As a general rule of thumb for any modern gaming laptop running Windows 10 or 11, we recommend the bare minimum of 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, with an Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 CPU. That is the absolute baseline; if you want to do something more demanding than surfing the web and using Microsoft Office, we highly recommend more.
When it comes to gaming, you want a discrete GPU. This could come from Nvidia’s GeForce line or AMD’s Radeon series – both are good and broadly speaking, bigger numbers in the GPU’s name mean better performance. The Nvidia RTX 4050 or RTX 3060 is what we currently consider the minimum for a good gaming experience at 1080p resolution, but more powerful GPUs like the higher-end RTX 3000 series and 4000 series will give you better performance.
You’ll also need at least 8GB of RAM, ideally 16GB, for playing the latest games, as well as an Intel Core i5/AMD Ryzen 5 processor. A Core i7/Ryzen 7 is also good, but anything more powerful than that is probably overkill.
The only reason you’d want to splurge on a super-powerful system with lots of RAM, a high-end GPU, or an Intel Core i9/AMD Ryzen 9 CPU is if you need your gaming laptop to handle demanding, resource-intensive tasks. This could be editing 4K videos or running 3D animation rendering software. In this situation, make sure you research in advance the programs you will be using and the recommended system requirements for them.
As for how old the components are, you may want to be careful. We don’t recommend choosing anything older than two generations; that means you can go back to an 11th generation Intel or a 5000 series AMD CPU. Some of the deals appearing on Cyber Monday may seem great, but upon closer inspection they contain some seriously outdated components that won’t hold up in the long run.
Finally, if you’re considering something like a MacBook, you’ll have a much easier time. The variety of components here is much smaller than that of Windows gaming laptops; We generally recommend choosing one with Apple’s excellent M2 or M3 chips, rather than the older Intel-powered models.