Ten Things to Consider When Buying a Gaming Laptop

Are you thinking of buying a gaming laptop? Gaming laptops are an expensive piece of equipment, so it’s important that you do your research to find the best gaming laptop for your specific needs. In this blog post we’ll take you through the top ten things that you need to consider when purchasing a gaming laptop to get one that’s right for you.

Your Budget

One of the first things that you should consider when buying a gaming laptop is your budget. You will need to work out how much it is that you can spend as most people won’t have an unlimited budget. On the other hand, the more you spend, the more likely you will get a better quality laptop and so it can be worth splashing out the extra dollars if this is your main hobby. It will be your budget that determines the components that you can afford and once you have decided on this, you can then start to consider which exact components that are a priority for you.

What Type of Games Do You Play?

The second thing that you should consider when looking for gaming laptops is what type of games you like to play. For example, if first person shooters are your thing, then you will want to prioritise gaming laptops that offer the very best in graphics hardware over the CPU performance. However, CPU performance becomes a priority if you love to play turn-based war games. This is due to the CPU being able to process the AI faster. However, those of you that love real-time strategy games may need a balance between the two.

The Display

Once you’ve decided what type of games you will be playing the most, you will then need to look at what type of display to get in your gaming laptop. You’ll want to try and get the best possible graphics card for your budget. While the image quality is important in gaming laptops so too is the frame rate. What’s fantastic about LCD panels is that most are now quite inexpensive.

CPU

While you may think that you need six cores to play games, the simple fact is that this is probably unnecessary. If you are looking to mainly play games, then we would recommend reducing your CPU cost and increasing the budget for your graphics. What’s more, if you are looking for a system with low noise levels you’ll want to get one that has a sealed liquid CPU cooler as this is quiet and will ensure your system doesn’t run too warm.

How Much Memory Do You Need?

You will find that most modern motherboards are dual-channel and support high-speed memory. We would recommend going with a gaming laptop with at least 8GB of memory, however this all comes down to your budget.

Storage

For those of you looking to solely play games on their laptop, it is a good idea to consider getting a solid-state drive. SSD prices are continually dropping and there are lots of benefits to using these such as fast loading times, quick boot times, less noise and lower power use.

Power

Power is always an issue no matter what type of laptop you buy, however, new laptops are seeing improvements in their power-efficiency. A 500w power supply will be more than enough for the majority of gamers out there as full load power in an intensive game will consume less than 300w.

Motherboards

There are a few key features you will want to look for in the motherboard of your new gaming laptop. This includes lots of USB ports and robust power regulation so that it doesn’t overclock.

Input and Control

To maximise your gaming experience, there are lots of high-performance gaming keyboard and mice. Unless you are an extremely competitive online player, however, you probably won’t notice too much difference with the very high-end keyboards. What’s more, even the modestly priced gaming mice will now support high DPI levels. The big choice here is whether you go with tethered input devices or wireless if it is a gaming pc you are purchasing.

Audio and Communication

Players will tend to find that modern games use a lot of surround sound in their games and what’s great about modern PCs is that they can handle multi-channel game audio. They can do this through the use of 3D virtualisation software where the system will stimulate the different audio streams through speakers and headsets. If you love multi-player games, then we would definitely recommend getting a headset with a good microphone.