What to Look for when Buying a Gaming Laptop?
Popular as gaming consoles have proven, if you are serious about gaming then you have to experience games the way they were meant to be experienced and that’s on a PC – until now.
Gaming laptops are actually surpassing PCs in the popularity stakes amongst serious gamers, and although PCs generally pack a greater punch, there’s a lot to be said for gaming laptops, and not only the portability benefits they offer.
So why are gaming laptops winning the hearts of gamers? Not only are they much more powerful than ever before, but they are also increasing in size with average screens now in the 15” – 18” range, which is quite a comfortable size for gaming, plus they can also be configured for gaming performance with sound and video cards.
If you are looking to buy a powerful new gaming laptop or have one built by a company like Chillblast for example, here are a few of the many things that you will need to look for.
The Hardware
The CPU and GPU are both particularly important in gaming laptops, though some would say it’s the GPU that is the more important of the two because it’s the Graphics Processing Unit that delivers the amazing graphics and visuals that we have come to expect of PC gaming experiences.
An Intel core i7 quad core processor is considered by many to be the processor of choice, though don’t take the writer’s word for it; take a look at a few reviews to get an idea as to what the general consensus is. As far as the minimum requirement for GPUs goes, the NVidia GeForce GTX 700 series is still very ok, though the GeForce GTX 800 series would be a better choice.
Resolution
If you are going to buy a gaming laptop with a GeForce GTX 800 series GPU you need a screen resolution that is going to do it justice and that means going beyond 1080p and looking at something along the lines of 3k, which is essentially 3 x 1080p and therefore something very impressive.
Gaming laptops with 3k screens tend to be a bit on the expensive side of things, so you may find that laptops like these are out of your price range – for the time being. The way laptop specs seem to jump every year it won’t be long before 3k resolution will be commonplace.
RAM
You need to have a higher RAM on a gaming laptop than a laptop for business or personal use because the CPU needs the RAM to store the game settings and files, so a minimum RAM of 8GB is required. Some gamers are still going strong on 6GB, but you won’t see many buying a new laptop with less than 8GB these days, in fact, take a look at serious gaming laptops on a review site and you will instantly notice that most are now 16GB and some even boast 32GB.
Don’t forget the extras either, there’s plenty of ways to enhance gaming experiences!
