Granted, it’s not the most powerful laptop on the market, but if you’re looking for a gaming laptop on a budget, this HP Victus 15.6 (opens in new tab) It can be one of the most affordable options. Best Buy offers the HP Victus 15 (model: 15-fa0031dx) for $549. A whopping $250 drop from its previous price, it’s a steal considering it was one of the best gaming laptops under $1500. (opens in new tab) When tested at $799.
Looking at the hardware inside the HP Victus 15, we get an 8-core 12th generation Intel i5-12450H processor with 4 P-cores and 4 E-cores, 12 threads and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.40 GHz. This processor is more than enough to run modern games without being a GPU bottleneck.
Speaking of graphics, the Victus 15 is powered by an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 mobile GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM. It’s a moderate GPU, and you can’t play modern AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077 with all sliders maxed out. However, with a boost clock of 1560MHz, this chip can handle most games just fine on medium settings.
The screen has a 15.6-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (FHD) and a refresh rate of 144Hz. The high refresh rate also makes it a great low-cost option for esports gamers.
Other features of this gaming laptop include Bang & Olufsen audio for twin-speaker setups, a backlit keyboard for low-light gaming, and a good selection of ports. It has an HDMI 2.1 output and 3x USB 3.0 ports consisting of 2x USB 3.0 Type A and 1x USB 3.0 Type C.
All in all, this is an impressive budget gaming laptop, especially at or near this impressively low price point.
