What You Should Look For in a Cheap Gaming Laptop
Most cheap gaming laptops share a lot in common. They’re all usually between 0.8 and 1 inch thick and tend to have bare-bones gaming-capable hardware. Here are some of the key specs to look for:
Display: 15-inch or 16-inch display. Depending on the aspect ratio, they’ll have basic displays with a standard 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200 resolution. You won’t find higher-resolution panels on gaming laptops under $1,000. Also, take a look at the refresh rate. 144 Hz is the standard, but the higher the better for less motion blur and smoother animation. While OLED and mini-LED are more common in higher-end gaming laptops, all budget-oriented options use LED IPS.
CPU: The latest processors from Intel and AMD will all be here, and in the budget tier, the differences aren’t as significant as in higher-end options. For AMD, that’s usually either the Ryzen 5 220 or Ryzen 7 250. Intel’s latest gaming chips in this price range are Intel Core Ultra 5 225H or Core Ultra 7 240H. While Intel has announced its next-gen Core Ultra Series 3 chips, these still haven’t come out just yet.
GPU: We’re currently in Nvidia’s RTX 50-series graphics cards, which came out at the beginning of 2025. In gaming laptops under $1,000, you’ll be stuck with either the RTX 5050 or 5060. These likely won’t be replaced until at least 2027, so it’s safe to buy these for now.
Memory: You want at least 16 GB of RAM, and that’s typically what you’ll be stuck with in budget gaming laptops. Many gaming laptops let you upgrade RAM yourself later, though with the price of stand-alone memory these days, it might not be a bad idea to configure it with 32 GB upfront.
Storage: Gaming laptops start at 512 GB, and that will be enough for most. Upgrading to 1 terabyte isn’t a bad idea, though, whether that’s configured up-front or doing it yourself later. You can always store games on an external hard drive, but with the size of games these days, the more storage you have the better.
What About Older Gaming Laptops?
The laptops above are the cheapest gaming laptops you should buy, but as you’ll discover with some research, there are some even lower-priced options out there—some as low as $500 or $600. Most come with older graphics cards and processors, meaning you’re getting a dip in performance. This is especially true if you buy something like an RTX 3050 or 2050. The RTX 50 series is the latest version, which came out at the beginning of 2025. The RTX 40 series was announced in 2023, meaning anything older than that is well over three years old. I wouldn’t recommend anything that old, especially not if it was already budget-oriented. I haven’t seen anything cheap enough that would make me think you shouldn’t go with one of the RTX 50 series options above instead.
Take a look at this older version of the Lenovo LOQ 15, which has an RTX 3060 (and a different design) and is currently selling for $550. That’s only $50 more than the Acer Nitro V 16 with the RTX 5050, which is more powerful, comes with more VRAM, and has multiframe generation. It’s clearly the better purchase and will last you longer before you feel the urge to upgrade.
Other Cheap Gaming Laptops to Consider
There are a few other affordable gaming laptops I haven’t tested yet that are worth considering. Asus and Dell both have RTX 5050 options, but neither is under $1,000. The Asus ROG A14 is out there, but I can’t find a version cheaper than $1,270. Meanwhile, the Alienware Aurora 16 starts at $1,200 at Dell.com but is currently on sale for $899 at Walmart. It’s definitely on my list to test next, as Alienware generally has great build quality.
If you’re willing to spend a bit more, you’ll find gaming laptops over $1,000 with more memory and storage, higher-quality displays (sometimes even OLED), thinner chassis, and most importantly, more powerful CPUs and GPUs. At the time of writing, the cheapest RTX 5070 gaming laptop came in at $1,500 when on sale. That goes up to $1,879 for the most affordable RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptop on sale. That should give you an idea of how performance scales up from what is considered “budget.” Read our Best Gaming Laptops guide for more high-end picks.
How We Test Budget Gaming Laptops
Here at WIRED, we test budget gaming laptops the same way we test high-priced ones. Gaming comes first, and we run a series of in-game benchmarks to establish a baseline that can be compared apples-to-apples, including titles from different genres like Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel Rivals, and Monster Hunter: Wilds. This spits out a score, yes, but while it’s running, we pay attention to factors like fan noise, internal temperatures, and surface temperatures. We also test the game in more realistic scenarios to get a feel for how all the elements of the system come together, including the screen. We also use other CPU and GPU benchmarks like 3DMark Steel Nomad and Cinebench to evaluate performance.
Speaking of the screen, we use a colorimeter to test the breadth and accuracy of the colors, the peak brightness, and the contrast. These are all important and contribute to the overall experience of using the laptop both in and out of gaming. We also test battery life in local video playback. This is not so much for gaming, but more to see how well it works for other work or for school. We also test out the speakers and webcam to see how they hold up.
Lastly, we handle these laptops to get a sense for durability, build quality, and usability. That means typing on the keyboard, swiping on the touchpad, opening and closing the hinge, carrying it from place to place, and applying pressure to the lid and palm rests. Add in the included specs, price, and configuration options, and it comes together in something that I’d either personally recommend or not. For budget-oriented devices, price is given more weight in this evaluation. If one gaming laptop costs more than another, it needs to add something that offers a qualitative benefit.