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Expensive gaming laptops are always the most alluring and, well, naturally so — they’re imbued with cutting edge components alongside a fast, high refresh rate display and ample amounts of RGB. They’re designed and engineered to handle nearly any AAA title with aplomb, and deliver a kind of gaming experience we’re all after.
Are they really worth the asking price, though? Are they that much better than mid-tier alternatives and, frankly, should one even buy a gaming laptop in lieu of a full-fledged desktop PC? These are all rather complex questions, as it all depends on one’s goals, needs, and overall use-case.
Still, we have noticed certain trends, and none of them are all too positive.
Expensive Gaming Laptop ≠ A Worthwhile Investment
OEMs are trying their absolute hardest to conjure up a series of gaming laptops worth salivating over. And in that arms race of theirs, they have lost track of the fundamentals. They’re cramming in H/HX series processors that get way too hot way too fast, they’re cheaping out on the cooling (whereas Intel, for instance, keeps on upping power draw) and some, even, on the displays.
Top-of-the-line gaming laptops have sort of become these glorified clamshell gaming PCs, but they are neither portable nor efficient. Of what use is a H/HX processor and a 140W TGP graphics card if the laptop’s battery, when under load, lasts no longer than, say, two hours? Of what use is that tremendous power when it can only be sustained once the laptop is chained to a wall outlet?
Their components are exceptional, there’s no doubt about it, but there needs to be a cut-off point of sorts. Gaming laptops, even the most expensive ones, are starved for airflow — hence their high temperatures both internally and externally. And even the models that come with vapor chambers and liquid metal don’t fare much better.
The laws of physics cannot be circumvented. If you cram in an HX processor and a power-hungry graphics card inside, say, a 14” chassis, then that laptop will have to get both excruciatingly hot and loud. There’s no alternative.
Moreover, due to these very concrete constraints, their components, in some cases, end up throttling and performing much worse than expected. In that scenario, you’re essentially paying a premium only to get subpar performance relative to your laptop’s specifications.
Are Expensive Gaming Laptops Worth It?
Only up to a certain point price-wise. Spending more than, say, two thousand dollars on a gaming laptop really doesn’t make a lot of sense as there’s a tangible point of diminishing returns.
You should also focus more on finding a good deal rather than splurging for the full MSRP. Gaming laptops have gotten obscenely expensive, especially those sporting NVIDIA’s RTX 40 series GPUs (regardless if it’s a feeble RTX 4050 or, say, an RTX 4070).
If you’re after the absolute best performance and don’t intend on gaming much away from a wall outlet, you might as well build a gaming PC. It’s going to cost less, perform much better, and will be near silent when compared to most gaming laptops which can easily reach the sixty decibel mark when gaming in their Performance/Turbo modes.
Truly expensive gaming laptops are, for the most part, unwarranted investments. They come with too many compromises for the asking price and are, much like any other laptop, prone to malfunctioning, overheating, exhibiting QC issues, and so on and so forth.
Mid-tier ones, on the other hand, offer a much better mix — a good middle ground in regards to performance, thermals, and the overall user experience. Their internals aren’t cranked up to eleven, either, which, in turn, allows for longer runtimes.
They’re not all worth the asking price, but companies like Lenovo and ASUS, in particular, have numerous stellar laptops on offer, all of which will deliver a satisfying level of performance for a rational sum of money.
What to Focus on When Buying an Expensive Gaming Laptop?
Most expensive gaming laptops don’t really warrant the asking price. They might be well-built and packed to the gills with the most impressive components money can buy, but there’s definitely a point of diminishing returns, and that point is quite easy to reach, contrary to popular belief.
If you’re interested in buying an expensive gaming laptop — by which we mean a laptop that costs anywhere between, say, $1,999 and $3,000 — you really need to keep the following things in mind:
Prioritize Cooling
No two gaming laptops are cooled the same. They’re all, at worst, okay at cooling down their internals, but some do a much better job than others. This also affects fan noise and surface temperatures as well, so buying a model that has these things under control is of the utmost importance.
Make sure to read and watch as many reviews of the particular model you’re interested in before making any kind of purchase decision. Just because a laptop has a high price tag doesn’t mean it has the fundamentals down right.
For in-depth written reviews, make sure to check UltrabookReview and, especially, Notebookcheck.
Upgradeable RAM Is a Must
Do not buy a gaming laptop with just 16GB of soldered RAM. This mostly pertains to the budding 14” form factor, as larger gaming laptops almost always come with two SO-DIMM slots.
16GB might be enough right now, but games are getting bigger and more demanding, and, most likely, so will the things and projects you’re working on when you’re not gaming and climbing the ranked ladder.
If you plan on keeping your laptop for, say, three-to-five years, then definitely make sure that it has at least one, if not two SO-DIMM slots.
Be Mindful of the GPU’s Power Draw
This is absolutely vital. Just because a laptop comes with, say, an RTX 4070, doesn’t mean that particular implementation can draw as much power as it needs to fully spread its proverbial wings and deliver 4070-like performance.
There’s a surprising number of laptops out there that come with “gimped” GPU implementations due to cost cutting measures, insufficient cooling modules and, in some cases, bafflingly thin chassis. And yet, on paper, they all come imbued with the exact same graphics card. This, at best, is disingenuous marketing and is about as far from consumer-friendly as it gets.
This holds true for both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards, although we’ve seen a much greater level of variation when it comes to “team green,” for whatever reason. Your laptop’s performance in games is directly proportional not only to its spec sheet but also the amount of power it can draw. AMD and NVIDIA, to their credit, always specify a TGP range. It is then up to the OEM to decide how much power it’ll allow said GPU to draw and, in turn, how much heat to generate.
The NVIDIA RTX 3050, for instance, has a TGP range of 35-80W, and yet on paper you’ll never know which implementation any particular laptop has unless you do a bit of digging.
In other words: always read the spec sheet and search out the fine details.
RTX 40 Series GPUs — Don’t Overspend
NVIDIA’s latest RTX 40 series graphics cards are very unique in that only the 4080 and 4090 variants scale past the 100W TGP mark. All other SKUs, even the entry-level RTX 4050, do not get any better past 100W.
And so, if you come across, say, a laptop with a 140W RTX 4070, it’ll not only be exceedingly expensive, but it’s also not going to provide any actual performance uplift over a 100W implementation. In that sense, you’d essentially be wasting your money.
For more information on this particular topic, make sure to watch the following video:
Build Quality Is Equally as Important
When buying a gaming laptop, the first thing we’re all after are top-of-the-line components. That much is a no-brainer. You shouldn’t, however, ignore things like build quality and craftsmanship. You don’t want your laptop to break down in any which way further down the line. You don’t want its hinge to break or start creaking, its chassis to show excessive wear and tear, to discolorate or chip away.
A sturdy, well-built enclosure is an incredibly important element of the equation. It doesn’t have to be made out of aluminum (a magnesium alloy will do just fine), but try to avoid all-plastic builds and chassis.
Last Year’s Models — A Stellar Option
If you’re after a truly spec’d-out, top-of-the-line gaming laptop, you should definitely go over last year’s offerings. They’re still more than capable enough to chew through AAA titles and can, perhaps surprisingly, often be bought for a staggeringly acceptable sum of money. Retailers are trying their hardest to clear out old stock, hence the lower-than-expected prices.
Take the 2022 ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, for instance. It was retailing for just $1,299 on Best Buy a couple of weeks ago and, odds are, it’ll go down in price even further in the not-so-distant future. The RX 6700S SKU, at one point, sold for just $999 — a steal if ever there was one.
These laptops are not that much worse than their successors. There is a slight performance delta, but it in no way justifies the uptick in price. NVIDIA’s DLSS 3.0 Frame Generation is mighty impressive, but it’s still nowhere near ubiquitous enough to warrant an upgrade.
The fact that last year’s top models can now be bought for the same price as this year’s mid-tier ones boggles the mind, and it’s definitely something you ought to harness and capitalize on.
Conclusion
Expensive gaming laptops, for the most part, simply aren’t worth it. They are, generally speaking, overpriced, and there’s a staggering amount of variance when it comes to their performance, cooling, thermals, build quality, and everything in between.
Just because a laptop has a jaw-dropping MSRP doesn’t mean it warrants the investment. There’s a depressing number of mediocre gaming laptops out there, and while these aren’t nearly as present in the higher pricing echelons, they still do exist.
Moreover, there’s a very tangible point of diminishing returns once you go past, say, $1.799 or $1.999, so you might as well wait for your favorite to go on sale and then, once the price is right, make the plunge.