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I’ve never been a fan of gaming laptops. So the question of what a good gaming laptop may be isn’t one I’ve thought about much. These days, however, it’s clear that things have changed.
The biggest change that swayed my mind towards the idea that a good gaming laptop is even possible is the fact that Nvidia’s latest GPUs no longer have “M” or mobile variants. Of you buy a laptop with a GTX 1060 you get the same chip as the one on desktop cards.
That’s pretty amazing and a testament to power efficiency and thermal control. Sure these cards can’t go quite as fast because of cooling limits. But you can get within 10% of the stock desktop GPU, which is a true revolution.
Asking the Right Questions
In this article, I’m going to outline a series of questions that you have to ask yourself before swiping that credit card. There are many different kinds of laptops that are billed as “gaming” laptops. On top of this, there are laptops that will do just fine for your gaming needs but aren’t sold for that purpose.
These questions should help you make sense of how well certain products are going to fit what you really need.
The Games You Play
The first question you have to ask yourself is what games you intend to play on the laptop. The required and recommended specifications that your games have are a good guide as to what specs you should look for. A good gaming laptop is primarily one that will play the games you want to play.
Do I Really Need to Game on the Go?
Gaming laptops command a much higher premium than mainstream laptops. They also cost a lot more than a desktop gaming PC with the same specs. So ask yourself if you really need to take you PC gaming on the go.
These days we have great games on phones, tablets and handheld consoles like the Switch, Vita or 3DS. Do you honestly need to game on battery power?
If what you want is portability rather than mobility, maybe it’s a better idea to invest in an ITX computer? It’s an option to consider.
Size Matters
Gaming components are hot and hungry, even the latest ones. So the size of a laptop will dictate things such as thermal dynamics and how big the speakers can be.
The key here is deciding which size is going to be the most usable for you. If you are moving from one desk to another at a hotel or something, then a 17-inch monster is fine.
If however you actually want to use the laptop as a mobile computer then
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