Gaming laptops are not we call it cheapStill, they’re often more cost-effective than building your own gaming PC, peripherals and all, and have the added benefit of being more travel-friendly. Yes, you can spend over $2,500 on a fully equipped laptop, but it’s still a great value at the lower end of the market (around $1,000). We’ve played a variety of games on a range of budget gaming laptops and have whittled down the list to the best.
We’re prioritizing laptops with Nvidia’s RTX graphics card, at least an 11th-generation Intel or 5000-series AMD Ryzen chip, and 16 GB of RAM. These specs aim to achieve a benchmark of approximately 60 frames per second (fps) at 1080p pixel resolution in graphics-rich games and over 120 fps in competitive games.
Check out our best gaming laptops, best laptops, and cheapest laptops guides for more computing advice. Our how to choose a laptop guide might also come in handy.
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