What a $1,000 gaming laptop really gets you

If you want a gaming laptop that will play the latest and greatest triple-A titles, then you have to be prepared to spend accordingly. But that doesn’t mean you have to take out a mortgage. What if you keep things relatively reasonable? We looked into what $1,000 will really get you in a gaming laptop and the results are surprisingly good.

To get started, we spent time looking at 20 highly recommended gaming laptops released in the last year, and then discarded any recommendations that didn’t fit the criteria (such as Chromebooks). We paid attention to the five laptops features that matter most along with gaming-specific needs like graphics processing units (GPUs). And then we took note of any extras you might expect on a gaming laptop such as backlit keyboards and any unusual inclusions like Thunderbolt connections to get an idea of what you can truly hope to get without spending more than a grand. Here’s what we found.

Looking to pick up an affordable gaming laptop? Be sure to check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best gaming laptops under $1,000.

You’ll get plenty of RAM

Josh Hendrickson/IDG

In general, if you’re buying an regular-work laptop, you shouldn’t settle for less than 8GB of RAM. If you want a chance of playing your favorite titles without getting bogged down, you need at least 16GB of RAM. If possible, more is better. It’s especially important to get this right on the first try because many laptops don’t have easy access to replace or upgrade the RAM and the same holds true for some gaming laptops.

The good news? Every $1,000 gaming laptop we looked at had a minimum of 16GB of RAM and quite a few had 32GB. Anything with 64GB of RAM is significantly more expensive. Even with 32GB, sometimes that came at the expense of another spec such as lower screen resolution or a smaller battery. Sometimes it’s a reasonable sacrifice like short battery life–you’re probably playing while plugged in anyway. Other times it’s the resolution, which may be a problem if your laptop monitor is your only monitor.

One thing is clear. If the gaming laptop you’re looking at only comes with 8GB of RAM, you shouldn’t buy it.

A decent GPU

If you want to game, you need a proper GPU in your machine. Most $1,000 gaming laptops come with an Nvidia RTX 3060, 4050, or 4060. But just because the number is bigger doesn’t mean it’s better. The RTX 4050, for instance, is best paired with a 1080p screen while the RTX 3060 can handle higher resolution displays. And the RTX 4060 isn’t significantly more powerful than the RTX 3060. In fact, in some tests older GPUs outperform the newer ones.

One thing to consider is that a laptop GPU is typically less powerful than the desktop counterpart. That’s down to space and heat considerations. A desktop has room for giant fans (or water cooling!) to move air around and dissipate heat. A laptop simply doesn’t have the same luxury. So, laptop GPUs are tuned to prevent overheating, which prevents them from reaching the same amount of power a desktop GPU can achieve.

It all boils down to personal preference and what you’re willing to give up. Laptops with the most powerful GPUs had a number of trade-offs such as smaller hard drives or fewer connectivity options. When it comes to gaming, resolution isn’t everything. You’ll probably be happier playing on a laptop display with a higher refresh rate and lower resolution (such as 1080p 30 fps) than the other way around (4K 15 fps), especially if that means you can enable graphical options like Ray Tracing.

We didn’t see many $1,000 gaming laptops with AMD GPUs. The AMD Radeon RX 7600S GPU, for example, performs similarly to the Nvidia RTX 4060 without Ray Tracing on. However, performance dropped with Ray Tracing enabled. That’s why we’d recommend sticking with Nvidia if ray tracing matters to you.

A fast, lower resolution display

There aren’t many $1,000 gaming laptops that offer a 4K display with high refresh rates. Most settled for 1080p 144hz displays, with the rare entry stepping up to 1200p. Those displays typically came in 15- or 16-inch flavors, so not getting 4K resolution isn’t a big loss. While you do sit closer to a laptop screen, that’s not a large enough size to get the most out of high resolution gaming. For that, you’d want to step up to an external monitor and then the mobile GPU would likely have a hard time keeping up.

What you usually won’t find on any $1,000 gaming laptop (or most other gaming laptops) is a touchscreen. That’s no loss, considering the purpose, and in fact may be a benefit. Touchscreens will reduce battery longevity (already an issue with gaming laptops) and the last thing you want is to accidentally brush the screen at a pivotal moment in a game and open a menu or accidentally turn your character away from your enemy. That’s how you lose last man standing.

You’ll probably also end up with an IPS display as well. While OLED would be nice for inky blacks in dark scenes, IPS is more than up to the task for most gaming. What you lack in contrast you usually make up in better refresh rates, so this is one sacrifice worth making to keep the cost down.

Fast storage, but watch the size

Let’s start with the good news. Most $1,000 gaming laptops will have an SSD drive. That’s good because you want quick speeds for better performance. An SSD will cut down load times, which really adds up with large open world games. But you’ll want to pay close attention to what kind of SSD the laptop uses. We saw a few SATA drive entries, which are slower than M.2 SSDs.

Budget gaming laptops tend to skimp out on storage size, too. While 1TB tends to be the norm, a few justified more powerful processors or 32GB of RAM by cutting the SSD back to 512GB. Depending on your gaming habits, that might not be enough, as some triple-A games exceed 100 and even 200GB. You’ll lose some space to the OS as well.

A powerful CPU… usually!

Most of the gaming laptops we looked at had a 13th-Gen Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 processor. That’s enough power for most gaming, so long as you have adequate RAM. On the AMD side, we regularly saw laptops with an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor.

If you’re not sure whether to go with Intel or AMD, the answer is yes. The Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU performs similar to the Intel 13th-Gen Intel Core i7 equivalent. AMD performs better in multi-thread tests while Intel usually wins in single-thread tests. In theory, AMD’s processor should run a little cooler, but that may not pan out in real-world use because of the chassis and cooling systems.

Some ports and other goodies

Josh Hendrickson/IDG

You know what nearly every gaming laptop has that most other laptops don’t these days? An Ethernet port. And for good reason, if you’re playing online, you’ll get the best experience when you aren’t on Wi-Fi. But if you aren’t able to hardwire in, most $1,000 gaming laptops come with Wi-Fi 6. A few even offered Wi-Fi 7, but don’t feel the need to splurge as that’s a long ways off.

Keep an eye for USB-C ports and what they entail. Unfortunately, not all USB-C ports are the same and that can lead to confusion. We saw one gaming laptop that offered just two USB-C ports, only one of which actually provided power. And on the flipside, another option offered Thunderbolt connections, which is a good choice if you’d prefer to use an external monitor. The most common USB-C port at this level was a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (with DisplayPort 1.4), often in a pairing of one port that provided power and one that didn’t. USB-A is still a common option at this point, as are HDMI ports and headphone jacks.

Poor battery life will leave you plugged in

Nearly every laptop we looked at promised five hours of battery life or less. When it comes to battery life, most manufacturers overpromise and underdeliver.

Chances are, if you plan on a long gaming sessions, you should plug in whether or not your laptop promises long battery life. Modern GPUs and CPUs often dial back performance when unplugged to extend battery life and if you’re playing online, you probably want to use Ethernet anyway. Likewise, it’s easier to keep a bright screen going while plugged in than on battery. If you plan to travel a lot with your gaming laptop, then battery life is something to watch closely. But otherwise, this is an area you can let slide if it gets you better performance elsewhere.

Plenty of choices in gaming

Josh Hendrickson/IDG

We looked at 20 gaming laptops released in the last year or so, but that’s far from a comprehensive look. Still, it should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect if you only have $1,000 to spend. The good new is you have lots of choices and every day you’ll probably have another. The better news? Laptop deals are pretty frequent, so you should be on the lookout for them.