Best specs for gaming laptop 2012

Read our full Acer Predator Helios review. When it comes to gaming, the obvious answer is the graphics card, but that's where things have gotten a little more complicated recently. With GPU performance now so dependent on cooling you have to pay attention to what wattage a graphics card is limited to and what chassis it's squeezed into.

As we said at the top, an RTX confined in an 18mm chassis will perform markedly slower than one in a far chunkier case with room for higher performance cooling. That really depends on what you want to do with you laptop. An eight-core, thread AMD Ryzen chip will allow you to do a whole load of productivity goodness on the road, but honestly will have little benefit in gaming.

That's one of the reasons Intel has launched its Tiger Lake H35 chips; they're quad-core, eight-thread CPUs, but they're clocked high to deliver high-end gaming performance when paired with something like the RTX This will arguably have the most immediate impact on your choice of build.

Picking the size of your screen basically dictates the size of your laptop. A inch machine will be a thin-and-light ultrabook, while a inch panel almost guarantees workstation stuff.

At inches you're looking at the most common size of gaming laptop screen. We love high refresh rate screens here, and while you cannot guarantee your RTX is going to deliver fps in the latest games, you'll still see a benefit in general looks and feel running a Hz display.

The standard p resolution means that the generally slower mobile GPUs are all but guaranteed high frame rates, while companies are slowly drip-feeding p panels into their laptop ranges. A p screen offers the perfect compromise between high resolution and decent gaming performance, while a 4K notebook will overstress your GPU and tax your eyeballs as you squint at your inch display.

Your guess is as good as ours. There are a few gaming laptop SKUs that offered the RX series cards, but they were thin on the ground. Jorge is a hardware writer from the enchanted lands of New Jersey.

When he's not filling the office with the smell of Pop-Tarts, he's reviewing all sorts of gaming hardware from headsets to game pads. Included in this guide: 1. Dell G15 Ryzen Edition. View Deal. Image 1 of 4. Image 2 of 4. Image 3 of 4.

Image 4 of 4. Razer Blade Battery: 80 Wh. Dimensions: 9. Weight: 4. Battery: 75 Wh. Dimensions: Weight: 3. Reasons to avoid - Looks a bit plasticky - Can be loud when pushed.

Screen: inch p Hz or p Hz. Battery: Dimensions: 0. Speaking of battery, we averaged nine hours and 16 minutes of work use between charges, which makes the Strix G15 far and away one of the longest-lasting gaming laptops on the market. It delivers great battery life, and exceptional gaming on battery. The Razer Blade 14 is a heavy-duty gaming laptop in a light and portable chassis.

It could even stay close to 60fps with ray tracing on. Dell has also managed to cram that power into an impressively thin and sleek chassis. On the other hand, the X17 would not be a good choice to double as a daily driver though it did do well in our Premiere Pro testing. The webcam is mediocre, and the touchpad is a bit small, especially for a inch notebook. Battery life only averaged around four hours in our testing.

The Alienware X17 delivers outstanding 4K gaming performance, and manages to do so while keeping its impressively thin chassis quiet and cool. In short: if you use this in public, people will notice. And the Strix comes preloaded with various programs to help customize your gaming experience.

It still packs the top chips on the market and comes with a Hz QHD display, but at just 4. In addition to its reliable gaming performance, the Blade 15 works well as a productivity machine.

Our primary complaint is that this Blade got quite hot during our game testing. It has a more powerful processor than the base Blade 15, higher-end GPU options, and a slimmer design. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Filed under: Gaming. Linkedin Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. The sound is just as important as the visuals when it comes to gaming. Yes, you probably have a headset that you'll use most of the time.

But sometimes you just want to let your laptop's speakers work. The MSI-exclusive, Nahimic audio software is one of our favorites since it offers some of the best surround sound in both headphones and speakers.

It also provides several handy presets, Bass Boost and Voice Clarification software. Alienware's Dell Audio software is a close second, while Dolby Home Theater v4, available in Lenovo notebooks, rounds out our top three. Don't get so hung up on specs that you forget about keyboard quality. You'll be pounding on those keys every time you play a game or surf the Web, so you'll want them to feel comfortable and look great too.

I've noticed more companies are starting to embrace the loud, clicky joy that is the mechanical keyboard. Known for their marvelous springy feedback and trademark clicking sound, these keyboards offer some of the best typing you're going to get on a laptop. When it comes to customization software, I'm a huge fan of Razer's Synapse 2.

It lets you create profiles for all your compatible Razer hardware mice, headsets and keyboards in addition to turning your keyboard into one hell of a light show. And if that isn't enough you can access your creations via the cloud on any laptop.