Gaming Laptop Guide
Being a big PC gamer while having to constantly be on the move can be a drag, especially if you can’t stand being away from your tricked out gaming rig for long periods of time. But dragging around your gaming rig, along with your custom screen, keyboard and optical mouse, can be an even bigger drag. Having an ordinary laptop for the road just isn’t going to cut it, so what can you do?
Gaming laptops are nothing like the mundane laptops you might see at the caf or library. These laptops are designed from the start to be as much of a beast as their desktop companions, while offering all of their graphics and processing power in a small and relatively compact package that you can take nearly anywhere you want. Let’s just say that you won’t have to worry about bringing your tower to the next LAN party anymore.
Large screen sizes are the norm for gaming laptops, with 15″ screens being the bare minimum. Most gaming laptops are about 16″ to 17″ in size, with some in the rather large 18″ class. You’ll have to decide whether or not you want to carry a large laptop around before making a choice on size. A 15″ laptop is usually much easier to carry around than a 17″ one. Most 17″ and 18″ gaming laptops are also considered “desktop replacements”, as they are intended to replace gaming towers in most respects and are not intended to be carried around like smaller laptops.
When it comes to gaming laptops, processing power is one of the biggest concerns that avid gamers have. Fortunately, these laptops come with seriously fast processors that have the punch needed to play games at optimal settings. Some processors will even come with the ability to be overclocked to a small degree in order to provide a slight burst of power and speed. Newer processors also have multiple cores, spreading out processing tasks to prevent bottlenecks and increase speed.
Dedicated graphics cards are nearly mandatory when it comes to gaming laptops. Companies such as nVidia and ATI offer powerful graphics solutions that deliver superior performance over “integrated” graphics solutions. In fact, dedicated graphics cards are much different than their integrated counterparts. Instead of being graphics chips directly mounted on the main motherboard, dedicated cards are on their own board that is connected to the motherboard by a slot. With their own specialized memory and graphics chips, these cards perform much faster, giving gamers a better playing experience.
When it comes to system memory, gaming laptops are able to accommodate gobs of it. Most laptops are now able to hold and use up to 8GB of system memory, although some laptops can only use 6.8GB thanks to chipset limitations. Most companies will supply their gaming laptops with 2GB of RAM at the minimum, with options to upgrade during the order process.
Gaming laptops can get pretty expensive, especially if you end up checking everything on the options checklist. For $1500, you can get a decent gaming laptop that can hold its own against any other system, while $2000 or more can get you the laptop of your gaming dreams.