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The Guide That Makes It Simple to Choose an Affordable Gaming Laptop

By mindmingles Oct 30, 2020
Gaming Laptop

According to one study, about 1.2 billion gamers play video games on their gaming PC or laptop. If you’re playing on your computer but are on a budget, you may want to think about what components are a must-have for your gaming laptop. Thankfully, we’ll help break down every part that goes into making an affordable gaming laptop.

This way you can make sure you still find a great affordable gaming laptop without having to worry about breaking your bank.

Graphics Card

One of the most important things for your affordable gaming laptop is the graphics card. Without the graphics card, a lot of the games with higher graphics won’t be able to run.

Most gaming laptops will use an Nvidia GeForce graphics card, but some of them are GTX or RTX.

The newest Nvidia graphic card is their RTX series, like the 2070 or 2080, which are going to be the most expensive for your laptop. It’s nice to have this graphics card, but it may not be necessary depending on the type of game that you’re planning on playing.

Beginner Gaming

If you’re a beginner gamer, you can probably save a little bit of money on the graphics card because you may not lead a lot of support to play them.

For this, you could probably be okay with finding a GTX 1650 or an RX 550M graphics card.

If you’re going to buy a laptop with this kind of graphics card, you’ll probably find a laptop between $700 and $1,100, which is about the most affordable gaming laptop you could get.

Mainstream Gaming

If you want something for some more mainstream games, you should look at getting an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060. This might be the perfect graphics card for someone who wants something right in the middle.

It’ll still let you play a lot of games with high settings. If you wanted to play a virtual reality game, this is also the lowest option that you could get to support that.

Advanced Gaming

Lastly, if you want something to let you play advanced games, you should check out the RTX 2070. This lets you play virtually any game on the highest settings possible with no lag.

This is great for people who game professionally or for sport. Most people may not need these, and the laptops that have this type of graphics card can cost over $3,000.

CPU

While the graphics card is important, the CPU is equally as important. You could have a good graphics card, but in order for it to work, you need a good CPU to pair it with.

Most PCs have an Intel processor, and one of the more standard ones is the Intel Core i7. Depending on what type of games you want to play, you might also be able to use an i5 processor.

RAM

Some games that you run on your laptop could also rely on RAM, so you want to ensure that you buy a laptop that will have enough memory.

The standard for most computers is about 8GB of RAM, and this should be enough if you’re not going to be running a lot of intense games.

However, if you’re mainly going to be gaming on the laptop, make sure that you try and find one with at least 16GB. This is a good middle ground between having an affordable laptop while also having enough RAM to run your computer.

You could also buy an affordable laptop with 8GB of RAM and upgrade the memory later on if you find out you do need more.

Storage

You’ll need somewhere to store all of your games somewhere on your computer, which is when you should consider how much room you need for that.

Gaming laptops come with either a hard drive or an SSD, and some of them come with both.

However, most of the gaming laptops that are affordable come with 1TB of a hard drive. An SSD will help your computer boot up faster, but since they are newer, they are also more expensive.

Display

While you may want to save money, you also want to ensure that you have a nice screen to view your video games on.

However, there are many features that you should think about when deciding on the display.

Refresh Rate

The refresh rate will make sure that your game is smooth and doesn’t cause you any lag.

The refresh works by drawing the image onto the screen over and over per second. Most laptops use this technology now, and standard screens refresh at either 120Hz or 144Hz.

If you want to save some money, you should stay somewhere in that range.

Screen Size

After checking a good resource, you’ll also realize that screens come in all kinds of different sizes. The most standard size is 15 inches, but you may also be able to find cheaper laptops with 13-inch screens.

Resolution

Another thing to consider is the resolution of the screen. When you have more pixels on the screen, the image and your games will be clearer.

Newer laptops have a 4K screen or 1440 pixels, but these might be more expensive, and they’ll drain your battery faster.

For an affordable laptop, you should find a resolution that is around the standard 1080p.

Design

The design won’t affect so much of your gaming experience on the inside, but you may care about how it looks.

However, how it’s designed can also determine how durable it is, which means that it will last longer and you’ll get more bang for your buck.

Build Quality

Aluminum is one of the newer materials used for building the outside of the computer. It has a nice look, but for something more affordable, you can still find some laptops that have a plastic cover.

Portability

Many people have started wanting portable gaming laptops, which means that they want it sleeker and lightweight. In order to build a laptop like this, they’ll also have to be more expensive in order to ensure the software part of the computer isn’t lacking.

If you don’t care about portability, you could spend a little bit more to get a bigger and bulkier laptop.

Cooling

While you’re gaming, things can get very heated. Your computer has to work overtime to ensure that you can still continue gaming, so a lot of them come with fans to help it cool down.

Today, there are a lot more improvements to the cooling system to make sure that they don’t overheat, especially with the thin laptop.

However, while having a cooling system is important, you could also buy one that isn’t as high tech in order to save some money. Instead, you’ll need to make sure you get an external cooling tray to set your laptop on. If you don’t, your laptop might get too hot depending on how long you use it and what games you are running.

It can be different to compare the cooling systems just based on what the manufacturer is telling you, so you might want to go and read a review to see what others are saying about it.

Keyboard

Lastly, you’ll also have to consider the gaming keyboard. A lot of gaming keyboards now come with backlighting, and sometimes you can even customize the color of the keyboard.

If there is an affordable gaming laptop that you found but don’t like the keyboard, you could also still buy it and then get an external keyboard that you do like.

Key Travel

One thing you’ll need to consider when looking at the keyboard is key travel. Key travel is essentially how far you need to go from key to key.

If you’re going to be traveling farther on the keyboard, you may have a slower reaction time in your games. For video games, you want keys that are a little over 1.5 millimeters of travel. This will ensure that you can still reach them quickly, but you won’t press two of them at the same time.

If you want a more expensive laptop, it also might come with mechanical keys.

Discover More About: Finding an Affordable Gaming Laptop

These are only a few things to consider when starting your research for an affordable gaming laptop, but there are many specifications you should consider.

We know that it can overwhelming trying to find the perfect laptop, especially one that’s within your budget, but that’s why we keep an eye on all the latest trends and improvements for you. This way, you can continue to focus on gaming!

If you enjoyed this article, make sure that you explore our website to find more articles just like this one!

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