Gaming Laptop with Battery Life

The majority of gaming laptops use a i7 quad core. These typically are rated for 37 or 47 Watts (vs 15 Watts for the standard U dual cores) and cause a major reduction in battery life. The two laptops with discrete GPUs which have the longest battery life get around this problem with a humongous battery (93 Wh for the Dell XPS 15, 95 Wh for the Macbook Pro 15). Unfortunately both use badly outdated mid-tier GPUs (nvidia 750m).

Most other laptops with a discrete GPU and i7 quad "only" have a 40-50 Wh battery. That will typically last about 4 hours with light use. The Razer Blade has a 71 Wh battery, but only manages about 3.75 hours. The Gigabyte P35W has a 76 Wh battery, and supposedly can last 5-6 hours of light use.

If you're willing to lose the quad core, you shoudl be able to get substantially better battery life. Several gaming laptop models have options for a i5 (the mobile versions are all dual core) or dual core i7 (model number ends in a U instead of a QM). If you can find a laptop which meets your specs with one of these processors, it may hit your 5-6 hour target. Otherwise you'll have to learn to live with just 4-4.5 hours of light use (obviously you can extend that a lot if there is lots of idle time - the aforementioned Razer Blade will go 6.3 hours idle).

Also, try to stick with a 970m or 965m. Those use the second gen GM204 Maxwell core. The 960m uses the first gen GM107 Maxwell core. The differences aren't major, but I assume nvidia optimized Maxwell after seeing real-life data from the first gen.

This is the question that most people as when wanting a portable gaming laptop. But the problem is that the more powerful gpu you have the less battery life you will have you will have to give up something.

At the price range that you have suggested you can actually get a laptop with at gtx 980m which is the strongest single gpu. I personally would get a drt for this price range and sacrifice the battery life as smaller laptops take the hit in games (I assume you are a gamer) and temps. Also small laptops are very noisy and the batteries take huge amounts of damage which deteriorates it.

If you don't mind this then the asus gl series are good. Razor is another good choice.

Then my best suggestion is to get a laptop with a lower end gpu. I don't know of any laptop with a gtx 970m that lasts 5 hours.

Spare battery?

It is the dgpu that takes the most amount of battery not the cpu. Putting it to power saving can help as the cpu reduces its speed but as most gaming laptops have quad cores, they require a lot of power even if they are in this mode. The only way you can get around this is to get a laptop with a u cpu but these are not ideal for gaming.

hmm...ASUS G501 has Nvidia 960m PCI-e SSD and 96Whrs battery (100whrs is the max for you to carry on flight) for $1599
ASUS UX501 with similar spec with cheaper price tag
Razor Blade also have Nvidia 970m SSD and 70Whrs battery for $2199+

Even though I really like ASUS since my old ASUS G53SW still running very well. I would wait for next version of the G501... it seems having lots problem with 4K screen. that's why the previous GX500 was not even on the market. If you are going to use the FHD mode, then it's fine I guess. If you can't wait and don't mind the Razor Blade's glossy screen, you should go with Razor since it's still under your limit. It's the similar battery run time vs ASUS G501 according to notebookcheck review. (I hate glossy screen, so I'm personally still waiting ASUS's next version or MSI dropping the glossy screen)

You could get the alienware 15. Its not even very expensive and I get 7+ hours of battery life! This is because of optimus which can switch to the intel gpu to save battery life.

Keep an eye on the razor blade stealth if you can afford it.

Check this one out with 970M, and 4.3lbs You can customize, depending on that you'll end up in the range of $2200-2500. If I had your budget, I'd definitely go for this. good luck
https/www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/evo15-s/

How about GTX 950m? Little bit slower, but with great battery life.

Samsung ATIV notebook 9 pro
http/www.samsung.com/us/computer/pcs/NP940Z5L-X01US

I can't help but wonder if the original poster hasn't already found a laptop in the 7 months since originally posting...

This maybe late but have a look at the alienware R3. Its big and heavy but should be in your budget and you should be able to game on it a lot.