If you're already on the lookout for the best gaming laptop to buy this year, the question is: Buy now or wait? The new models -- and the chips they'll ride in on -- launched at CES 2025: the biggies from Intel, AMD and Nvidia. But the refreshed laptops don't usually ship until between March and June, so you may want to pause buying or take advantage of dropping prices on older models as retailers try to make room for the upgraded ones. And it will be some time after that until we've got a decent number of them tested, reviewed and ready for recommending on this list. You can also check out the best laptops overall and our favorite laptops from CES.
Our Picks
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What is the best laptop overall?
My favorite model that has a good balance of price, weight, performance, screen and design at the moment is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16. The model we tested is relatively pricey at $2,700 for an upscale configuration with a 16-inch OLED screen, RTX 4080, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD and an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H. Solid configurations start at $2,000. I consider it the best general choice for gaming, but its little sibling -- the G14 -- is a little more highly rated because of its more general-use advantages, like size, weight and lower price.
The best of the budget gaming models is the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16. Acer knows how to wring performance out of every component, and this one is fast for its low-end RTX 4050 graphics, which is sufficient for 1080p gaming and a bright display.
My recommendations for the best laptops are based on our benchmark-based and hands-on testing (we play games, too). We continually test laptops, so we'll be updating our recommendations as we review the latest models.
Read more:
Best gaming laptops
Best overall gaming laptop
Pros
- Excellent fast, calibrated OLED screen
- Well designed
- Performance vs size reasonably balanced
- Good port selection
Cons
- Battery life is just okay
- Big power brick
- Bottom and hinge area can get hot
- Settings in Armoury Crate software can get confusing
Both the G16 and its smaller 14-inch sibling are excellent gaming laptops and very similar, but I chose the 16-inch, mostly for the larger screen, more powerful GPU and broader port selection. It's also a good pick for creative work, thanks to the calibrated OLED display.
Best budget gaming laptop
Pros
- Leading 3D performance among budget gaming laptops
- Plastic keyboard deck is solid
- Aluminum top cover adds durability
- Roomy and bright 16-inch, 16:10 display
- Crisp, 1080p webcam
- Plenty of ports, including Thunderbolt 4
Cons
- Bulky and heavy
- Design borrows liberally from Acer's entry-level Nitro 16
- Weak audio output
- Short battery life
Acer's mainstream value gaming line, a step up from the Nitro and a step below its straight Predator Helios models, this 16-inch model starts at roughly $1,000 (look for it on sale too) and squeezes excellent performance from the lower-end components, making it one of the best performers among budget gaming laptops. It's got a lot of plastic, but it's still solidly built, the 1,920x1,200 165Hz display is bright and it has plenty of ports and a 1080p webcam. We reviewed a Core i5 model, but there are different configurations for less money that should perform better which are available now.
Best performing gaming laptop
Pros
- Excellent performance for a portable
- Lots of connections
- Functional design
Cons
- Heavy
- Display is just OK
- Can get loud
Alienware offered one of the first of the new 18-inch models, and with the R2 it streamlined the design. The big screen is great for gaming as well as for work, and because of all the space, it can deliver class-leading performance with lots of cooling and a ton of ports and connections, as well as be configured up with wazoo to flagship CPUs and GPUs. If you want all that power for work, it's a great desktop replacement as well.
The system starts at $1,900, but that's with an RTX 4060; if you just want to use that big screen for 1080p and some 1440p games, that's fine. If you want to play high-quality 1440p and connect to an external display for 4K, you'll probably want a more expensive model with an RTX 4080.
Best MacBook for gamers
Pros
- Very fast
- Excellent screen
- Great battery life for its class
Cons
- Merits a better webcam
- Heavy
- Screen notch
The Mac still isn't a very popular platform for gaming. Apple has been increasingly spurring developers of high-profile games to support the company's Metal graphics programming interface to show off MacOS and iOS code-once, play both performances. Whether you're the developer on the hook or need to use a MacBook but want to play games, my recommendation is the M4 Pro or Max 16-inch for the big screen and better (M4 Pro) or best (M4 Max) GPU.
It's really expensive; our test system was priced in the ballpark of $3,500. Or if you don't care about the screen size, even the M4 Pro configuration of the 14-inch comes in at a lot less than the 16-inch. You definitely want the Pro or Max for the GPU.
Best 14-inch for gamers and creators
Pros
- Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 8.5 $2,000
- Excellent, color accurate OLED display
- Very well designed
Cons
- Bottom gets hot when plugged in
- No Adobe RGB profiling
Although the ROG Zephyrus brand is one of Asus' thin-and-light gaming lines, this particular 14-inch is targeted at creators and doesn't deliver best-in-class gaming performance. It's certainly good enough for top-quality 1080p. It features an excellent OLED display and is very well designed, it also comes with Asus' full-featured -- if a little confusing -- Armoury Crate software.
Best general-purpose laptop for gaming
Pros
- Stylish design
- Nice OLED screen
- Good performance for its size and components
Cons
- Can't force it to use the discrete GPU
- Keyboard backlight can make keys harder to differentiate
- Finish shows smudges
Although HP categorizes the Transcend as a gaming laptop, I consider it a general-purpose laptop that's also good for gaming, partly because it lacks a lot of the performance controls I expect from gaming laptops. It can be a good value on sale, say, roughly $1,200 or less for the configuration we tested, but since it's performance-constrained, I wouldn't pay a lot for it as a mostly-for-gaming laptop. It does wrap sufficient power for mainstream use and gaming in a compact, stylish design with an OLED display.
Best budget gaming laptop for 1440p
Pros
- Decent performance for its class
- Dual-refresh display
- Not as much of a performance drop on battery compared to older CPU generations
Cons
- Display has just-OK image quality
- Keyboard feels a little stiff
- Side vents can get quite hot
- Comparatively heavy
- Has a little trouble with weak wireless signals
Dell’s Alienware line isn't usually associated with the budget class, but Dell lowered the entry price for its second-gen m16 model to where it’s a sensible budget/midrange buy. The line starts at $1,500 for a configuration with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, GeForce RTX 4050, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and a single-zone RGB keyboard. Upgrading to an RTX 4060 adds $100 to the bill.
The model we tested with RTX 4070 graphics and a per-key RGB keyboard runs about $1,750. The RTX 4050 and RTX 4060 models will serve you better playing games at 1080p than 1440p, but if you're looking for 1440p on the cheap you can lower your quality settings a bit to make it work.
Other notable gaming laptops we've tested
Origin PC Eon17-X v2: An above-average gaming laptop, this 17.3-inch is a solid big-screen alternative. Though it can't keep up with competing 18-inch models like the Alienware m18 R2, it holds its own against them when similarly equipped (with an Intel Core i9-14900HX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090), and like other big systems it has the cooling to handle the high-performance components (and the loud fans to go with it). Though it lacks some more common software customization options, you can personalize the cover with Origin's custom UV prints.
Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I: It's super cheap, with a dedicated Intel Arc GPU that lends it a wee bit of 3D muscle for casual 1080p play.
Factors to consider when buying a gaming laptop
For gamers looking to get the most performance for their money, the trick to finding the right gaming laptop is getting enough performance to play 3D games without sacrificing too much in other areas like the display and overall build quality while also avoiding older models on sale with outdated or soon-to-be-outdated parts. Here's our expert advice on what to consider to get the most gaming laptop for your money.
Price
Gaming laptops start at well below $1,000 with slower GPUs (like an older model or RTX 4050) geared toward 1080p play and at the high end, the sky's the limit. The sweet spot -- for mainstream 1440p gaming and an RTX 4070 GPU that will last you longer without sacrificing AAA play -- sits roughly between $1,200 and $2,000, depending upon what you're willing to sacrifice.
Operating System
Microsoft Windows is the most popular choice for gaming laptops, especially budget gaming laptops. If you've got a M3 Pro or better or M4 MacBook, Apple's been working with developers to increase the prominent games for MacOS. So don't give up.
Screen
Most gaming laptops feature large displays between 14 and 18 inches; the older and cheaper models generally have 15.6- or 17-inch models. OLED delivers the highest contrast, most colorful and fastest displays, but you might want to look for HDR support, which they don't always have.
Processor
Intel and AMD are the main CPU makers for gaming laptops; most games depend on the GPU for their graphics performance, but sims and other games that populate worlds based on player or environmental interactions use the CPU quite a bit, so look for at least a Core i7 HX and better or AMD 8040HS-series CPUs or faster.
Graphics
All gaming laptops will feature a dedicated GPU from either Nvidia or AMD (and to a far lesser extent, Intel). Nvidia is the most popular and generally the best performing for the money. Look for an RTX 40xx or Radeon 7000-series discrete GPUs or later.
Memory
For memory, we highly recommend at least 16GB of RAM; 8GB will hamper performance in a lot of cases.
Storage
For a gaming laptop, we don't recommend going with less than a 512GB SSD unless you either play only one game at a time or you want to spend a lot on an external SSD and your system has at least a Thunderbolt/USB4 port to at least store games in progress. 1TB is good; more is usually better, depending upon how much extra it costs.
Gaming Laptop FAQs
The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computer-like devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments.
The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we're currently running on every compatible computer include Primate Labs Geekbench 5, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra.
A more detailed description of each benchmark and how we use it can be found on our How We Test Computers page.
How we test laptops
The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computer-like devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments.
The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we're currently running on every compatible computer include Primate Labs Geekbench 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra.
A more detailed description of each benchmark and how we use it can be found in our page on how we test computers.
For gaming laptops, we run a variety of performance tests, and in the individual product reviews, you'll see more meaningful performance results than the ones we present here. In reviews, we provide apples-to-apples results -- products from the same pool that you're trying to choose from, with similar prices and configurations -- rather than the fruit salad sampling of results here.