Budget gamer here. Looking to buy a laptop.
Hi! I wanted to buy a budget gaming laptop at around ~800 USD (equivalent). Currently checking out a gigabyte 3060/11400@ 850$. Is this priced right? Shoukd I look for better deals? Also, what about gigabyte laptops, are they reliable? Should I buy it? What brands should I look for, if not?
The specs sound good but be aware that there's always a caveat for gaming laptops under $1000. Look for that specific model and see what people are saying about cooling and build quality. It doesn't matter how powerful the laptop is if it's going to overheat and throttle performance 5 minutes into playing (this happens a lot in cheap laptops)
In general avoid Dell and MSI. They've got a bad reputation. I've never seen a gigabyte laptop so be careful with that.
In terms of budget laptops I've heard the asus tuf is pretty alright.
Another good resource is to check out the YouTube channel, Jarrod's Tech. He focuses almost exclusively on gaming laptops, but will cover from the top of the line beasts, to very budget ones. He's also thorough with what he looks at and covers in each video. Would recommend.
On Dell... Dell has a bad reputation on the low end. Dell XPS machines are up there with Macs in terms of build quality (so as to say, the hardware is very well put together).
Agree on the $1000 thing though, probably should be higher now, that $1000 price point has been sitting for a while.
In any case, it's normally the chassis and cooling. Lots of companies will cram components that have no business being in a chassis into the chassis and then you get overheating, premature hardware failure, etc.
Spend $350 on a steam deck and $120 to upgrade it to 1 TB storage.
Only negative is if you're into multi-player fps games like fortnite and such. Anti cheat software a lot of them use aren't Linux compatible. You can install windows, but that's a pretty meh experience.
Can you use a steam deck like a laptop? Can you do PC stuff with it like web browsing, email, etc?
Yes, albeit on a small screen unless you plug it in via dock or adapter to a larger screen.
To have a better ex0erience than simply using your cell phone you can plug the deck into a dock and use an external screen and mouse and keyboard.
The steam deck is a computer with 16 gigs ram and an AMD APU. Flat out. It comes with a custom Linux distro set up to play games, but you can install any OS (or multiple OS') and use it any way you could use any other PC.
I replaced my dying gaming laptop with a steam deck about a year ago now. At home I have it set up in a dock, connected to a good monitor with keyboard and mouse.
It does everything I want it to except, and I just found this out this week when trying to make some proxy cards so my kid can play Lorcana, that Arch Linux apparently doesn't support Brother printer drivers currently. Something about not having CUPS? I don't know but I'm a total Linux layman.
Not sure why someone would want to.
Steam Deck is specifically for gaming. You "could" since it's a Linux.
But with $800, I would rather buy a SteamDeck for dedicated gaming, and a cheap Linux Thinkpad for dedicated laptop use. Rather than one single system that half asses both.
Specs are tricky with laptops. I have two laptops with very similar specs. Same CPU, same RAM, etc. The Dell... sucks. It just runs like a slug who is drunk and disinterested. The MSI goes like a cheetah on speed.
I want to know both laptops. But, my guess is that the dell is being thermal throttle.
This seems to be a thing with Dell. My Dell doesn't work well together with my (Dell) monitor!
Well now I just want to know about this MSI one
MSI WE63 8SJ i7-8750H, 32GB DDR4, 4GB Nvidia Quadro P200 Cost me 380$ Canadian. That's, like, 14$ US... Okay, I just googled, it was 280$ USD. Used, good condition, I was assuming I'd need to upgrade something on it, like HDD or replace fans or something, but nope! Works great.
Does your use case lock you to a laptop? If not, You can probably get better performance for the same cost (edit) from a desktop.
Do you have a not-box-store computer store nearby? Have a chat with them about what you are looking for, they often have refurbished laptops. If you can wait, they may have refurbs in the pipeline too.
This. If you don't need a laptop for anything in particular, get a desktop pc. Performance will be way better and you can easily upgrade it later on.
A good monitor beats whatever you can do with a laptop any day. No gaming laptop can come close to a nice 24" or bigger screen.
Truthfully I wouldn't put budget and gaming laptop together.
Go for a desktop (especially if you're making it yourself). Go for a refurbished or used premium laptop. Go for a steam deck. Go for a Chromebook and use the money on GeForce NOW. Go for an Xbox or a PlayStation.
Or save your money...
Laptops on the budget end are filled with poorly designed chassis that never seem to be able to cool the hardware leading to premature hardware failure and thermal throttling. It's also super common to run into other cheap components that fail like the keyboard switches.
This can be true even in "expensive" computers like Alienware. You either want a beefy thick workstation-like gaming laptop or you want something like a Dell XPS where the chassis and cooling are getting a lot of extra attention, and the hardware isn't put in cheap plastic and overspeced to "wow" you with an impossible combination of "thin" and "powerful."
Lenovo legion is worth a consideration.
Do some research on what you can or cannot upgrade e.g. RAM and m2 drives. Look at notebookcheck website. Consider if you want a screen without PWM.
you don't have to go top of the line to get a good system. Also considering finding what you want and waiting for black Friday or a similar sale. The discounts can be worth it! X1 carbon extreme can get deep discounts for example.
Going to echo this, Legions are great.
Though also going to mention what others have said, if you can get a desktop, it'll be better for gaming. Not having to deal with thermal constraints generally means better value.
Treat laptops like phones.
They last a few years but quickly become outdated.
My gaming PC I built in 2018 was a $1500 investment that is still playing every single triple-AAA game without a issue. The only update I made was a new SSD drive for more space.
If your budget is locked, I made a suggestion here for a SteamDeck and a cheap Linux laptop like a Thinkpad. https://lemmy.world/comment/3752617
Honestly if you're looking to go budget get second hand parts and build a desktop. I bought a desktop with a 2700x and 1050 ti for $400 AUD. I sold the 1050 ti bought a 5700xt and a 650w psu. Cost me about $700 AUD total. This can play all the latest games at 1080p medium to high settings no problem. That's about $450 USD.
When I bought a Dell G7 around 5 years ago (1060, i7) I got it open box at Best Buy, which saved a good bit of money as opposed to buying it completely new. Haven't kept up with gaming laptops in a bit, as I upgraded to a desktop recently, but if you go down the laptop route, looking into open box offers at retailers is worth it imo.
If you're in the US, Walmart regularly puts older gaming laptops on clearance. I remember a year ago they had a 3060 laptop for $600
You can save yourself $120 by buying a laptop without a windows license and just install Linux on it.
Does windoze really cost that much on a prebuilt system? I thought it was much cheaper.
It doesn't. It's often negligible in an OEM PC. At least, most companies pass very little on to the consumer for avoiding a Windows license.
It does, it's a cost that's added into the final sale of the computer
