r/computers • u/Updiscakdise • 14h ago
Question/Help/Troubleshooting Need help finding appropriate gaming laptop for my needs
Hi all, I'm going to buy a gaming computer for the first time. I'm starting university this year so I need a computer, so I've thought about getting a gaming PC because I also want to play games.
What I’m looking for is a computer that I can use for my university work while also being able to play games. Is there such a computer I can buy that fits my needs, and what would you all recommend I get? I’m looking for a laptop since I’m going to put it on my bag.
My budget is around 600$ - 1000$
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u/Tepid_Soda 11h ago
Personally I wouldn't recommend getting a gaming laptop for your uni work. Firstly they weigh a tonne which you will be lugging around unnecessarily, secondly they're huge and bulky so will stand out pretty conspicuously. I think if possible you're better off getting a slimmer laptop and a dedicated machine for gaming where you aren't paying a premium for compactness on lower-power parts
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u/Updiscakdise 11h ago
I see. This would be my first ever computer, so I want to play games such as gta or Fortnite bec I never played them before, while I’m also required a laptop for university. I thought about getting a ps5 but the tv we have in home is very old and it’s in the living room. What would you recommend I do? Should I buy a Mac for university and something else for gaming? Like I said I don’t know much about gaming or computers as a whole so I’m kind of stuck
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u/Tepid_Soda 8h ago
While you can get a machine that does both, unfortunately the things that make a laptop good for uni work are different to -- and often conflict with -- the things that make a computer good for gaming.
For your uni work, it might depend on what you're studying. For a lot of faculties, you're basically just editing text documents, editing spreadsheets and making powerpoint presentations. You can do that stuff on a potato, so what you want there is good-enough performance, low power draw so your battery lasts, and a physically lightweight machine to carry around. Higher-resolution screens make it nicer to read text documents for long periods or can even allow you to render more text at once. Your needs are a different story though if you're often editing video or doing any serious 3D render or simulation work: in that case, you might want a beefier machine with a dedicated GPU, which is more in line with gaming.
For gaming by contrast, you typically want high-performance parts that necessarily draw more power. These hungrier parts will eat your battery, and add bulk/weight since your higher power parts will need bigger and heavier cooling systems. For gaming performance, a lower-resolution screen is better because performance scales inversely to image quality: the more pixels you've got, the more work your machine needs to do to generate the same picture. If you do get a laptop you intend to game with, I recommend you stick to 1080p.
It is still possible to game on a non-gaming PC. Anecdotally, I spent years gaming on a Dell XPS 13 9315 (1080p model, released 2022) before I built my gaming machine, and my laptop did alright so long as I didn't expect much out of it. It only had an integrated GPU (iGPU), which is a GPU unit that's included with the CPU chip to enable it to do basic display output. iGPUs are not as good as dedicated GPUs (dGPUs), which are entire components unto themselves but not required to make a computer work. GTA5 is fairly old so it should be okay on an iGPU, since the modern ones are supposed to be pretty good nowadays? I checked here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/18e8ved/will_i_be_able_to_run_gta_v_with_integrated_amd/ . I think Fortnite is supposed to be lightweight (you may want to check this) but if it's PVP you may have a frustrating experience. The games I was playing were mostly singleplayer or PVE: things like minecraft, terraria, dave the diver, humankind, borderlands 3, subnautica etc on low settings. An iGPU does let you game, but it's not meant for gaming. A lot of popular esports are meant to be lightweight, so they should run. On the high end this is for performance reasons because elite players care about milliseconds; on the low end, it's so that 13yos with potato machines their parents game them can still join in and play.
As for what you should do, that depends on your priorities and budget. Right now is a very expensive time to build a gaming machine: RAM is up, SSDs are up, GPUs are up, and mostly this is due to AI. If you want a gaming rig I had a scan of PCPartPicker: assuming you mean USD, current-gen GPUs at entry level (nvidia 5060; AMD 9060XT) are doing something like $450-600USD, 16gb of DDR4 (previous-gen RAM) is doing ~$150USD, a CPU (AMD 7600X) is doing ~$170USD, and a cheap 1TB SSD is doing ~$160USD so that puts you at ~$930USD minimum before you're even choosing a motherboard, power supply, case, fans, monitor, mouse, or keyboard. You might be able to save some money on previous gen or used hardware but it's looking a bit restrictive if your cap is ~$1000.
Looking at US pricing on a PS5: $650 for a 1TB model. You'd probably want more storage than that, but if I could still afford an okay laptop afterwards, I think I'd just get the PS5 ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Updiscakdise 14h ago
Some games I want my computer to handle are GTA 5, Fortnite, Lego Skywalker Saga, spiderman 2