Ready to upgrade your current rig with a new gaming laptop? New models are rolling out with Nvidia’s latest GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics, and there are bigger discounts to be found on older but still powerful gaming laptops. And if you’re working from home, a gaming laptop can double as an overqualified office machine.
Check out the picks here, all of which are currently discounted at Amazon, Dell, Best Buy or Newegg. Two are actually not on sale, just dirt cheap — a budget Acer Nitro 5 that’s about as inexpensive as a gaming laptop gets (though not as cheap as it was last month) and another that’s the lowest-cost laptop I’ve found with RTX 3060 graphics.
Be sure to check back; I’ll update this story regularly to include new deals as they emerge.
Read more: Best gaming laptop to buy for 2021
Sarah Tew/CNET
It’s no longer a steal — it was $600 last month — but the Nitro 5 is still a solid buy at its list price of $720. It features a 15.6-inch, full HD display powered by a ninth-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of memory and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics. The GTX GPU lacks the ray tracing of Nvidia’s current RTX lineup but should let you play Fortnite and other casual games at medium settings at 1080p and 60 frames per second.
Sarah Tew/CNET
This entry-level Dell G3 15 gaming laptop is based on the GeForce GTX 1650 TI GPU and features a 10th-gen Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB solid-state drive. The 15.6-inch display features a full HD resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. You won’t be able to run the latest AAA titles, but it can play older games such as Fortnite and CS:GO at full HD resolution.
Sarah Tew/CNET
This Dell G3 15 gaming laptop model is discounted by $200 and doubles the RAM to 16GB and bumps up the graphics a notch to the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU. It’ll let you play less demanding games at 1080p and 60 frames per second.
Newegg
This Gigabyte isn’t on sale but is the lowest-cost laptop I’ve seen with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics. It features the RTX 3060 GPU along with a 10th-gen Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The 15.6-inch screen has full HD resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate.
ASUS
The Asus ROG Zephyrus is the company’s thinnest, most compact gaming laptop. Despite its trim dimensions, the ROG Zephyrus does not sacrifice performance. It offers the latest silicon from AMD and Intel as well as GPUs from Nvidia’s GeForce RTX line. This model features a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a roomy 1TB SSD and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics. The RTX 2060 is the budget card in Nvidia’s RTX 2000-series lineup and offers excellent bang for the buck along with ray tracing, which reproduces how light behaves in the real world to give games a more photorealistic look. The 15-inch display features a 4K (3,840×2,160-pixel) resolution but only a 60Hz refresh rate.
Sarah Tew/CNET
IMHO, this is the best-looking gaming laptop on the market. Impossibly thin for a high-powered gaming laptop with a sleek, slab look, this 15.6-inch Razer Blade laptop also boasts a powerful, smart component lineup. This renewed/refurbished model pairs a ninth-gen Intel Core i7 CPU with Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics and supplies an ample 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The 15.6-inch screen has full HD resolution and a lightning-fast 240Hz refresh rate.
Granted, the $50 discount is modest, but any price break on a laptop with a GPU from Nvidia’s new RTX 3000 series is noteworthy. This model boasts an unusual AMD and Nvidia mix. It pairs Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics with an AMD Ryzen 9 CPU. It also supplies an ample 16GB of RAM and a roomy 1TB SSD. The 14-inch screen has 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate.
More for gamers
Source link
