The question of which laptop is better to buy for gaming has been posed by gamers for many years.
The difficulty is that new models are coming out and what was previously considered the most powerful can no longer be considered as such.
The reason for this conclusion is very simple - all modern games are written for Windows (all kinds of chess and balls are not counted, we take into account games like GTA 5, NFS and the like).
But the problem is that if the computer is designed for the same MacOS, it will be very problematic to install Windows on it.
The official Apple website says that there is a Boot Camp program for using Windows programs on Mac.
There are installation instructions. But even so, no one is immune from compatibility problems.
Until that time, all games were running just fine, and the picture was, as they say, delicious. Now everything has changed. The same goes for other similar systems.
Frequency
The fact is that the minimum processor frequency for a gaming device today is 2.4 GHz.
Most modern games work normally only at this frequency. It is logical that the higher the frequency, the higher the performance.
This can be clearly seen in the following graph.
Figure 4 shows the results of testing the same game with different processor frequencies.
Again, the main parameter here was the number of frames per second. And the lines of different colors show what the fps value was at different screen resolutions.
At 2160p the difference is not that great, but at 1080p it is already quite noticeable.
Since most modern laptops do not have more than 1080p resolution, it is obvious that for a good gaming laptop, the processor frequency should be at least 3 GHz.
This is enough for the games that are still expected to be released.
Advice: The minimum processor frequency should be 3 GHz.
Number of Cores
Obviously, the performance of a computer also depends on the number of processor cores - the more there are, the faster information will be processed.
The principle here is very simple - all information is evenly distributed between the cores and they all process it.
But if we have already determined that the minimum processor frequency should be 3 GHz, then the criterion for the number of cores disappears automatically.
The fact is that processors with such a frequency simply cannot have few cores - from 4 to 8.
It's more important to look at the processor manufacturer and kernel architecture. As for the first, let's say right away - AMD processors are not suitable for games. You need to choose Intel.
This can be clearly seen in the following graph.
As you can see, here they took processors from Intel and AMD with different numbers of cores and launched the GTA 5 game.
As a result, more frames per second were recorded when working with Intel processors.
In terms of architecture, the following graph shows that the best architecture models today for Intel processors are Broadwell, Skylake and Haswell, which have been released in the last 3 years.
Hence the next selection criterion.
Advice: Best processor architectureBroadwell, Skylake or Haswell.
Criterion # 3. RAM
As you know, games usually require a large amount of files and data that relate to locations, objects, maps, saves and everything else. For all this, RAM is responsible.
Accordingly, the heavier the game, the more data it needs to load and work normally, the more RAM it needs.
Of course, modern games require quite a lot of such memory, but not as much as the manufacturers offer.
For example, let's take a few heavy games and see what their RAM requirements are to work at maximum settings:
- Crysis 3 - 8 GB.
- Battlefield 4 - 8GB
- Assassin's Creed 4 - 4 GB.
- Need for Speed \u200b\u200b2015 - 8 GB.
The same picture is with other heavy games of our time. 8 GB is enough for the toy to work quietly without any freezes.
Yes, it is possible that in a year or two something very demanding will come out and more gigabytes will be needed there, so let's take it with a margin.
Criterion No. 4. Video card
As for the video card, here we will consider the most important and central parameter - the size of the video memory.
This parameter determines how much graphic information the device can store in itself.
For example, if in the game you need to load some textures to go to the next level, then they will be loaded through this very memory.
The higher the resolution in the laptop, the more video memory it will need.
In most cases, one gigabyte of video memory is enough.
But in order to determine the ideal amount of video memory, it is necessary to turn again to the maximum requirements for the heaviest modern games.
After reading these requirements, you can see the following picture:
- Crysis 3 - 4 GB.
- Battlefield 4 - 4GB
- Assassin's Creed 4 - 2 GB.
- Need for Speed \u200b\u200b2015 - 4 GB.
A very simple conclusion can be drawn from this - a modern gaming laptop requires 4 GB of video memory.
All other parameters related to the video card simply cannot be low with a large amount of video memory. Hence the following criterion.
Advice: You need at least 4 GB of video memory.
It doesn't matter which model of the video card will be installed in the laptop, the main thing is that it has at least 4 GB of memory.
Criterion # 5. Hard disk space
Most of the games listed above require at least 30GB of free space on your hard drive.
But of course, we will not have one game, but 10-20 pieces, so we need to multiply 30 GB by at least 10, the result will be 300 GB.
If you take it with a margin, it will be about 500 GB. This will be our next criterion.
Advice: The minimum storage space must be 500 GB.
Yes, manufacturers today offer more, but there is simply no special sense in this so far.
Even if you install the 10 heaviest games and add a sea of \u200b\u200bmovies there, it will still be very problematic to fill even 1 TB.
In addition, there is a common myth that storage capacity somehow affects performance.
This is due to the fact that, supposedly, the more information on the computer, the slower it will work. It is not true.
All the information that is on the drive is processed by the processor and the faster it does it, the more productive the laptop will be. And this pattern does not change even after years of using the device.
But above, we have already determined that the minimum processor frequency should be equal to 3 GHz. So, this is quite enough for quiet work with a large amount of gigabytes of information.
Types of hard drives
An ideal option for a gaming laptop is an SSD drive. The arguments for such a bold statement are as follows:
- SSD drives work 100 times faster than HDD drives. These are not just words. Other hard drives need to spin up to access data, and SSDs have the ability to get it instantly. This is due to the fact that there are no moving parts in an SSD.
- SSD drives have higher bandwidth, and at times. This means that this type of disk will be able to pass more megabytes every second.
- SSD drives have much better I / O performance. This parameter characterizes how many operations the device can process. It is related to the previous one.
Throughput refers to how many operations a hard drive can actually get, and I / O performance means how many of those operations it can handle. - SSDs have much faster response times. This means that they react faster when an operation comes to them for processing. Accordingly, they can process this very operation much faster.
All these parameters are reflected in the figure below.
As you can see, in all three parameters SSDs are two or three heads higher than in their HDD counterparts. SSDs have other benefits as well.
For example, they are much more reliable due to their one-piece construction.
They are absolutely not susceptible to falls, scratches, mechanical damage and, ultimately, shock. Fact: the shock resistance of any SSD drive is at least 1000 g / 0.5 ms.
This effectively means that you can throw it against the wall and drop it on the asphalt - absolutely nothing will happen to it. In general, the following criterion is obvious.
Advice: The laptop should haveSSD storage device.
Interestingly, the combination of an SSD drive and less RAM than described above and a less powerful processor than described above can also give impressive results.
Even with 5 GB of RAM and a processor frequency of 2.4 GHz, you can easily play the same Crysis 3 or NFS.
On the other hand, with the parameters described above, you can sacrifice the dream of an SSD and take a model from an HDD.
Criterion # 6. Working hours
As you know, battery life depends on the battery.
Of course, most of the time the laptop will work from a regular outlet, but from time to time a gamer will have to take it with him on trips or there will be some kind of problem with the electricity supply.
In such cases, it is necessary that the laptop has an excellent battery. Since games require a lot of computer resources, the battery must be very powerful.
Considering all of the above parameters, the maximum battery life can be 9 hours.
But for a gaming laptop, 4 hours is fine - all the same, playing games gets boring and sometimes you need to rest. Therefore, the next criterion is obvious.
Advice: The required minimum battery life is 4 hours.
In any case, you will have to buy another battery, because even if it is stated that the battery will last at least 10 hours, with an average load it will work somewhere around 7-8, and in games - 4-5.
Therefore, in practice, the same battery will last for 4 hours at most for 2 hours.
Advice: For a gaming laptop, be sure to buy a second battery, more powerful than the one already built into it.
Criterion No. 7. Weight and dimensions
Of course, no gamer wants to carry 10-20 kg, even in a briefcase. The heaviest laptop to date is the Dell XPS M2010, which weighs 8.3 kg.
There are also secret military developments from Philips, which, according to some experts, weigh up to 9 kg. Of course, it is not very convenient to carry such a colossus.
Therefore, it is optimal for a laptop to weigh up to 4 kg.
Such weight will not harm the human body, and if you constantly carry such a device with you, a person will even stop noticing it.
Interestingly, all other parameters in the Dell XPS M2010 were at a very high level at the time this creation was published.
As for the dimensions of a gaming laptop, the considerations are the same here - it is absolutely inconvenient to carry a too wide colossus with you.
Therefore, it is optimal that the length of the device is not more than 500 mm, and the width is 40 mm.
Most experts agree on this. This size allows the laptop to have a diagonal of 17.3 inches. Hence one more criterion.
Although, of course, someone might want to buy themselves something big and impressive. Therefore, this parameter can also be referred to as optional.
Criterion No. 8. Connectors and actuators
For some heavy games, in particular GTA 5, the manufacturer requires that the computer has a DVD drive.
This is done with the expectation that the user will nevertheless buy the official game on disk and will only use it, and will not download everything on the Internet from torrents.
Of course, the reality is that now you can find everything on the Internet and download various games for free.
But manufacturers are moving forward and, quite possibly, already in 2017 a game will be released that cannot be broken.
Fifa 14 was released a few years ago and for a long time not a single person called a "cracker" (who makes crackers for the game, that is, files that allow you to bypass the protection) could crack it.
Even teams of specialists have made attempts, in particular skidrow, Razor, Reloaded and others.
Usually, all versions of Fifa break down a month after the release, but here it took 5 months and only after that a crack appeared on the skidrow website.
And now all the new versions of the football simulator do not break so easily, and at least three months pass between the release of the game and the release of the crack.
In general, crackers find it more and more difficult to crack new games, so a DVD drive and several thousand for a new game should always be available.
The same goes for other connectors and communications.
For example, a laptop must have an input for an HDMI cable, because if you want to connect a computer to a TV, you can do this with an HDMI cable.
As a last resort, you can connect a TV via the VGA connector, but it's better if you still have HDMI. In addition, you always want to show your friends a powerful laptop and play something together.
Therefore, the computer must have several connectors for USB devices, such as joysticks and gamepads. The optimal number of USB ports is 4.
This conclusion can be drawn from the fact that most games in the collective participation mode are designed for such a maximum number of people.
For example, the same Fifa has five positions - one for the keyboard and 4 for gamepads.
Advice: Must be present 4USB connector and preferablyHDMI.
Criterion No. 9. Brand name
In the case of laptops, don't skimp on buying a laptop from a well-known brand. The advantages of such a purchase are obvious.
Firstly, a well-known brand has its own service centers, most likely, in your city or in the nearest large settlement.
The situation here is almost the same as with phones - there are well-known brands that sell their products at a high price, and there are Chinese, who are the same in terms of parameters, but are sold cheaper.
But the problem is that the products of well-known brands can be repaired in any city, and in order to fix the representative of our socialist brother, you need to send him directly to China.
Maybe laptops will not need to be sent directly to the manufacturer, but it is still easier and faster for craftsmen to repair well-known brands.
And secondly, after all, many years of experience proves the reliability of this or that brand.
And cheap China is still something new for us and not yet fully tested.
Based on this, we can single out a list of brands that have the most authority among users. These include the following brands:
- Asus;
- Toshiba;
- Apple;
- Dell;
- Lenovo;
- Acer;
Advice:Choose manufacturers -Asus, Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, Acer or HP (Apple we excluded from the very beginning due to the difficulties with adapting games to the OS).
First place - HP ZBook 17
Based on all of the above characteristics, one single winner was chosen to be the best gaming laptop on the market.
It was the HP ZBook 17. You can buy it for $ 5,500, or about 380,000 rubles.
In Russia, it can be purchased at the HP brand store. It has different configurations, but the most powerful of them has the following characteristics:
- intel Core i7 processor with a maximum frequency of 4 GHz, 4 cores and Haswell architecture;
- 32 GB of RAM (you can take it with 8 GB, it will be twice cheaper);
- two hard drives - one 256 GB SSD (it is better to install the main games on it) and another 1 TB HDD;
- there is a DVD drive (no HDMI);
- screen diagonal is 17.3 inches, maximum resolution is 1920x1080;
- video memory - 8 GB;
- 4 USB ports - 3 for USB0 and 1 for USB 2.0;
- dimensions - 41.6x27.2;
- preinstalled Windows 7;
- weight - 3.5 kg.
The manufacturer gives a 3-year warranty on it.
As you can see, we still had to sacrifice something, in particular, the HDMI connector and a 500 GB SSD drive. But the fact that there is an SSD here at all is already a huge plus.
And its battery is weak - for 4.5 hours. But still something better on the market today cannot be found.
It is worth saying that because of such a powerful graphics core, the HP ZBook 17 is perfect not only for gamers, but also for everyone who, in one way or another, is connected with graphics, in particular, designers, artists and developers.
In addition, the huge advantage of this device is that it is available in the CIS. Some modern powerful laptops can only be bought in America or China.
Second place - Fujitsu CELSIUS H920
If you sacrifice several selection criteria, in particular the last one, the Fujitsu CELSIUS H920 will be the winner. It is very difficult to buy it.
Within the CIS, it is available only in a few stores. A real exclusive!
Although it costs about $ 3,000 or 200,000 rubles, which is very good. This monster has the following characteristics:
- intel Core i7 processor with a frequency of 3 GHz, 4 cores, but with Ivy Bridge architecture;
- 16 GB of RAM;
- preinstalled Windows 7;
- screen with a diagonal of 17.3 inches and a resolution of 1920 × 1080;
- 4 GB of video memory;
- 512 GB SSD disk;
- Blu-ray drive;
- 4 USB ports - 1 for USB0 and 3 for USB 2.0;
- battery for 9 hours.
Basically, thanks to a clean SSD drive, this model could bypass our today's winner, even despite the outdated processor architecture, if it had more RAM.
Still, the HP ZBook 17 is better.
But the Japanese Fujitsu CELSIUS H920 also has its advantages. In particular, it is a more durable battery.
If it will be possible to play on the winner of our today's competition for only 2 hours, then the Japanese will definitely withstand 4.
In any case, all modern games and even those that will be released in the next 2-3 years will work very well on both Fujitsu CELSIUS H920 and HP ZBook 17.
By the way, interestingly, the Japanese was released in 2012, so the outdated kernel isn't too surprising.
But the fact that this laptop has been keeping its mark for 3 years is quite impressive!
Fujitsu CELSIUS H920 - Second Place in Best Gaming Laptop Race
Many fans of computer games are interested in how to choose a laptop for games. The answer to this question is far from being as simple as it might seem at first glance. Having bought a desktop computer, you can change any component of your computer at any time. But, in the case of a laptop, this trick will not work for you. Therefore, choosing a laptop is always a very responsible task. In one of the articles we have already talked about how, now we will focus on choosing a gaming laptop.
In order to figure out how to choose a laptop for gaming, you need to understand what a gaming laptop should be. First, it must be a powerful laptop. Modern computer games require huge computing resources. Therefore, the laptop must have a powerful processor and video card. It is these two components that most affect the overall gaming performance of a laptop. Also, when choosing a laptop for games, you should not forget about comfort. In order to play computer games comfortably, a laptop must have a large and comfortable keyboard. Otherwise, you won't be able to dismantle high scores in games.
The easiest option would be to buy a so-called gaming laptop or a professional gaming laptop. These laptops are designed specifically for gaming, they are equipped with powerful components, a comfortable keyboard and a reliable cooling system.
Typical gaming laptops are DELL ALIENWARE and Asus ROG. For example, at the moment, the top configuration of the DELL ALIENWARE M18x laptop is equipped with the following components:
- Quad-core Core i7 2300 MHz processor;
- 16 gigabytes of DDR3 1333 MHz RAM;
- 18.4 inch 1920 × 1080 LED backlit;
- Discrete AMD Radeon HD 7970M with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM;
- DVD-RW drive;
- 2 terabyte hard drive;
- Network card 1 gigabit / sec;
- Wireless and Wi-Fi 802.11n modules;
- Built-in card reader;
- Interfaces: USB 2.0 × 3, USB 3.0 × 2, HDMI, VGA (D-Sub), Mini DisplayPort, audio / headphone output, eSATA, S / PDIF;
Choosing such a laptop for gaming, you get the most suitable solution. But, such laptops are much more expensive than ordinary ones, therefore, as a rule, most computer game lovers choose simpler laptops.
Key Features of Laptop for Gaming
How to choose a laptop for gaming if you have enough money for DELL ALIENWARE or another similar monster laptop? Consider the characteristics that should be paid special attention to in the selection process.
- CPU. The gaming laptop must be equipped with. When choosing, focus on the main ones. The best option would be an Intel Core i7 processor. If you take a laptop with such a processor is not possible, you can pay attention to such processors as: Intel Core i5 and AMD A10.
- Video card. First, the video card must be discrete. Now almost all processors are equipped with integrated video accelerators. The latest models of such accelerators demonstrate quite good results, but they are still very far from a full-fledged discrete video card. Therefore, if you want to choose a laptop for gaming, then laptops should be discarded immediately. In terms of power, the more powerful the video card, the better. The most advanced models at the moment are the AMD Radeon HD 7970M and GeForce GTX 675M.
- RAM. The more RAM the better. It is advisable to choose a model with at least 8 gigabytes.
- HDD. should be roomy enough to fit all the games you need. Also recently, laptops are gaining popularity in which a classic hard drive and an SSD drive are installed at the same time. Systems with this configuration will run significantly faster. It should be noted that laptops exclusively with an SSD drive and without a hard drive will not work. In this case, the capacity of one SSD drive will not be enough to store a large number of games.
- Screen diagonal. For a comfortable game, the screen must be large. It is best to choose a laptop with a screen diagonal of 15 inches or more.
- Keyboard. The keyboard is a very important component for the computer game lover. In order to make sure that the chosen laptop will be comfortable enough for you, you need to test it. If you are shopping from an online store, it’s better to take some time to find your chosen model in a regular retail store and click on the keyboard.
- Cooling system. Computer games create a huge load, because of what. Working with a device that heats up like an electric oven is not very comfortable. Therefore, a gaming laptop must be equipped with a reliable cooling system. One of the typical signs of a poor cooling system is too thin a case.
- DVD drive. A laptop for games simply must be equipped with a DVD drive, otherwise you will have problems installing and running games, which are distributed on disks.
Many of us love computer games, but not everyone is able to enjoy them without compromise. That without fuzzy graphics, incomplete screen mode, "jerky" gameplay or problems with the launch of the game. And it's all about the hardware that is required for modern games. Of course, a real gamer will confidently say (and he will be partly right) that no, even the best, gaming laptop can be compared to a gaming computer, but a desktop cannot be stuffed into a bag and enjoy your favorite game anywhere you are ...
Minimum requirements for gaming laptops
When planning to buy a good gaming laptop, you need to keep in mind that the name "gaming laptop" is not suitable for every device. The launch of the mobile versions of GeForce Pascal graphics cards at once swept the winners of the ratings of gaming laptops from the pedestals of the past years: indeed, the new video cards have become not only faster, but also colder. And for notebooks, lower power consumption and lower power consumption are critical. So the choice at the present moment can be described simply: do you need a fairly budgetary "laptop" with the ability to play comfortably without the need to twist the quality to the maximum? Look towards models with GTX 1050 and fresh i 5-i 7 processors. Anything faster? Here it is already worth thinking about the GTX 1060 or 1070, which will perfectly reveal their capabilities with the Intel Core i 7 older models. Well, in the top, no doubt, the GTX 1080 and even laptops with video cards combined in SLI.
However, do not forget that AMD clearly wants to undermine the former monopoly of Intel and Nvidia in the gaming market. Ryzen and RX-based laptops are still exotic, but the new products on the market are definitely worth watching.
The main thing - do not forget about high-quality cooling: in games more difficult than "Klondike" and "Minesweeper", the quality of processor and video card cooling is of decisive importance for a laptop. You should not choose either overly noisy models that can tire your hearing after an hour of playing, nor those where, for the sake of compactness, the cooling system drives the processor to the brink of throttling even with fresh thermal paste and no dust in the fans.
And, of course, there are no extra watt-hours in a battery: if 50-60 watt-hours are still acceptable for "younger" gaming models, then 80 won't seem like much for top models.
So, what are the best gaming laptops offered to the Russian gaming enthusiast in late 2017 and early 2018?
