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Essential Advice for Buying the Right Gaming Laptop

While the good old desktop computer is considered to be the best for gaming, a laptop proves to be much more portable to use. You can take your laptop to your friend’s house and play multi-player games together or pass your time while on the metro. However, buying a gaming laptop takes a little more skill than choosing a regular laptop for official work. You want a unit that offers crystal-clear picture quality, the best sound experience and an integrated keyboard – within your budget. Here’s how you can make the best choice when buying a gaming laptop:

Invest in your GPU

A GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) enables your laptop to process and display enhanced videos and graphics. Though some games have moved on to CPU, a large number of PC games remain GPU-dependent. Choose a powerful graphics card such as the NVidia GTX 1080 or GTX 1070 for smoother VR effects. Suitable laptops can be priced at anywhere $1000 to $3000. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is considered to be the basic minimum to play VR games with. Laptops like HTC Vive or Oculus Rift can cost between $1,100 and $1,500. If you’re an entry-level gamer, a GTX 1050 allows you to play the majority of games out there. Such laptops can cost between $800 to $1,100.

CPU, RAM, Hard drive and SS

If you’re choosing a CPU, choose one with a Core i5, Core i7 or even an Intel Core i9-8950HK. For CPUs other than the 8th Generation Core (model numbers including the number 8), you can go for a hexa-core or quad-core processor. However, you can’t upgrade a CPU in the future. Gaming takes a huge toll on your RAM, so choose an 8GB RAM – these come with a GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti. Preferably, you should have a 16BG RAM for a gaming laptop, which comes with a GTX 1060 or even higher. Fortunately, you can upgrade memory in most gaming laptops. Choose a gaming laptop that comes with a 1TB HDD hard drive and 128GB SSD, though you can always upgrade as well.

Keyboard

  • Key Travel – Choose a gaming laptop with over 1.5 millimeters (or even 2 millimeters) of key travel. Though you get mechanical keys on expensive laptops, macro keys are better for common tasks in gaming.
  • Actuation – Choose a gaming laptop with keys that require 65 to 70 grams of force to function properly.
  • Backlighting – Most budget-gaming laptops come with white or red backlighting, but some others have RGB lighting as well. More expensive laptops allow customising the colours according to the game as well.
  • N-key rollover and anti-ghosting – With an n-key rollover, each key will function, irrespective of the other keys being pressed. With anti-ghosting, each key combination to perform several functions will work perfectly.

Battery

Most budget-gaming laptops only function for a few hours when charged, which is why you should choose ultraportables with GPUs. The best option would be to keep your gaming laptop plugged in all the time.

Display

  • Size – Though the majority of gaming laptops come with 15-inch to 17-inch screens, know that a bigger screen will contribute to the weight of the laptop. Important: it’s better to not go for a touchscreen.
  • Refresh rate – Gaming laptops have a 1080p resolution which is good enough for online gaming. High-resolution displays (such as 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160) need an excellent GPU for the best experience.
  • Resolution – Choose 1920 x 1080 display as a basic option for a gaming laptop. You can get a 2560 x 1460 display if you’ve got a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 as well.
  • AMD Freesync and Nvidia G-Sync – High-end gaming laptops sync the display screen with a graphics card, which prevents ghosting and screen tearing.

These are the major factors that you need to keep in mind when buying a gaming laptop. If you’re looking for MSI gaming laptop in Malaysia, browse our collection today.