Inflation has made many of the essentials more expensive, but overstocking and overall low sales means gaming laptops are getting cheaper if anything. For less than $1,500, and sometimes well below $1,500, you can find systems with high refresh rate displays, fast SSDs, and GPUs enough to run 1080p games at relatively high settings.
Each year Tom’s Hardware benchmarks and reviews a wide variety of gaming laptops across different price points, brands and configurations. This experience gives us insight into what performance and features to expect if your budget is under $1,500, and which systems are the best at that price point.
We’ll talk more about this in the “What to Expect” section further down the page, but with one of the best gaming laptops under $1,500, you’ll get 1080p on high settings or in some cases You should be able to run the game smoothly on super settings, and anything under $1,000 will require lower settings or resolution.
Best Gaming Laptops Under $1,500
I reviewed the Asus ROG Strix G15 and it was just over $1,500. I recently reviewed with the same AMD Radeon RX 6800M, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB storage drive and it dropped a bit.
The Strix G15 Advantage Edition showed both strong gaming and productivity performance in tests competing against laptops using Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 in their gaming suite. For example, as you can see in the graph below, the Strix G15 achieves significantly higher frame rates on Borderlands 3’s Badass settings compared to the RTX 3060 equipped Alienware m15 R5 with RTX 3060, while the Razer Blade Pro and RTX I tied the 3070. .
But what we’re particularly impressed with is the battery life. In our battery test, he ran for 10 hours and 14 minutes, which puts just about every competitor to shame and longer than some ultrabooks we’ve tested recently.
The laptop remained cool on most touch points. The display could be a little brighter, but not unusable. However, this laptop does not have a webcam, so you will have to bring your own webcam.
For those who want their laptop to scream “gaming,” the G15 is covered in RGB lighting, including a strip on the bottom. There are also some AMD and Asus themed Easter Eggs on the outside of the computer as well as inside the laptop under the bottom plate.
read: Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition review
To get real power, you usually have to tread that $1,500 line without a sale. We tested the $1,499.99 Asus TUF Gaming i7-12700H with Core i7-12700H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060. A 300 Hz display is also available for an additional charge. This is perfect for esports gamers who want the best frame possible. price.
In our benchmarks, the TUF Gaming F15 Shadow of the Tomb Raider Benchmark (highest setting, 74 fps), grand theft auto v benchmark (very high settings, 90 fps), and red dead redemption 2 Benchmark (medium settings, 59 fps).
The laptop also performed well in most of our productivity tests, suggesting that this is a decent workhorse even when you’re not playing games.
There is room for improvement here.I didn’t like the webcam or speakers, but you can make up for it with either best gaming headset or external webcam.
read: Asus TUF Gaming F15 review
For several years, we’ve held the Acer Nitro 5 as the gold standard for affordable gaming notebooks. We are still fans. Acer has redesigned the chassis to make it a little more understated — goodbye red and black!. It still has RGB lighting, but the angles are less aggressive, making it perfect for gaming with friends or at the coffee shop. Suitable for
we tested Best Buy exclusive $899.99 model (opens in new tab) With a Core i5-12500H and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, it delivered solid performance as long as I was willing to lower the settings for some games. For example, when playing Far Cry New Dawn at Ultra settings (1080p), the Acer Nitro 5 outperformed the Asus TUF Gaming 17, also tested with his RTX 3050 Ti graphics, by a good margin. It was a bit behind the MSI Pulse GL66 with the RTX 3060.
If you’re willing to spend a little more, get the Nitro 5 with an RTX 3060. About $1,449.99 (opens in new tab) Direct from Acer.
Acer included a lot of bloatware in the Nitro 5, so you’ll have to spend some time removing unnecessary extras.
I also liked that the NItro 5 can be upgraded in the future. There’s an empty 2.5-inch drive bay, and Acer ships with his SATA cable so you can add a hard drive or SSD later to make room for gaming. Not many laptops come with additional affordable storage.
read: Acer Nitro 5 Review
The HP Victus 15 could be a lot cheaper as HP stocks the $799 base model with the non-modern GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 (that’s what I happened to test). But at $799 for an Intel Core i5-12450H paired with a 1920 x 1080, 144 Hz screen, you might be willing to turn down the settings for your favorite games. You can also scale up the specs to .)
Still, the Victus achieved playable scores on the toughest benchmarks in most games, and lagged only in the hardest titles. Note that it was quite expensive.
Victus looks professional and comes in three subtle colors. For some, it might surprise you that this is a gaming laptop, at least from the outside. It may be a good thing for those who want it.
The biggest problem is that HP comes with a lot of software pre-installed. Our review unit also had single-channel RAM. When shopping, see if he can find two 4GB sticks offered in HP’s configurator if he buys 8GB.
read: HP Victus 15 review
What to expect from the best gaming laptops under $1,500
- GPUs: A gaming laptop’s graphics card has the biggest impact on its ability to deliver smooth frame rates and sharp details. Under $1,500, the best graphics cards you can usually find are the AMD Radeon RX 6800M or the Nvidia RTX 3060, but you’ll only see them in a few models in this price range depending on sales. For , the next level is the Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti or Radeon RX 6700M. If you’re spending less than $1,000, expect the RTX 3050.
Out of all of these, the RX 6800M is the best performer in most cases, followed by the RTX 3060. Both cards can deliver smooth 1080p gaming at high or ultra settings with ray tracing enabled, or at solid frame rates. The RTX 3050 Ti can provide reasonably smooth performance at 1080p, but we wouldn’t recommend it for ray tracing. For the RTX 3050 (non-Ti), expect to play lower than the 1080p max setting, drop the resolution to 720p, or settle for a significantly lower frame rate.
- screen: Gaming laptop screen sizes range from 14 to 17 inches, with 15 inches being the most common. For the best gaming laptop under $1,500, expect 1080p resolution and 120-165Hz refresh rate. These are all good numbers as the system is not powerful enough to play at high resolutions or frame rates above these refresh rates. Look for subtle (sometimes not so subtle) differences in color quality and brightness.
- CPU: Don’t get too hung up on the CPU, as the GPU is much more important in games at this price point. You can usually find an Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 6000 CPU in systems under $1,500, but the best deals are on laptops with the previous generation chips (Intel 11th Gen Core or Ryzen 5000 series) You can also find some Core i5 and Ryzen 5 CPUs in cheap systems, but they should be more than enough for most people.
- sheep: You can find 16 GB of DDR4 or DDR5 RAM in the best gaming laptops under $1,500. This is more than enough for everyone. Below $1,000, models with 8 GB of RAM will be available. If you buy the 8GB model now to save money, strongly consider upgrading the RAM to aftermarket he DIMMs. This costs between $40 and $80.
- Storage: The best gaming laptops under $1,500 may come with a 500GB NVMe SSD that offers strong performance, but only enough storage space for a few games. Many of the sub-$1,000 models only come with 256GB drives, which is barely enough for an operating system and might not be enough for space-hogging AAA games. In either case, consider upgrading to a secondary drive or a new primary SSD. Both cost less than $100 for 1 TB.
Best Gaming Laptops Under $1,500: Conclusion
Even gaming laptops with similar key specs have noticeable differences. His two systems with the same graphics card and CPU may have slightly different performance based on the performance of the cooling system. You can’t tell this by just reading a spec sheet or looking at a laptop in a store. Systems running cooler can jump and sustain higher clock speeds, allowing for higher frame rates.
Raw performance shouldn’t be the only factor when choosing the best gaming laptop under $1,500. Also consider the design, keyboard and touchpad feel, and screen quality. These all vary quite a bit from model to model, so it’s a good idea to do some research before pulling the trigger.
Discounts on the best gaming laptops under $1,500
Whether you’re shopping for the best gaming laptop, or another model not listed, save money by checking our list of Dell Coupon Codes, HP Coupon Codes, Lenovo Coupon Codes, Razer Promo Codes You may be able to. Or Newegg promo code.
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