Cheap Gaming Laptop 400$-650$

[TheBatman_85]

I need a Laptop that can run high performance games that require quite the specs, it would be good if it could run Elden Ring but I believe it will not; I know a Desktop would be better for performance and price but it HAS to be a Laptop as I travel quite frequently.

 

If there are any questions , feel free to ask and I will try and answer them as soon as possible.

 

Thanks,

George

[YoungBlade]

Hi George, and welcome to the Forums!

 

Can you give us some more information? You say 400-650$, but many countries use a "dollar" - which country are you from so we know where to look?

 

Do you have any other requirements for the laptop beyond gaming? Do you do video editing, programming, 3D modeling or another task that might be CPU or GPU intensive?

[Hinjima]

4 minutes ago, TheBatman_85 said:

I need a Laptop that can run high performance games that require quite the specs, it would be good if it could run Elden Ring but I believe it will not; I know a Desktop would be better for performance and price but it HAS to be a Laptop as I travel quite frequently.

 

If there are any questions , feel free to ask and I will try and answer them as soon as possible.

 

Thanks,

George

Are you also ok with buying used?

[John Reactor]

It might be difficult to find something. Look for mashine with at least RTX3050 on board.

[OhYou_]

Just now, Hinjima said:

Are you also ok with buying used?

I dont think thats a choice with a 6 hunge budget

 

if you save a bit longer you can get a thinkpad T15g gen1 which is a 10th gen and a 2070 super

[TheBatman_85]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

Hi George, and welcome to the Forums!

 

Can you give us some more information? You say 400-650$, but many countries use a "dollar" - which country are you from so we know where to look?

 

Do you have any other requirements for the laptop beyond gaming? Do you do video editing, programming, 3D modeling or another task that might be CPU or GPU intensive?

Hi YoungBlade, i was talking about American Dollars, and I don't really do video editing and that kind of stuff so no, I can't think of any task that might make the CPU or GPU struggle excepting maybe gaming.

[OddOod]

Welcome to the forums!
Ooof, with that budget you're basically gonna have to scrounge craigslist to get something remotely high performance. If you're in a moderately sized metro area you might be able to snag an old workstation laptop from an enterprise liquidator and do a battery swap with potentially a repaste of GPU/CPU. But it's gonna be a journey. If you usually travel to places with decent internet, you might be better off with a lower spec laptop and a cloud gaming subscription

[TheBatman_85]

1 minute ago, OddOod said:

Welcome to the forums!
Ooof, with that budget you're basically gonna have to scrounge craigslist to get something remotely high performance. If you're in a moderately sized metro area you might be able to snag an old workstation laptop from an enterprise liquidator and do a battery swap with potentially a repaste of GPU/CPU. But it's gonna be a journey. If you usually travel to places with decent internet, you might be better off with a lower spec laptop and a cloud gaming subscription

Bffffffff, that doesn't sound really good, what would be approximately the minimum price for a high performance Laptop that wouldn't make a hole in my wallet?; I might be able to concede a little more budget if its not too much.

[YoungBlade]

9 minutes ago, TheBatman_85 said:

Bffffffff, that doesn't sound really good, what would be approximately the minimum price for a high performance Laptop that wouldn't make a hole in my wallet?; I might be able to concede a little more budget if its not too much.

Probably $750 as a bare minimum if you want to go new - that's about where you can start to find laptops with an RTX 3050 GPU - the lowest end last-gen option. Even GTX 1650 laptops (which are noticeably slower) are hard to come by at $650, they usually are found around $700.

 

Honestly, $1000 would be better.

 

I found this one for $740 from a marketplace seller on Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000E-11NU5?Item=9SIAEYJJ3U2139

 

That's the cheapest I can find with a modern GPU. The CPU isn't ideal for gaming in 2023, as its an older 4c/8t model, but it should be able to keep up with the GPU in most situations.

 

The laptop also lacks storage space - you'd likely need to invest in an SSD upgrade or external drive to store your games if you play more than a couple.

[OddOod]

13 minutes ago, TheBatman_85 said:

Bffffffff, that doesn't sound really good, what would be approximately the minimum price for a high performance Laptop that wouldn't make a hole in my wallet?; I might be able to concede a little more budget if its not too much.

New? 2 grand. 
This might do the trick if you're dead set on this path
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325622514766

But you absolutely should look up gaming laptop benchmarks and figure out what specs you'll need, then just lurk the used market til you see something with those specs at a price you're willing to pay

[jaslion]

29 minutes ago, TheBatman_85 said:

Bffffffff, that doesn't sound really good, what would be approximately the minimum price for a high performance Laptop that wouldn't make a hole in my wallet?; I might be able to concede a little more budget if its not too much.

750$ but that basically gets you a current min spec for current games laptop that basically becomes to little in a couple years.

 

Or the more common thing that it already comes underequipped with ram and needs upgrade day 1.

 

Does it have to be a laptop because 650$ if going used can actually get you a ok desktop that CAN be upgraded on a budget to last you many years

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

found this one for $740 from a marketplace seller on Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000E-11NU5?Item=9SIAEYJJ3U2139

Issue with that one is it overheats quite a bit due to the 11th gen chip the ryzen one is just about fine but the intel one isnt.

 

Also doesnt even have half the battery life the ryzen does

[TheBatman_85]

How is this Laptop, its currently on discount and its from Asus:
https://www.asus.com/ro/laptops/for-gaming/tuf-gaming/2021-asus-tuf-gaming-f17/techspec/

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, TheBatman_85 said:

How is this Laptop, its currently on discount and its from Asus:
https://www.asus.com/ro/laptops/for-gaming/tuf-gaming/2021-asus-tuf-gaming-f17/techspec/

Same issues as all.

 

It does have a bit better cooling than the ideapad.

 

Still its bottom tier, only has 8gb of ram, very poor battery life, low end screen,...

 

Ram will need an upgrade day 1 already as a fair few modern games run like crap/dont even launch on 8gb of ram.

 

 

Battery life is 2 hours tops. Due to the 11th gen chip and small battery.

 

 

It'll play elden ring already at reduced settings. But also a 4gb gpu in 2023 is literally already not enough for most AAA games released this year except on the lowest settings due to vram limits (for some its even too little still)

 

I recommend you save up so you dont need to replace the whole laptop again in a year or 2 because it cant even do 1080p games anymore.

 

Its a common issue with laptops. Where there is a treshhold for relevancy 50 series cards have always been in the lasts a couple years category. 60 series in its fine now and will run for 2 years before drastically lowering settings is needed and then 70 series jumps to 5+ years of relevancy before going below the 1080p 60fps mark. (all startibg from the nvidia 900 mobile series).

 

Also in case you dont know a 3050 mobile and 3050 desktop are NOT THE SAME CARD AT ALL. Widepy different performance.

[TheBatman_85]

10 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Same issues as all.

 

It does have a bit better cooling than the ideapad.

 

Still its bottom tier, only has 8gb of ram, very poor battery life, low end screen,...

 

Ram will need an upgrade day 1 already as a fair few modern games run like crap/dont even launch on 8gb of ram.

 

 

Battery life is 2 hours tops. Due to the 11th gen chip and small battery.

 

 

It'll play elden ring already at reduced settings. But also a 4gb gpu in 2023 is literally already not enough for most AAA games released this year except on the lowest settings due to vram limits (for some its even too little still)

 

I recommend you save up so you dont need to replace the whole laptop again in a year or 2 because it cant even do 1080p games anymore.

 

Its a common issue with laptops. Where there is a treshhold for relevancy 50 series cards have always been in the lasts a couple years category. 60 series in its fine now and will run for 2 years before drastically lowering settings is needed and then 70 series jumps to 5+ years of relevancy before going below the 1080p 60fps mark. (all startibg from the nvidia 900 mobile series).

 

Also in case you dont know a 3050 mobile and 3050 desktop are NOT THE SAME CARD AT ALL. Widepy different performance.

Soo how much will I have to spend for a decent high performance gaming laptop? Also can you send me some links to some laptops if you dont mind?

[jaslion]

Just now, TheBatman_85 said:

Soo how much will I have to spend for a decent high performance gaming laptop? Also can you send me some links to some laptops if you dont mind?

Currently I'd not go lower than a rtx 4060 or rx7600s laptop with a 6core/12thread or better cpu and 16gb of ram. Maybe a older rtx 3070 laptop.

 

Since you are in rupees? I assume its india? Prices are widely different qnd hard for us to gage.

 

 

 

 

[TheBatman_85]

No, its in RON/LEI in Romania, maybe you can find good prices in my region, idk?

18 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Currently I'd not go lower than a rtx 4060 or rx7600s laptop with a 6core/12thread or better cpu and 16gb of ram. Maybe a older rtx 3070 laptop.

 

Since you are in rupees? I assume its india? Prices are widely different qnd hard for us to gage.

 

 

 

 

 

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, TheBatman_85 said:

No, its in RON/LEI in Romania, maybe you can find good prices in my region, idk?

 

Oh what why did I get the indian site hahaha

So that tuf is 3400 lei (for me when I find it again) and well the first laptop i'd get is 2000 more. So I assume thats far out of budget.

[TheBatman_85]

33 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Oh what why did I get the indian site hahaha

So that tuf is 3400 lei (for me when I find it again) and well the first laptop i'd get is 2000 more. So I assume thats far out of budget.

Very correct... So what can I do? + can you give me the link to the PC you would recommend?

 

[TheBatman_85]

Or can you give me a list of components I wanna check for the PC?

Like the minimum for the high performance or smth to go looking for

 

ty for your help so far, it is very much appreciated

 

[TeslaDummy]

Try the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15inch. It has an intel core i5 10th gen and intel arc graphics. It is very smooth and it only costs around 500 dollars at best buy.

[waronthemoon1]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:34 AM, jaslion said:

Issue with that one is it overheats quite a bit due to the 11th gen chip the ryzen one is just about fine but the intel one isnt.

 

Also doesnt even have half the battery life the ryzen does

^ Yes Ryzen chips in laptops are way more energy efficient. Either way, look for a laptop with an rtx 3060 MINIMUM for 60fps@1080p on Elden Ring. Theres another guy asking for the same exact type of laptop with a budget of 1000$, you will really need to hit that mark to play it well.

 

---

I would not recommend any gaming laptop under $1200 as that's where the sweet spot is. You will find RTX 3070 laptops. It's also where the laptop gaming specs converge very close with it's custom-built pricintg. The main downside is thermals and mobile grade components (slower and more energy efficient parts like mobile CPU, mobile GPU, worse cooling, etc)

 

At the range of $600, you may find it hard to even get a cusotm built PC to play the game very well. It's discouraged as the investment may become useless in a year. The battery life will be poor so you will always need outlets even if you are simply browsing the internet and studying/coding for a few hours. It will be heavier, hotter, louder, and usually dimmer than many ultrabooks as well.

----

 

If you only plan to maybe play one or 2 games, maybe just cheap out on an utlrabook with integrated graphics and live with laggy elden ring until you can afford an eGPU (like a razor core). You won't be killing off your laptop's battery and waring it down when not gaming.

[jaslion]

4 hours ago, TeslaDummy said:

Try the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15inch. It has an intel core i5 10th gen and intel arc graphics. It is very smooth and it only costs around 500 dollars at best buy.

Thats an office laptop on a quite old chip with also bad battery life. Not at all what op was looking for

[TeslaDummy]

2 hours ago, jaslion said:

Thats an office laptop on a quite old chip with also bad battery life. Not at all what op was looking for

I use it as my daily driver and It handles it quite well. I do cad design.

[jaslion]

9 hours ago, TeslaDummy said:

I use it as my daily driver and It handles it quite well. I do cad design.

Op is asking for a gaming laptop