The best gaming laptops in 2023: No-nonsense reviews and expert buying advice

Are you looking for a gaming laptop that can play all your favorite triple-A titles? If so, we’ve curated a list of our best picks. It can be difficult to find the right laptop for your gaming style with all of the options out there. Do you enjoy fast-paced esports titles? Then you’ll not only need solid performance, but also a high refresh-rate screen. Are you more interested in the stunning scenery found in epic fantasy games? Then you’re in need of a top-of-the-line graphics card and powerful CPU. Either way, we’ve got you covered.

From no-compromises hardwareThese laptops can do almost everything a desktop computer can, thanks to their high refresh rate displays. During out review process, we put every single one of these laptops through a battery of tests, so we’ve got the numbers to back up our recommendations. Whether you’re looking for the best 17-inch gaming laptop or the most portable machine, we’ve got you covered. Continue reading to learn more.

Last updated 12/15/2022Check out our latest review. Lenovo Legion 5i. It is a decent gaming laptop with decent specs, including a Core i7 processor and an RTX3060 graphics card. However, the mediocre battery and poor design prevent it from making this list.

Razer Blade 17 (2022) – Best overall 17-inch gaming laptop

Pros

• Excellent gaming performance
• Great selection of ports, including 2x Thunderbolt 4
• Sturdy robust design

Cons

• Unplugged, poor battery life
• Keyboard lacks a numeric keypad

You need serious gaming power? The Razer Blade 17 (2022), is sure to deliver. This laptop is a top performer thanks to its Intel 12th-gen i7 core processor and GeForce RTX3080T Ti GPU. This laptop has excellent graphics performance and a stunning 240Hz display. It also has a variety of ports. The top-tier configuration can cost thousands of dollars. If you’re willing to shell out the big bucks for the best of the best, then the Blade 17 is a phenomenal option. If you’re on a more strict budget, check out the Asus VivoBook Pro 15 OLED blurb below. It’s our best budget gaming laptop pick.

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Review Razer Blade 17 (2022)

Alienware x15 R2 – Best overall 15-inch gaming laptop

Pros

• Gaming performance is possible with plenty of power
• Smooth and beautiful QHD display
• Amazing RGB lighting creates a different world.

Cons

• Rear-orientated ports may be difficult to reach
• Battery life is very poor unplugged
• RAM is soldered onto motherboards

The Alienware Blade 17 x15 R2 packs the same premium hardware but in a smaller size with a 15-inch screen. Despite it’s smaller size, it can keep up with the best of them due to its 12th-gen Intel i7-12700H CPU and Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti GPU. It also features a gorgeous QHD display with futuristic Tron-inspired lighting. Although it does have some quirks like soldered RAM and difficult-to-reach back ports, these are not significant.

Just like all high-end gaming laptops though, it doesn’t come cheap. However, Alienware’s x15 R2 will offer a unique gaming experience for those who are able afford it.

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Review Alienware x15 R2

ASUS VivoBook Pro 15 OLED Ultra Slim Laptop – Best budget gaming laptop

Pros

• High productivity
• Amazing display
• Rugged design
• Battery life is amazing

Cons

• Boring aesthetics
• Unimpressive 720p Webcam
• Unreliable fingerprint scanner
• Poor port selection

The Asus VivoBook Pro 15OLED offers reliable gaming performance for a reasonable price. According to our reviewer, this laptop is a great option for “gaming, streaming, and day-to-day productivity.” When the laptop ran the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 (4GB GDDR6) GPU worked in tandem to hit 60 frames-per-second at 1080p on High graphics. The OLED panel looks great and the battery life can be astonishingly long. There are some caveats.

The design is not very appealing and the port selection is not great. You’ll also need to drop down to Medium or High graphics when playing modern AAA games on the RTX 3050. Caveats aside if you’re looking for reliable graphics performance on a lovely OLED panel, the VivoBook Pro 15 is where the party’s at. If you don’t mind trading in those beautiful OLED visuals for a bit more graphics firepower, you should take a look at the Acer Swift X below.

If you’re interested in more budget gaming laptop recommendations, be sure to check out our picks for the best gaming laptops under $1,500The best gaming laptops under $1,000.

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Review ASUS VivoBook Pro 15 OLED Ultra Slim Laptop

ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) – Best all-AMD laptop

Pros

• Compact design with powerful CPU and GPU performance
• AniMe Matrix screams unique
• It also has a Webcam

Cons

• RAM – Half permanent
• Keyboard backlighting is subpar

The ROG Zephyrus G14 has both light weight and power. It is lightweight at just three pounds, making it a portable laptop. Strong performance is possible thanks to the AMD Ryzen9 6900HS CPU and AMD Radeon HD6800S GPU. The only weakness is the keyboard, which our tester describes as “meh.” It feels a little mushy and the backlighting is rather unimpressive. That said, if you’re in the market for a portable laptop that delivers zippy performance, the Zephyrus G14 is a great pick.

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Review ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022)

HP Victus 16 (16-d0097nr) – Best keyboard

Pros

• Excellent value
• Amazingly comfortable keyboard
• Large 16-inch 1080p LCD screen with a high refresh rate of 144Hz

Cons

• Budget RTX GPU
• Audio doesn’t feel quite right
• Display hinge is a little fragile

The HP Victus 16 is a great option for anyone looking for solid performance and a decent screen. The large, 16-inch screen boasts a 1080p resolution and a high refresh speed of 144Hz. The keyboard is also very comfortable. In our review, the tester was “happy to use the keyboard on a long-term basis.” HP even squeezed in a number pad, which is perfect for gamers. Although this laptop has a lot to offer, it isn’t the sexiest-looking laptop in the world. The Victus 16 laptop is a good choice if youre okay with the simple design.

Please read our complete guide
Review HP Victus 16 (16-d0097nr)

Asus ROG Flow Z13 GZ301 – Best gaming tablet

Pros

• Small package, big performance
• Bright, crisp display
• Compatible with XG Mobile to boost GPU performance

Cons

• Versatility doesn’t come cheap
• Gaming keyboards that are not attached are not suitable for gamers

If you’ve ever wanted to game on a tablet, then you’re in luck. The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is a folio-style gaming machine, which is one of the most bizarre sentences I’ll ever type. You can expect powerful GPU and CPU performance in a small package. The tablet weighs in at 2.61 lbs. This is a very lightweight tablet that you can use to reliably play games. Sharp, vivid images are produced by the 1200p IPS screen. That said, it’s very expensive and the detachable keyboard isn’t great for gaming. If you’ve got a big budget and can plug into an external keyboard, then the Flow Z13 is well worth it.

Please read our complete guide
Review Asus ROG Flow Z13 GZ301

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (2022) – Best connectivity features

Pros

• Attractive, durable design 
• Comfortable touchpad and keyboard
• There are plenty of wireless and wired connections 
• Excellent game performance
• Competitive pricing 

Cons

• Performance of processors is midpack 
• Display is bright but lacks color performance
• Speakers can sound muddy

Lenovo’s Legion 5 Pro is not only packed with ports, but it also delivers impressive game performance. It packs a 12th-gen Intel processor, and somehow manages to fit an RTX3070 Ti GPU inside its slim design. This laptop shines because of its amazing array of ports. It has a Thunderbolt 4/USB-C 4 port, two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, and an ethernet port—oh, and it also somehow finds room for a 3.5mm audio jack, too. We had one complaint about the display. This was due to the lackluster color profile. However, as far as connectivity and price-to-performance, there aren’t many better options than the Legion 5 Pro.

Check out our complete article
Review Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (2022)

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X – Best ultraportable for gaming

Pros

• Core i7 processor is fast and powerful
• High-quality keyboard and excellent connectivity
• A compact, strong and attractive chassis
• Includes an Nvidia GPU

Cons

• Battery life is average
• Other laptops offer better screens
• A little heavier and thicker than some of its competitors

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X Ultraportable has great performance. It has a Core i7 processor, 32GB RAM and 1TB storage. The GeForce RTX3050 3050 graphics card allows you to play your favorite games at reasonable settings. Although it may not be able handle ultra-ray-tracing settings well, what you lose in graphics you gain in portability. The Slim Pro X is lightweight at just 3 pounds and has a 14.5-inch display. This makes it easy to take with you wherever you go. One thing to note is that the Slim Pro X has a very short battery life. You might want to bring a charger just in case.

How to test gaming laptops

Each Windows laptop is subject to a series benchmarks by the PCWorld team that tests its GPU and CPU performance, as well as battery life. The idea is to push the laptop to its limits and then compare it against others we’ve tested. Below, you’ll find a breakdown of each test and the reasons why we run them:

• PCMark 10PCMark 10 is used to determine how well the laptop handles tasks such as web surfing, word processing, spreadsheets and so forth.
• HandBrakeHandBrake is more intense than PCMark 10 It basically measures how long a laptop’s CPU takes to encode a beefy 30GB file.
• CinebenchCinebench is a short stress test for the CPU cores. It renders a 2D scene in a short time.
• 3DMark3DMark runs graphic-intensive clips to check if 3D performance is consistent over time.
• Gaming: We benchmark each gaming notebook using multiple titles.
• Video rundown test: To gauge battery life, we loop a 4K video using Windows 10’s Movies & TV app until the laptop dies.

How to choose the best gaming laptop

What’s the ‘best’ screen for a gaming laptop?

When you buy a gaming laptop, one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make regards the screen. After all, what you get on day one is what you’re stuck with until you junk the device. You could run an external monitor but then, what’s the point of a laptop?

Screen size

The screen size dictates the size and weight of the laptop. You can’t, for example, get a 17-inch gaming laptop that’s four pounds (although MSI’s excellent GS75 gets awfully damned close at five), so think long and hard about whether you’re willing to take the weight penalty in exchange for the screen real estate.

A 17-inch screen is ideal if the laptop will be your sole gaming machine. A 17.3-inch display is easier on weaker eyes that a 15.5″ screen. This is a matter of personal preference.

Resolution

The buzzword today is “4K.” That high resolution delivers sharper photo viewing and more space for video editing, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Anything not using the panel’s native resolution of 3840×2180, such as games running at lower-than-4K resolution, won’t look quite as sharp unless you exponentially increase the graphics power of the laptop.

If you’re running at 1920×1080 resolution because your GPU can’t hit 60 fps at 4K, that feature is moot. For many gamers, 1920×1080 (1080p) or 2560×1440 (1440p) is more optimal.

IPS vs. TN vs. OLED

Key features include the panel technology. In-plane Switching (IPS) produces better color accuracy and off-axis visibility, but can cause blurring. While TN panels offer higher refresh rates and more responsive times than IPS, they can look sloppy or blah.

A middle-ground technology that’s appearing more often is VA (vertical alignment). VA is sometimes alternately referred to as “wide viewing angle” technology. (Many assume this to spec to be IPS, but it’s not). In our experience, we’ve found VA panels to run the gamut from being worthy competitors to IPS to being worse than the better TN panels.

If color accuracy is important, you should choose IPS (a trademarked Sharp) and if you need the fastest response time, go for a gaming-oriented TN board. Because VA is variable, we recommend that you read feedback from users and reviewers about a particular model.

OLED is the big deal in all this. OLED-based panels have been in phones for years, but have recently moved to larger screens on laptops. IPS, TN and VA all use LEDs along the edges or behind the screen. “Black” is produced by a shutter-like mechanism that blocks light from coming through. As you can imagine, there’s usually some light leakage, which means the black tends to be gray.

OLED panels don’t rely on edge- or backlighting. Instead, each pixel generates their own light. To create black, it simply switches off its light. This results in stunning contrast ratios and vivid colors. OLEDs also offer excellent response times.

The negatives include smaller screen sizes (we haven’t seen anything larger than 15.6 inches yet), higher cost, and lack of support for variable refresh rate. OLED panels are more efficient than conventional methods when the background is white.

G-Sync and FreeSync support?

Okay, we called this section G-Sync and FreeSync, but the reality is, when it comes to beefy gaming laptops, it’s a GeForce GPU world. And that means it’s a G-Sync world. In a nutshell, Nvidia and AMD’s respective variable-refresh-rate technologies help synchronize the monitor and the GPU to greatly reduce screen tearing. Gaming at 40 frames per second can be smoother than gaming on a screen with no refresh rate.

The first variable-refresh-rate panels for laptops maxed out at 75Hz, only marginally better than the standard 60Hz. More recently, we’ve begun to see laptop panels that can push 120Hz, 144Hz and even 240Hz. This means you will experience smoother and sharper gaming. It also helps with everyday tasks, such as scrolling through a web page or Word document.

The downside of high-refresh rate panels is the technology it’s available on: TN. TN is less vibrant and more accurate than IPS, as we mentioned earlier. The off-axis view can also be inferior. You’ll also need a far more powerful GPU to feed that high-refresh rate monitor at its native resolution.

One last very important note: G-Sync screens have to be connected directly to the laptop’s discrete GPU, which means a large hit in battery life. G-Sync is not available on most laptops. The Intel integrated graphics is connected directly at the screen so that the GPU can be turned off when it isn’t being used. G-Sync is beautiful to look at, but it has a huge impact on battery life.

Which one is right? If it’s primarily a gaming laptop—go for a high refresh rate and G-Sync (or FreeSync, if you can find a laptop that supports it with a Radeon GPU). If you do color-critical work or Photoshop pushes pixels, you can skip variable refresh.

What to look out for in a keyboard or trackpad

The offset trackpad is a new trend in gaming laptops. It is more conducive for gaming than a traditional trackpad. While the idea is sound, anyone who really cares about PC gaming won’t hesitate to plug in a mouse. The problem with an offset trackpad, however, is when you use it for non-gaming purposes.

The most important gaming feature in keyboards is n key rollover. This means that each key is physically scanned by the keyboard. If you wanted to, you could press 20 keys simultaneously and they’d all register, as each is independently wired. This may sound excessive, but keyboards without this feature can miss keystrokes which can cause problems in gameplay and hinder daily tasks. Anyone who’s used an Adobe product that might require a left-Alt, left-Shift, left-Ctrl plus two more keys to do something may have run into the limitations of non-n-key keyboards.

Other keyboard considerations include LED backlighting, which adds ambiance but doesn’t do anything for gameplay, and mechanical keys vs. touchscreen. Mechanical keys are excellent—but are available on only a handful of laptops that usually weigh a ton. We have seen a few designs that feature low-profile mechanical keyboards. However, we are not denying that they can be quite appealing.

What type of storage is best to store a gaming laptop?

The load times of your games from an SSD are significantly shorter than if they were loaded from a hard drive. But beyond that, we haven’t found it to matter that much whether it’s a super-fast NVMe PCIe drive or a slower SATA SSD.

It is the SSD’s capacity that matters today more than its interface. With 50GB games and more than 100GBs of games, a 256GB SSD can feel small with only four games installed.

So when spec’ing out that gaming laptop, be mindful of just how much total storage you have. If your laptop has a combination of a large SSD and a large hard drive, you can expect to install the games to the hard disk. If your laptop only has an SSD, make sure it has at least 512GB. 1TB is preferred.

What amount of RAM do you need for a gaming laptop

The RAM is one of the main selling points for laptop manufacturers when they design gaming laptops. It’s not hard to find gaming laptops with “upgraded” configurations that go from 16GB of DDR4 to 32GB.

While having an adequate amount of RAM is important for gaming, today’s games typically top out at 16GB of RAM, and sometimes can run fine with just 8GB of RAM. It is usually a waste to spend more than 16GB, which is our standard recommendation.

Although you might be tempted to blame PC and laptop makers for using erroneous specifications to manipulate the public, the actual blame lies with the average buyer. Since years, PC makers have been telling us that RAM is over-specified because the public believes that more is better.

Do you prefer dual-channel RAM or single-channel RAM

Apart from the amount of memory available, it is important to inquire about what clock speed you are using and what mode. Modern CPUs allow you to run RAM in sets to increase memory bandwidth. 

More memory bandwidth immediately helps laptops that are running integrated graphics, but the conventional wisdom has long been that discrete GPUs in laptops don’t benefit as much because they have their own dedicated, much faster GDDR5 RAM to use. That’s typically the case, but the performance of today’s GPUs and CPUs can make this conventional wisdom wrong. 

Gaming performance is often a function of the CPU and GPU and how graphically intensive the game is. The GPU is the primary bottleneck in performance for games that are graphically intense. Play a game that isn’t graphically intense, though, and the CPU can rapidly become the bottleneck on performance.

With the power of today’s GPUs, a lot of games, especially at a sedate resolution of 1920×1080, have shifted more performance to the CPU. The reason we’re talking about this now is if you rob the CPU of memory bandwidth, even a decently fast one, you can take a sizable hit in gaming performance.

The main lesson is that dual-channel memory bandwidth configurations should be preferred whenever possible. On a laptop spec sheet, you typically would see this expressed as “dual-channel” or “2 x 8” to indicate that two 8GB memory modules were used in a laptop.

Some laptop makers will express memory in clock speed, so you’ll see “DDR4/2,133 or DDR4/2,400.” While a higher memory clock does increase memory bandwidth, the impact isn’t quite as great as going from dual-channel to single-channel mode.

How many CPU cores are you really going to need?

How many cores are needed for a gaming laptop? A 4-core CPU with HyperThreading will work well in most games for most people, especially when it is paired with a lower-cost, lower-performance GPU.

A 6-core CPU with HyperThreading is a good choice if you have the money. A 6-core CPU is recommended if your goal is to stream or edit your gaming online.

Intel and AMD’s top-end 8-core CPUs will deliver the greatest benefit to those who might do other graphics-intensive tasks, such as 3D animation or video editing. The 8-core will also offer performance benefits if you plan to stream or record video.

If you’re thinking, great, let me buy a 4-core Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU with a luxury laptop to save money, you usually can’t, because PC makers typically only offer budget CPUs with other budget parts. Why? Well, most budget shoppers can’t afford any luxury items, and most PC makers like to add in the extras to increase the profit.

How to choose a GPU for a gaming laptop

The GPU is undoubtedly the most important piece hardware in a gaming notebook. For AMD fans, the situation is as sad as it is in CPUs: It’s an Nvidia GeForce world. The good news is, as with CPUs, that the dominant products are top-notch.

The hardest part is deciding how much GPU you will need. We recommend that you buy as fast as possible and as heavy as you can afford. The laptop will be heavier and larger if it has a faster GPU (or more GPUs). If you’re talking about playing on a higher-resolution panel of 2560×1440 at high-refresh rates, then keep increasing the amount of money spent on the GPU.

External graphics support?

You should also consider the growing support for external graphics on gaming laptops. Alienware customers have enjoyed this feature for years, despite it being relatively expensive (and proprietary). Graphics AmplifierTechnology, but many laptops now support Thunderbolt 3 external graphics cabinets

These cabinets allow you connect your laptop to a more powerful discrete GPU. The Akitio Node (which you can find on Amazon for $300) is one such Thunderbolt 3 cabinet that’s helped usher in lower prices. External graphics are most desired by users who use integrated graphics. However, a gaming laptop with Thunderbolt 3 capability could be useful if the GPU inside becomes too old to play the latest games.

Battery life

The last topic we’ll cover is battery life. The best way to understand battery life on a gaming laptop is to accept that it’ll be horrible for all things gaming.

The minute you crank up a GPU on a gaming laptop to play a game, you’re basically limiting yourself to an hour or an hour and a half of battery runtime. Period. In some cases, it may be even less.

If you plan to use your gaming laptop unplugged for other purposes, battery life is the only reason to be concerned. In that respect, you’ll find a lot of variance, with some—such as Gigabyte’s Aero 15—offering decent battery life, albeit with a trade-off in gaming performance.