just as well as PCs.

Size and Portability

Laptops are relatively small and portable. With the right gaming laptop, one can work all functions that a gaming PC can from anywhere.

Battery Life

Every gamer has had to deal with unexpected power cuts. Leaving a game mid-way can throw everyone into utter chaos, and laptop batteries help avoid such situations.

Things to look for while Buying a Gaming Laptop

GPU

Even though a few games are CPU-bound, most others are GPU-dependent. Since one cannot upgrade GPUs in a particular device, it is a crucial decision to make. A laptop with a good GPU can ensure that a gamer plays on the best settings for years to come.

The best gaming laptops in the market have Nvidia GeForce GTX or RTX GPUs and offer seamless gaming experiences.

CPU

The Core i7 CPU is the best one in the market but may not suit every budget. However, for most games, one solely requires a quality GPU and can do with a Core i5 CPU.

RAM

Systems are efficient at running multiple applications simultaneously. Games are large applications that are RAM intensive. 8GB RAM is the typical space that many recommend for regular tasks, while gaming laptops should ideally have 16GB RAM.

Storage

There are two storage tools used – Hard drives and SSD. While most affordable budget laptops come fitted with a hard drive, others come with a hard drive and SSD. The hard drive typically has 1TB of space, and the SSD card has 128GB to serve as a boot drive. Essentially, a larger SSD space decreases loading time, making gaming more enjoyable.

Display

Laptop screens typically range from 15-17 inches in screen length, but larger systems do exist. Others have 18-inch panels, but buyers should remember that a larger screen adds weight to the laptop.

Additionally, the resolution of a gaming laptop should never drop below a 1920 x 1080 display. While 4K screens exist, they require one to turn down game settings while ray tracing is on. Avoid Touch screens since they are unnecessary and eat through battery life.

Refresh Rates

Typical systems top out at 60Hz, and this suffices for most. However, laptop systems with faster refresh rates provide smoother experiences. These include 144Hz, 240Hz, and 360 Hz monitors.

Keyboard

Apart from the characteristic LED backlighting, one needs to consider ‘key travel’. Typically, a key travels at least 1.5mm before bottoming out or hitting the frame, and the greater this distance, the better.

Anti-ghosting and n-key rollover provisions are also crucial as it makes combo-registering and keyboard input recognition easier.

Remember to look for these features, especially while purchasing gaming laptops for sale.