With the best gaming laptop, your gaming sessions don't have to stay in one place. You can frag friends in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare at a coffee shop, get lost in Control on a plane, or train up in Mortal Kombat 11 in bed, all while enjoying blistering framerates and high-res visuals.
The best gaming laptop right now is the Alienware Area 51m, a laptop with downright excessive hardware that's custom-built to empty your bank account as well as power any games you throw at the machine.
Some of the other best gaming laptops include the petite and portable MSI GS65 Stealth Thin as well as the MSI GT75VR Titan, an expensive laptop known for its otherworldly keyboard and 4K display. We also have some smart budget options, like the Acer Nitro 5, listed for frugal folks.
Here are the best gaming laptops you can buy now.
For gamers who demand maximum graphics settings for every game currently on the market, the Alienware Area 51m is built to impress. It has a few different configurations, and all are built to run games as smoothly as butter. The "weakest" GPU it offers is an RTX 2060, which is already overkill for modern games. This machine's most powerful model includes an RTX 2080, which will future-proof you for a long time. The Area 51m's CPUs range from very strong Intel Core i7s to even stronger Core i9s, with the lowest clock speeds hitting 3.6 GHz and the highest reaching up to 5 GHz. Similarly, the system's base model includes a whopping 16GB of RAM, which can be upgraded to a ludicrous 64GB.
That upgradeability is what sets the Area 51m apart. Unlike with most laptops, you can improve this machine's RAM, storage, CPU and GPU as time goes on, which gives this monster a lot of extra mileage. Not that you'd need to upgrade anytime soon; this tank's specs are designed to keep you gaming on max settings for many years to come.
The Lenovo Legion Y7000 is an affordable, respectable laptop for hardcore gamers not looking to break the bank. This machine's GTX 1060 GPU will ensure you can play most modern games on max settings with silky smooth frame rates, and you'll be able to play virtually all games on some mixture of medium and high. The Y7000 also packs enough RAM (16GB) to keep the system relevant for a few years.
The miniscule storage space (256GB) is a big drawback, especially since certain modern games suck up 100GB by themselves. But the Y7000 offers a decent overall value that makes it one of the better gaming-laptop options for economical techies.
MSI has gotten pretty good at making ultrapowerful portable gaming laptops — just take a look at the GS65 Stealth Thin. It's under 5 pounds and less than an inch thick, all while packing GPUs like Nvidia's RTX 2080. That's an achievement.
The drawbacks of this strong-but-slim design are twofold: Not only is the Stealth Thin priced at a premium for its compact nature (with only a 1080p display, no less), but the machine also runs hot enough to burn your bare skin. So, either place this laptop on a desk or put a fire blanket on your lap before using this machine.
Like the GS65 Stealth Thin, the Razer Blade Pro 17 is one of the best gaming laptops for portability and power. Its 0.8-inch thick chassis and RTX GPU lineup keep it competitive with the Stealth Thin, and it holds a very slight advantage in the temperature-control department. The Razer Blade Pro 17's undercarriage can reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit during intensive gaming, so resting this machine on bare skin is still not safe, but if you're wearing shorts, there's a chance this laptop will offer a more comfortable experience than the even-hotter GS65.
Above all else, this laptop is built to be skinny and strong, and it does both these things in spades. If you're willing to shell out top dollar for a brand, you could do worse than a Razer Blade Pro 17.
Though the Dell G7 15 doesn't offer as much value as the other laptops on this list, in either its lower- or higher-tier configurations, it's still not an awful deal either way. You can net an Intel Core i5 CPU, a GTX 1650 with 4GB of VRAM, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HDD for a pretty reasonable price with the G7.
In the more expensive config, you get all the usual superpowerful hardware, including an RTX 2080, but the laptop will also come equipped with a 4K OLED display. That's not common among the best gaming laptops listed here, so if you want the most visual fidelity possible for your machine's screen, the G7 15 might be worth a look.
A rarity in the gaming laptop scene, the Acer Nitro 5 offers good performance for a price that's actually reasonable to regular people. Either model can handle most modern games at max settings with frame rates near the magical 60-frames-per-second mark, and they do this at a ridiculously small fraction of the cost of other gaming laptops on this list. Check out all the positive user reviews cheering on the Acer Nitro 5 for these reasons and more.
For laptop gamers who support only AMD, the Nitro 5 also presents the rare opportunity to ditch Nvidia and Intel entirely. So, whether you're a thrifty buyer who demands good value in your technology or an ardent AMD fan who refuses to convert to the opposition, Acer's Nitro 5 has something to offer you.
If you need a portable laptop and don't mind cramping your fingers a bit to type, Asus' ROG Zephyrus S GX701 (2019 edition) is a machine worth considering. Its large, 17.3-inch screen means that storing this laptop won't be a piece of cake in most laptop bags or backpacks. But the machine's thin and (relatively) lightweight nature means it's going to be easier to haul around than a lot of the other laptops on this list. Additionally, the Zephyrus has the specs to play games at ultra settings without issue, and it offers a respectable amount of storage.
As the laptop's user reviews note, the Zephyrus' strong performance is balanced out by multiple battery issues, noisy hardware and other pitfalls that hold it back from being great. Keep all this in mind when shopping.
Though its specs aren't comparable to those of the RTX 2080-equipped, wallet-munching machines on this list, and though it isn't even close to "budget friendly," some unique benefits give the MSI GT75VR Titan an edge in an otherwise-crowded marketplace. Chiefly, it's a laptop with a configuration that can net you an Nvidia G-Sync-enabled 4K display, meaning screen tearing will be a thing of the past while you enjoy the bleeding-edge resolutions of modern gaming.
Another big advantage for the Titan is its comfy keyboard. With this machine's 2.6 millimeters of key travel and 81 grams of actuation force, your fingers glide across the keyboard with just enough touch resistance to feel satisfying while typing. However, keep in mind that with its sub-3-hour battery life and 10-plus-pound weight, you won't want to be stuck with this machine while on the go.
