Gaming Laptops (2 products)

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What's the Difference Between a Gaming Laptop and a Normal Laptop?

In the market for a gaming laptop but don't know where to start? The first, and most important, component to look at in a gaming laptop is the graphics processing unit, or GPU for short. It's the inclusion of a dedicated, high-performance GPU that sets gaming laptops apart from other laptops.

Ordinary laptops only have small, energy-efficient GPUs built into their CPUs. These integrated GPUs are designed for day-to-day tasks like video streaming - not gaming. The dedicated GPUs of gaming laptops, on the other hand, can run the latest releases at high settings, resolutions, and refresh rates.

What's a Good Spec for a Gaming Laptop?

Any serious gaming laptop will feature a dedicated GPU from either NVIDIA (GeForce RTX) or AMD (Radeon RX). These GPUs are, for the most part, pretty self-explanatory: the higher the model number, the better. For example, the entry-level GeForce RTX 4050 is found in many budget gaming laptops, whereas the high-end GeForce RTX 4080 will handle whatever's thrown its way, even at 4K. Before you buy a gaming laptop, we recommend looking up reviews and benchmarks to see how it performs in your favourite games.

As for the rest of the gaming laptop, you'll want a relatively modern six-core processor paired with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD at the minimum. This is solid baseline if you're just looking to play less-demanding competitive games, like League of Legends and Valorant. For a more enjoyable experience in a range of titles, especially when targeting higher resolutions and refresh rates, consider stepping up to an 8-core processor with 16 or even 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

What's Better, a Gaming Laptop or a Gaming Desktop?

It wasn't too long ago that choosing a gaming laptop over a gaming desktop meant sacrificing a big chunk of performance. With each passing year, however, the performance gap between laptop and desktop components gets closer and closer. Today's gaming laptops can pack some serious power - more than enough for many.

But if you want the best of the best when it comes to raw gaming performance, a stationary, watt-guzzling desktop is the way to go. There's only so much power you can cram into the portable form-factor of a gaming laptop. Really, it's a double-edge sword with a gaming laptop, for what you gain in portability and convenience you lose in upgradability and performance.

Are Gaming Laptops Good for Everyday Use?

For those who need more power than the average laptop can offer (usually in the GPU department), nothing's stopping you from using a high-performance gaming laptop as your day-to-day machine. A gaming laptop can do everything a normal laptop can - and then some. You don't have to be a gamer to take advantage of a gaming laptop. In particular, the increased performance of a gaming laptop lends itself to all sorts of professional workloads: 3-D animation, video editing, programming, and so on.

That said, do keep in mind that a gaming laptop isn't exactly the most portable device. Armed with high-wattage CPUs and GPUs, gaming laptops require beefy, heavy heatsinks to keep cool. So while you can chuck a gaming laptop in a backpack, it won't be the lightest to carry around - especially with a sizable power brick to boot.

What's more, compared to energy-efficient notebooks, gaming laptops are much more power-hungry. Try to do anything remotely resource-intensive while on battery power and the battery will drain in an instant. So with a gaming laptop, you need to be plugged into power most of the time - not great for on-the-go productivity.

How Long Do Gaming Laptops Last?

With a little bit of care and maintenance, the physical hardware of a gaming laptop can last for years and years. Performance-wise, however, a gaming laptop is likely to become obsolete much sooner. You can expect a gaming laptop to last anywhere between 3-6 years depending on the types of games you play.

If all you play is the latest, most hardware-demanding games, you'll have to upgrade your gaming laptop sooner rather than later. Conversely, if you're willing to drop from 'high' to 'medium' settings in new releases, you'll be able to eke a bit more mileage out of an aging laptop. And, of course, older titles and indie games won't require the latest-and-greatest gaming laptop in the first place.

Gaming Laptops at Ebuyer

Here at Ebuyer, we stock all the best gaming laptop brands, including the likes of MSI, Acer, ASUS, and more.

If you want your new gaming laptop by tomorrow, next-day delivery is available. We also offer finance packages for added flexibility. And don't forget the Ebuyer Price Match Promise - we won't be beaten on price.