A few months back I got my hands on an MSI Thin GF63, largely for an overdue look at the RTX 4050 within. Since then, this slimline gaming laptop has elbowed its way into more regular use within the Archer household, particularly when I have portable PC needs that the Steam Deck can’t quite satisfy. Now you too can get one on the cheap, by way of a chunky Prime Day discount – and as if God himself was calling me a loser nerd, it’s the significantly brawnier RTX 4060 model to boot.
]]>With a desktop version of the RTX 4050 looking less likely with every turn o’ the Earth, the true entry-level GPU among Nvidia’s current generation solely remains in the realm of gaming laptops. It’s also, I’ll admit, overdue some consideration on RPS. Between the lack of cheap graphics cards among the desktop RTX 40 series, the year-and-a-bit that DLSS 3 has had to grow its compatible games library, and the Steam Deck reminding everyone that portable, low-end gaming can still be pleasurable, now seems like the RTX 4050’s time to shine. Or, at the very least, gently twinkle.
]]>Asus' Zephyrus G14 is one of the nicest gaming laptop designs I've ever tested, and now this high-end RTX 4070 and Ryzen 9 7940HS equipped model is $450 off at Best Buy in the US. This spec also includes 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD, making for a powerful machine that is still portable thanks to its 14-inch frame with a 2560x1600 165Hz IPS display.
]]>CES 2024 is drawing to a close, and honestly, I’m not especially sad to see it go. While the Las Vegas tech megashow is probably the closest thing PC gaming hardware has to an E3 (and in some ways surpasses it, given CES still exists), this year’s event has been characterised by an all-too-credulous obsession with AI nonsense. Not the fun/useful DLSS kind that makes your games run faster – more the kind that replaces actual creative work with dubiously-sourced robot media. Icky stuff, even by Vegas standards.
Mercifully, not everyone was there to flog Stable Diffusion boxes and imaginary ChatGPT friends, so there is actually some interesting new kit to look forward to in 2024. I’ve rounded up the highlights here, along with some of the more questionable AI-based showings – because they may well merit discussion, even if that discussion amounts to "Is this a good idea?" followed by "No."
]]>Even with the rising power of integrated graphics, the prospects of getting high-quality, high-rez gaming capability in a laptop of ultrabook proportions is still years from becoming a feasible reality. Until then, slimmer gaming laptops like the HP Omen Transcend 16 remain the closest approximation of that dream, cramming discrete GPUs – the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060, in this case – into lighter, narrower chassis designs.
The usual catch with such devices, sadly, is an overeagerness to appear aspirational. Which is, to be clear, the nicest thing I can say about a Razer Blade 16 costing £2500 for its own RTX 4060 model. Despite the name, however, the Omen Transcend 16 is much more down to earth – it still offers enough premium trappings to feel like a step up from chunkier laptops, but at its current pricing of £1199 / $1429, it’s a fair trade as well. And it supports Nvidia DLSS 3, dash of futureproofing tech that might just soothe any worries about buying a 2023-spec PC in 2024.
]]>Intel have finally confirmed the full lineup and specs for their 14th gen Meteor Lake CPUs, which for now is comprised entirely of ultrathin laptop chips with the new Core Ultra branding. I appreciate that a PC gaming site might not be the most natural home for this information, considering both that these are not technically gaming CPUs and that that Meteor Lake’s most hyped-up feature is more of a productivity aid: a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for client-side AI work. However, as the new H-series parts also integrate Intel Arc graphics for the first time, there is some interesting potential for them to transform lightweight ultrabooks into viable gaming laptops.
]]>Dell's Alienware m17 gaming laptop is normally quite a pricey proposition, especially when you want one with an RTX 3070 Ti 8GB graphics card and Ryzen 6800H processor, but today you can get a machine with these specs - and a 17.3-inch 4K 120Hz screen - for just £1069 at Dell UK using the code VOUCHERCODES7, versus the recently-discounted price of £1149.
]]>Gaming laptops are a tougher proposition at a time when the Steam Deck offers portable PC gaming at a fraction of the cost. Yet while Valve's handheld is great for playing indie games and older AAA titles, there are some circumstances where it's simply not fit for purpose. It isn't really suited for twitchy multiplayer shooters, while glossy ray traced experiences are beyond its capabilities. So if you're after that kind of gaming on the go, a laptop remains ideal, and you can get a great portable gaming device for less than a grand this Black Friday weekend.
]]>Today in Big Numbers news: HP have launched a Black Friday sale in their own store, with a particularly mahoosive cut to the RTX 4080 version of their Omen 17 gaming laptop. It’s been struck down from £3800 to £2100 in the UK, a saving to the tune one £1700 – one very Big Number indeed.
Another Omen 17 variant, still with an RTX 4080 GPU (but trading an even more powerful Intel chip for less RAM and storage), is also getting the Black Friday treatment in the US. Albeit with a $500 saving, which I understand is not as Big a Number, and is thus less deserving of going in the headline.
]]>Razer have just launched, in a teamup with UK retailer Laptops Direct, one of the more unusual Black Friday deals I’ve seen thus far. In addition to several-hundred-quid savings on various Razer Blade gaming laptops, these also come bundled with a Razer Edge Android tablet and its Kishi V2 Pro controller – a bonus package worth £450 by itself. A free bag, worth £89, is thrown in as well, as is a copy of Alan Wake 2 for selected models. Potentially, then, you could walk away with £579 in freebies, all on top of your savings on the laptop itself. Interesting.
]]>I’ve spotted a familiar face among this morning’s gaggle of early Black Friday deals: the Gigabyte G5, one of my most favouritest budget gaming laptops. In both the UK and US, you can now pick up an RTX 4060 version for much less cash than you’d think, given its support for premium features like ray tracing and DLSS 3 frame generation.
]]>Few Black Friday PC hardware sales are as potent, moneysaving-wise, as the best Black Friday gaming laptop deals. From a few tenners to the best part of two grand, these laptops can and will come with seriously deep discounts. Pretty good showings, for devices that are gaming PCs, monitors, and gaming keyboards all in one.
Most of this year's Black Friday gaming laptop deals are rocking up-to-date Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, too, so they’ll be able to handle ray tracing and roid their own performance via DLSS 3.
]]>As part of Currys' early Black Friday deals in the UK, you can now pick up an HP Victus gaming laptop with an RTX 4060 for £849. That's a solid value for a spec that also includes a 12th-gen Core i5 processor, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD and 15.6-inch 1080p 144Hz IPS display. This particular model used to go for £1200, making it a nice £350 reduction.
]]>The first Black Friday deals are starting to appear now that we've poked our collective heads into November. The first one we'll look at is this £400 reduction on a current-gen Acer Nitro 16 gaming laptop from Acer's own UK store.
]]>Asus make some of the best gaming laptops going, and their Flow Z13 (discounted today!) is one of the most interesting too. It's an ultraportable 13-inch machine with high-end specs, a 1200p (1920x1200) 120Hz touchscreen and a detchable keyboard. Plug in Asus' discrete GPU (or any other eGPU solution), and you're left with an extremely powerful gaming machine - then unplug and you've got a thin and light laptop for getting work done or consuming media on the go. Nice.
Anyway, this laptop retailed for $1300 when it first debuted last year, but now it's down to $700 at Woot in the US. That's a substantial savings and a good deal for a 13-inch laptop with a Core i5 12500H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD.
]]>Good morning, American friends, and welcome to an Amazon Prime Big Deal Days highlight just for you. See, I was rifling through the available deals on gaming laptops, and nothing caught my eye quite like this high-spec, current-gen Asus ROG Strix G16 – with a chunky $320 sliced off the MSRP.
]]>Lenovo's Legion laptop line looks lovely, and today the Legion 5 Slim gaming laptop with an RTX 4060 graphics card and Ryzen 7 7840HS processor has been discounted from £1500 to £1150 with code MEGADEAL111. That's one of the best prices we've seen for this spec - if not the outright best; that's reserved for Black Friday - and well worth considering if you're in the market for a high-end gaming laptop.
]]>Acer's Predator laptops are nice options that often deliver a lot of performance for reasonable money, but today you can get even more per dollar than usual, as an RTX 3070 Ti gaming laptop in manufacturer-refurbished condition has dropped to $919 at Ebay - thanks to an extra 8% discount on refurbished items applied in the cart.
For context, this laptop has a list price of $2099 and still seems to be selling new for $1679 on Amazon - so this price is very reasonable indeed.
]]>New graphics card generations are a typical driving force behind gaming laptop refreshes, but CPUs can floor that pedal with just as heavy a boot. The result is often something like this latest Asus ROG Strix Scar 17, which wields not just a top-spec Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 but also one of AMD’s newest and most number-crunchy processors, the Ryzen 9 7945HX.
That’s a lot of newness, and even more of a specs list: 32 threads from the Ryzen, 16GB of VRAM, DLSS 3 support and so on. And yet, what’s most impressive about the Strix Scar 17 is not simply its immense power, but how balanced – sensible, even – the whole laptop feels like in use. A quality that seems almost impossible at first, given its clear status as a brashly high-end gaming notebook with all the RGB bells and aggressive styling whistles.
]]>Good news, everyone! Newegg is doing a heck of a deal on an Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop, which packs in some impressive components for a price some distance below $1000. Right now, you can pick up this configuration with an RTX 3070 Ti graphics card, Ryzen 7 6800H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 memory and 1TB NVMe SSD for $969.99, a solid $130 below its usual price.
]]>Dell's G16 gaming laptop has been heavily reduced on the Dell UK store in the wake of Prime Day, with a model featuring an RTX 4060 graphics card, 13th-gen Core i7 processor, 2560x1600 165Hz screen, 32GB DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD dropping to £1249. That's an awesome price for this spec, with a high-end CPU, RAM and SSD backed by a mid-range GPU that should be perfect for content creation, programming and of course playing games.
]]>Despite the mobile versions of Nvidia’s RTX 40 series graphics cards launching months ago, it’s been surprisingly challenging to find compelling gaming laptops with these new GPUs inside – and even harder to find them with discounts. Luckily, this MSI Katana 15 has found its way into the Amazon Prime Day sales, offering an RTX 4070 at below market rates.
]]>With the arrival of Nvidia RTX 40-series graphics cards in gaming laptops, models with previous-gen RTX 30-series cards are becoming super-affordable. Now you can get even high-models for less than £1000, including this HP Omen machine which includes a 16.1-inch 1440p 165Hz display, RTX 3070 Ti graphics card and Ryzen 7 6800H CPU for £972 on Amazon.
The same machine retailed for £1629 in March this year, so this is a huge bargain - especially given that this is still hugely a powerful machine for 1440p gaming. The spec even includes a 1TB NVMe SSD and 16GB of DDR5 RAM, so it's a convincing machine from top to bottom.
]]>Cheap laptops are great. They can run Minecraft servers, download stuff while you're away, let you practice programming, let your younger sibling play with or against you in retro or indie games. You might already have one lying around, in which case have a think about the possibilities - but if you'd like one and don't have one in a cupboard somewhere, you can grab a cheap Dell Latitude 7390 off Ebay for £219.99 in 'good' and 'refurbished' condition. For the money, you get an 8th-gen Core i5 processor with integrated graphics, a compact 13-inch design, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. All in all, it's a pretty sweet spec for the asking price!
]]>One of my all-time favourite gaming laptops is £300 off at Ebuyer UK today. The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro offers sterling performance in a slim, stylish chassis, and now you can pick up a model with an 11th-gen Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD and RTX 3060 graphics card for £899.98.
]]>The Lenovo Legion 5 is a laptop that I've recommended here at RPS on several occasions, as it gets excellent reviews online yet still provides much better specs and build quality than you'd expect for the money.
Today though, the Legion 5 is the best deal I've ever seen on an RTX gaming laptop, with this spec including a Ryzen 5 5600H and RTX 3060 Laptop graphics card for just £730.98 when you use code CATCH20 at CCL's web store on Ebay. That's an exceptional price for a brand new laptop that's still selling for £1100 at Amazon - Spring Sale or no.
]]>The latest wave of gaming laptops has hit the (virtual) shelves, and it's now possible to pick up an RTX 4060 gaming laptop for just over a grand.
The Asus Tuf A15 is down to £1099 at Amazon, a great value for a machine that includes the aforementioned GPU rated up to a 140W TDP, a Ryzen 7735HS CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD, a 15-inch 1080p 144Hz IPS display and a 90Wh battery with fast charging.
]]>Want a super-fast gaming laptop? With the very latest components, including a 13th-gen Core i7 processor and GTX 4070 graphics card? Of course you do - and now one is significantly more affordable, thanks to a 15% off discount code at Lenovo's web store that knocks £285 off one of their best gaming laptops. With code LEGION15, you can pick up a £1900 laptop for £1615, an incredible deal for this bleeding-edge spec!
]]>Here's a neat trick: if you want a high-end gaming laptop but don't want to pay over the odds for it, consider the Corsair Voyager A1600. If you buy it from Corsair's US web store, add a PC case like this one and then use code NEWBUILD, you can pick up the laptop and the case for significantly less than the cost of the laptop alone.
In fact, this $1800 laptop that debuted in December last year for $2300, complete with Ryzen 9 CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 2TB of NVMe storage, a 16-in 2560x1600 (16:10) 240Hz display and Radeon RX 6800M graphics card, goes down to just $1536. And you get a free case, essentially, which you can resell later if you don't need it. Or keep it and build a PC in it, because these Corsair cases are actually really lovely!
]]>We don't normally focus on gaming laptops when it comes to deals, as there's little you can upgrade in most machines. One thing that is usually possible is a RAM upgrade, and today we've discovered a good price on a 32GB kit of DDR4-3200 RAM from TeamGroup. Right now this Elite 2x16GB kit is available for £70, more than £30 less than its usual price. If you'd like your laptop to be equipped with 32GB of RAM for gaming or content creation, and you're currently on 16GB or less, this is a nice little upgrade for the money!
]]>Dell's Alienware division makes some of the most ostentatious and powerful gaming laptops around, and today we've got a discount on the Alienware m15 R7. This RTX 3070 Ti gaming laptop with a Ryzen 9 6900HX normally retails for £1749, but this drops to £1399 when you use code ALIEN20 at the checkout - with the possibility of a further discount if you qualify for a student or employee program discount.
]]>Honor has heavily discounted one of its MagicBook 16 laptops at its UK store, with a Ryzen 5 5600H model with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and a 16-in 1080p 144Hz screen going for £499.99. That's the best laptop I've seen at this price as of late, and while this laptop is designed more for work than play, its integrated RX Vega graphics are still capable of playing older titles.
The MagicBook 16 initially debuted at £849.99 (and still costs that much on Amazon UK), and has since dropped to £549.99. To get today's £499.99 price, use code AGOBEYOND50 at the checkout.
]]>Crucial's 3200MT/s CL22 laptop RAM is a great upgrade for gaming laptops with slower DDR4 memory, and now you can pick up a 2x8GB kit for £33 with the use of a 10% code at Crucial's UK site. To get this price, use code 10CRUCIAL at the checkout.
]]>It's rare to see a £400 discount on an RTX 3070 Ti gaming laptop, but that's the situation today as the MSI Katana GF66 is reduced on Amazon UK by 25%. This model is well-equipped too, with a 12th-gen Core i7 12650H processor, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD and a 15-in 144Hz display.
]]>I'll be quick with this one because there are just a few units available - but this top-tier Dell G16 gaming laptop is more than $1000 cheaper than it was before. This 16-in G16 gaming laptop is equipped with an RTX 3070 Ti, 12th-gen Core i9 processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD. It normally costs $2200, but now it costs $1169.99, because reasons. So: great deal, maybe move fast if you're interested. Here's the link:
]]>Unlike with most flavours of PC hardware, the list of good Cyber Monday gaming laptop deals is noticeably smaller than the catalogue of quality, discounted notebooks that Black Friday brought. That’s partly stock running out, and partly retailers just being less willing to extend these sales over the weekend. Killjoys. Still, we’re not out of luck yet, nor out of laptops – as you’ll see below, there’s still a variety of deals to choose from, especially in the UK.
]]>It’s still the frigid morning of Black Friday 2022, but there might already be a superlative gaming laptop deal up for grabs. Here in the UK, Ebuyer has an RTX 3070-equipped version of the MSI Katana GF66 laptop down to just £950 – a saving of £449.
]]>I had to check this particular Black Friday deal three times to make sure the specs were right, but yes, you can indeed get an RTX 3080-equipped version of the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop for £1200. That’s hundreds upon hundreds of pounds less than the average RTX 3080 laptop, even during the current season of early Black Friday offers.
]]>It's not every day that you see a top-end gaming laptop for £598 off, especially not when it's a 15-in RTX 3080 model from MSI. This GP66 Leopard is one of the fastest gaming laptops on the market, with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD and a 144Hz screen - not to mention that flagship-grade graphics card.
It normally retails for a cool £1998, but today Laptops Direct has discounted it to £1399.97, making it the cheapest RTX 3080 laptop we can find right now.
]]>Asus' Zephyrus G14 is my favourite all-AMD gaming laptop, and today the latest generation model is going cheap at Best Buy. This specification packs in a Ryzen 9 6900HS processor, Radeon RX 6700S GPU, 1TB NVMe SSD, 16GB of DDR5 and a 14-in 1440p 120Hz screen - and it's been discounted from $1650 to $1350, saving you $300. That's an awesome price for this level of performance, all in a compact 14-in chassis that's easy to tote around or work with on the go.
]]>I have a new favourite bug: Janet Jackson's 1989 certified choon Rhythm Nation had an uncanny ability to crash certain old laptops. This was nothing to do with the file itself; even being near another laptop playing the song could cause a crash. According to Microsoft, one of the sonic frequencies in Rhythm Nation coincided with the natural resonant frequencies of a particular laptop hard drive, making it crash. Amazing. Perfect. A perfect bug.
]]>We spotted a rare discount on Lenovo's brand new Legion 5i Pro 16 laptop, and it's a high-end model with a 12th-gen Core i7 processor, RTX 3070 Ti graphics card and a stunning 16-in 2560x1600 165Hz display. Normally this laptop retails for £1500, but thanks to an Ebay code (AUG15) you can take £60 off. This isn't a massive discount, but it's a notable price reduction for a laptop that is literally brand new with the latest-gen tech inside.
]]>Dell's G15 is one of the most affordable gaming laptops on the market, thanks to modest specs and Dell's willingness for aggressive discounts, but today we're seeing an RTX 3050 model go for an astoundingly low £441.
To get this price, select the Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS operating system and use VOUCHERCODES8 at checkout. Linux is a completely free operating system, unlike Windows, so you can knock £50 off the purchase price just by ticking this box - and of course, you're free to install Windows 10 or 11 afterwards. Keys for Windows 7/8/10 work on Windows 11 too, so you probably already have a key lying around - or you can pick up a new one for less than £50 online. The whole process, from using the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool to prepare a USB install drive to reaching the desktop, only takes around 20 to 30 minutes - well worth it!
]]>Lenovo has deeply discounted one of its excellent Legion 5 17-in laptops over at its UK store, bringing an £850 model down to just £766. That's a great price for a configuration that includes a Ryzen 5 5600H processor, RTX 3060 Laptop graphics card, 8GB of upgradeable DDR4 RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD.
]]>One of the fastest gaming laptops is a solid $400 off at Best Buy, bringing an Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition to just $1250. That's an awesome price* for a laptop that comes with top-end AMD components, including a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and RX 6800M graphics card, which for context should equal the performance of a good RTX 3080 gaming laptop.
*By comparison, the same laptop costs £1500 (equivalent to $1770) in the UK, so y'all Americans are getting darn lucky with this one.
]]>The Lenovo Legion 5 is one of the best value mid-range gaming laptops, and today you can pick up a model with an RTX 3070 and a Core i7 11800H processor for £999 - an awesome value for this specification and £445 below its UK RRP.
]]>A strong entry-level gaming laptop is down to a bargain basement price today. The Dell G15 offers an RTX 3050 Ti graphics card, Core i5 10200H processor, 512GB SSD, 120Hz screen and normally costs £849 - but today you can use code VOUCHERCODES8 to get this 1080p gaming laptop for £532.
]]>The Acter Nitro 5 is a strong if unremarkable gaming laptop, offering excellent performance for the money in a rather typical gamer-y design. It doesn't look quite as cool as a Razer Blade or as beautifully thick as an XMG Apex 15, but it's got it where it counts: inside. Right now, you can pick up a Nitro 5 laptop with an RTX 3080 graphics card, Ryzen 7 5800H processor, 1TB NVMe SSD and 1080p 360Hz screen for just £1499 at Ebuyer - a nearly £400 reduction from its original UK RRP.
]]>To be honest, I found Computex 2022 kind of underwhelming; this is usually the biggest event in the PC gaming hardware calendar, and had returned to Taipei after an all-remote 2021 show, but ended with only a smattering of major announcements in the bag. We got nothing on Intel’s Arc graphics cards, and Nvidia’s keynote revealed some new DLSS games but otherwise went light on GeForce deets.
That said, this year’s show wasn’t a bust either: there was fresh AMD Ryzen 7000 info, Corsair’s first crack at a gaming laptop and, at long last, some PCIe 5.0 SSDs you can actually buy. One day. In the future. That’s in addition to the wackier, moon-shooting tech on display, without which it just wouldn’t be Computex. So, in descending order - from the interesting and sensible to the blinking ludicrous – here are the PC gaming highlights from Computex 2022.
]]>Lenovo makes some of the best gaming laptops in the business - we've loved both the Legion 5 and Legion 7i - and now the 2021 Lenovo Legion 7 with an RTX 3080 and Ryzen 9 5900HX processor is heavily discounted at Walmart. It's currently going for $1799, a $601 drop from its MSRP of $2400. That's still a lot of money, but it's a great deal on a flagship-grade gaming laptop.
]]>3D gaming is… well, if not dead, then at best being kept in an iron lung by a teensy niche of enthusiasts. However, Acer will be making another attempt to take it semi-mainstream when it releases the Predator Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition gaming laptop in September 2022. Its 15.6 screen, powered by an RTX 3080 and Intel Core i9-12900H CPU, promises both standard 2D at 4K and glasses-free stereoscopic 3D-o-vision. A bit like the Nintendo 3DS, only much more powerful, higher-res, and costing $3400 / €3299.
]]>Not to damn with faint praise, but the Lenovo Legion 5 is kinda okay. A bit alright. Reasonably reasonable. It’s a gaming laptop with specs, price and performance that are so straight down the middle of the road that they might as well be studded with cat’s eyes. Apologies in advance if this is not the most action-packed hardware review you’ve ever read.
]]>This Lenovo Legion laptop with an RTX 3060 graphics card was selling for £950 at the start of the year, but now you can pick up for £800 after a sizeable discount at Amazon. That's a fair price for a laptop with good mid-level specs, including an 11th-gen Core i5 11400H processor (6C/12T), 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD and a 15-in 1080p 144Hz screen.
Lenovo make some of the best gaming laptops in the business, where their clean design, solid build quality and reliability have set them apart from other brands that tend to be a little plasticky at the sub-£1000 price points where most laptops are sold.
]]>Aha, another gaming laptop that conveniently lets me do a three-in-one review. The new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a more mature-looking replacement for the 2021 version, while also introducing two brand new components from AMD: the Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU and the Radeon RX 6800S graphics chip. Much like the key internals of the MSI Raider GE76, then, these components are up for first-time testing as much as the rest of the laptop is.
]]>The first Intel Arc GPUs are finally here, and they are… for laptops. That might not please anyone hoping for relief from ongoing stock woes in the desktop graphics card market, but the mobile Arc A-Series chips are built for gaming all the same – and the first Arc laptops are launching today. That’s all via the livestreamed launch event that finished mere minutes ago, and that you can find liveblogged below.
]]>Intel’s 12th Gen notebook processors and the mobile version of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 Ti are now finding their way into gaming laptops, after their respective reveals this January. And both have found their way into the MSI Raider GE76, that top-spec GPU getting paired with a fittingly top-spec CPU: the Core i9-12900HK.
]]>CES is a gloriously mad hodgepodge of different tech fields; the kind where smartphone chip makers share floor space with car manufacturers and sex toys. It’s also one of the biggest showcases of PC gaming hardware in the calendar, and CES 2022 has been no exception, with major component reveals from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia along with loads of gaming laptop, peripheral, and monitor announcements.
This year’s show is technically still going for another day, but like a Foo Fighters album, CES tends to front-load the good stuff. As such, it’s basically safe to start rounding up any PC gaming kit highlights. Some of these have been a long time coming – like the GeForce RTX 3050, Nvidia’s first XX50 desktop GPU with full ray tracing and DLSS support – while others might be pleasant surprises or eye-catching, if likely to be witheringly expensive, new concepts.
]]>As those of you who have been hiding behind my sofa, or just read our “What are we all buying this Black Friday?” article, are aware, the top item on my Black Friday shopping list was a new chair. I did manage to procure a solid bottom-rest at a good discount and I’m very happy with my purchase. Unfortunately, it still cost a good chunk of change, leaving me with much less to spend on my recently rediscovered Warhammer habit.
Luckily for anyone still looking for somewhere to park their behind while gaming, you can get your hands (cheeks?) on a Razer Iskur gaming chair worth £500 for free. You do have to buy a laptop first though.
]]>I was toiling away in the Black Friday deal mines when I uncovered one that our US friends might particularly appreciate: a titantic $1400 off the 2020 Razer Blade 15 Advanced. This slimline gaming laptop, complete with a 300Hz IPS display, is now only $1600 – close to half price, which is an even bigger deal when the MSRP is the same as a serviceable used car.
]]>I had my first eggnog latte of the year yesterday, which means that like Black Friday, the actual holiday season is officially upon us. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. For many of us, me included, that means stuffing our faces with delicious treats like we’re in training for Fat Bear Week. What's your favourite? Mine's the lebkuchen hearts with apricot filling, plus anything with marzipan.
The point I’m trying to get to is that this isn’t really a slim and sexy time of year for me. More of a fat and cuddly (but still sexy) season. On the other hand, this Alienware m15 R4 gaming laptop is both slim and sexy, as well as a full $500 off in Dell's early Black Friday sales.
]]>The Asus Tuf Gaming A15 is a great value gaming laptop that attracted warm reviews for its design and performance, and today it's also the cheapest RTX 3070 gaming laptop we can find*. The A15 FA506QR-HN006T specification, which includes a Ryzen 7 5800H processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD, is down to just £1250 at Overclockers after a £150 reduction.
]]>The MSI GF65 Thin is the first Black Friday gaming laptop deal we've spotted, around a month before the shopping holiday traditionally begins. At Best Buy, you can pick up this RTX 3060 equipped machine for $850, a cool $250 below its usual price of $1100. That's a fantastic value for a laptop that's seen strong reviews since its release earlier this year.
]]>Lenovo's Legion 5 Pro 16 hits the current sweet spot for a high-end gaming laptop: an RTX 3070 graphics card, an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and a 2560x1600 165Hz screen. These screens are a new addition for 2021, and make a massive difference when it comes to the amount of visible detail for playing games or just browsing the web.
This particular laptop has been out of stock for some time, but it's finally returned to Lenovo's online store - and you can get it for 10% off when you sign up to Lenovo's email newsletter. That knocks £150 off the price, bringing this high-spec laptop to £1350.
]]>With graphics card prices being what they are, gaming laptops like the Gigabyte G5 have been making a lot more sense. Believe it or not, this particular model is – at £850 / $969 – one of the cheapest routes possible into a complete PC gaming system with Nvidia’s RTX ray tracing and DLSS powers.
]]>Intel have chosen an interesting time to launch the Core i9-11980HK, their latest top-of-the-line CPU for gaming laptops. Their 12th-gen Alder Lake chips, after all, are launching in what’s likely a matter of weeks. Why, then, should you drop £4098 / $3400 on a laptop like the MSI GE76 Raider, even if its 11th-gen chip is primo for the time being?
]]>Over the past couple of years I've had a fair few friends pick up Lenovo Legion gaming laptops, as they offer good specs and a nice design at a reasonable price. That's why I jumped on this option to share a deal that sees last year's entry-level model fall to a price below most office laptops. This 15-inch configuration, codenamed 15ARH05, includes a Ryzen 5 4600H processor and GTX 1650 graphics card for £573 when you use code WINDOWS50 at checkout - a great value for a legitimately solid gaming machine.
]]>It's not often you see a gaming laptop on sale for £500 off, but that's the situation today with an Asus ROG Strix G15 laptop at Scan. This model was released last year and contains a competitive spec for the money, including a 15-in 1080p 240Hz display, 10th-gen Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of NVMe SSD storage. It's been reduced from £1499 to £999 today at Scan, bringing what was formally a high-end machine down to a much more palatable triple-digit price point.
That's a great spec for the money, although you do have options at this price point depending on the games you want to play - more on that later.
]]>Words mean nothing any more. Black Friday used to refer to the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, when retailer saw the biggest crowds of the year at the start of the Christmas shopping season. Then, it became a bona fide shopping holiday, first in the US and then in the UK. Now, things have gone absolutely mad, as Dell UK has declared a 'Black Friday in July' sale happening right now.
]]>If you're in the market for a gaming laptop and you're in the US of A, we've got a great deal for you. The Lenovo Legion 5, one of the best reviewed gaming laptops on the market, has been discounted to $1269 at Newegg, compared to $1549 elsewhere. That's for a model that comes with an RTX 3060 graphics card, Ryzen 7 5800H processor and 512GB NVMe SSD storage - a very solid spec!
]]>The latest model Razer Blade 15 Base has been heavily discounted on Amazon, dropping from £2049 to £1499 in a matter of weeks. Today saw another drop of £100, with the laptop now costing just £1399 - an outstanding price for a svelte RTX 3070 laptop with a 2560x1440 165Hz display, 10th-gen Core i7 processor and 512GB of NVMe SSD storage.
]]>Dell is offering a raft of discounts on their whole portfolio right now as part of their Summer Sale - including some of the best prices we've seen on the Dell G15 gaming laptop and the XPS 15 secretly-gaming laptop. Here's what you need to know!
]]>If you've been struggling to upgrade your PC recently due to the hardware shortage and are thinking about jumping ship to a laptop, then this Asus ROG Strix G513QM is currently £300 off for Amazon Prime Day, taking this normally £1600 laptop down to a much more agreeable £1300. Not bad for a 300Hz display and an RTX 3060 graphics chip, eh?
]]>So far, E3 2021 has all been about games, games, games and more games, but those green snakey folks over at Razer have also taken the opportunity today to show off some of their new gaming hardware today, including their all-new Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop. Not only is this the world's thinnest 14in gaming laptop, but it's also their first such device to come with an AMD CPU - and it looks rather lovely, if I do say so myself, especially when this super slim laptop is also going to be available with one of Nvidia's RTX 3080 graphics chips inside it, too.
]]>In addition to announcing slightly bonkers Nintendo 3DS laptops today, Acer have also unveiled their new super-slim Swift X laptop. Until now, Acer's Swift line-up have been decidedly everyday laptops, offering ultraportable convenience in a thin and light form factor. The new Swift X still does that in spades, weighing just 1.39kg and measuring 17.9mm thick. Except this time, Acer have crammed an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti GPU inside it, giving this super slim laptop some proper gaming credentials.
]]>Acer have just announced a brand-new prototype laptop that's essentially a giant Nintendo 3DS. Their new, creator-focused ConceptD Spatial Labs device has a 15.6in stereoscopic 3D display to let animators and artists view their creations in proper 3D without the need for special glasses. It's not really geared up for gaming, but a YouTuber they got in to demonstrate the laptop during their press conference called it "the future". Sorry, I think I hear the phone ringing, let me just get that. "Hello? Is that 2011? Yes, let me tell you about this cool new thing!"
]]>Happy Monday - fancy a new laptop? That's the messaging that Dell UK is going for in their weekly deals, where they're offering 31% off on a pair of Alienware Area-51m R2 gaming laptops - plus £200 cashback when you trade in an older model and an extra 10% off when you use code DELLNJPC102.
There are also discounts on more affordable Dell gaming and content creation laptops, but let's cover the Alienware models first!
]]>MSI makes some of the slimmest gaming and content creation laptops around, and today several creator-focused models with light designs and discrete graphics cards have been discounted heavily at Newegg in the US. The standout deal is the MSI Laptop Prestige 14, which has dropped from $1200 to $900 - with an instant savings of $200 and a $100 rebate. You even get a carry bag that Newegg claim is worth $109 for free - not a bad deal!
]]>It's big news in laptop land today, as the launch of Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake H-Series CPUs for laptops and Nvidia's RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti laptop GPUs has prompted a whole new swathe of gaming laptop announcements. I got to see two of them early in an online demo presentation: the 16in mega screen of the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 (pictured above), and its large desktop replacement sibling, the Asus ROG Zephryus S17 (pictured above, right). Both look like very fine gaming laptops indeed, but it's the super narrow bezels on all four sides of the Zephyrus M16's display that have really caught my eye here. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and I don't think I've seen a more impressive-looking display in all my years of tech journaling.
]]>Intel have finally unveiled their full line-up of 11th Gen Tiger Lake H-series laptop CPUs today, and with it a fresh wave of over 80 new gaming laptops to be released over the coming weeks. These high-performance laptop CPUs will succeed Intel's ubiquitous 10th Gen Comet Lake chips such as the Core i7-10750H and Core i9-10980HK, bringing with them up to 19% gen-on-gen multithreaded performance improvements, PCIe 4.0 support and the latest wireless connectivity standards. Here's everything you need to know.
]]>Hot on the heels of Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake laptop CPU launch, Nvidia are also announcing a new swathe of RTX 30-series gaming laptops today powered by their new RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti mobile GPUs. These new entry-level RTX laptops will start from $799 in the US (UK pricing TBC), bringing Nvidia's ray tracing and DLSS technology to the mainstream.
]]>Earlier today we looked at the best PC peripherals in Amazon's Gaming Week sale, and now we're back to examine another piece of the puzzle: the best gaming laptop deals in the same promotion.
]]>Ebay are running one of their perennial 20% off promotions at the moment, making it a good time to get games, peripherals or PC hardware below the normal going rate.
]]>Lenovo are holding a flash sale on a wide range of PC hardware right now, with savings of up to 50% up for grabs. The best deal I've spotted so far, though, is £300 off their superb Legion 7i gaming laptop, bringing this once £2000 RTX 2070 Super-powered laptop down to £1700.
]]>Diddy 13in laptops are all well and good for taking on the road, but their compact shape and super svelte innards rarely leave much room for powerful gaming components. Indeed, the best graphics chip you'll often find on 'gaming' laptops like these is the humble Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU, as we saw on Razer's Blade Stealth 13 at the end of last year. It's the Max-Q version of this entry-level graphics chip that sits at the heart of the new Asus ROG Flow X13 as well, providing a decent 1080p gaming experience as long as you're prepared to make do with playing at Low to Medium quality settings. On the Blade Stealth 13, it was a decent trade-off considering the laptop's tiny form factor. The Asus ROG Flow X13, however, has a rather nifty secret weapon that turns this pint-sized gaming laptop into an RTX 3080 powerhouse. Enter the Asus ROG XG Mobile eGPU.
]]>Yes, you read that correctly. Thanks to a positively bonkers deal over at Ebuyer in the UK right now, you can currently get loads of extra Razer goodies for free (including their £500 Iskur gaming chair) when you buy their RTX 2080 Super-powered Blade Pro 17 gaming laptop. I mean, £1800 would be a pretty decent price for an RTX 2080 Super laptop by itself, let alone a laptop, a great big whacking chair, a keyboard, a headset, a water bottle and a backpack. That's just madness. It doesn't seem to be a weird database malfunction either, as the deal has been live since yesterday afternoon.
]]>Nvidia's new RTX 30 laptops might be the hot new thing for potential laptop buyers right now, but Amazon UK's Spring sale has brought some intriguing discounts to some of their older RTX 20 series laptops, too. Chief among them is this RTX 2060-powered Asus TUF Gaming A15, which has £200 shaved off its price at the moment to bring it to a very tempting £900.
]]>We love a good mechanical keyboard here at RPS, but until recently our desire for non-stop clicky clacking has only been sated by full-blown desktop keyboards. There have been a handful of gaming laptops released over the last few years that have come with varying degrees of mechanical keyboard, but most haven't held a clacky candle to their desktop counterparts. Happily, Alienware have just announced the world's first gaming laptops designed in collaboration with renowned switch maker Cherry, bringing a new ultra low profile switch to their refreshed Alienware m15 R4 and m17 R4 laptops for 2021.
]]>Nvidia have announced a new free game bundle for their RTX gaming laptops. It's only going to be around for a short period of time, but until April 15th anyone who buys a qualifying RTX laptop from a participating retailer will also bag themselves a free Steam copy of Outriders, People Can Fly and Square Enix's new upcoming third-person looter shooter. It's not just RTX 30 laptops that qualify for the bundle, either, as older RTX 20 series laptops will be eligible as well.
]]>All-singing, all-dancing laptops like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 and Gigabyte Aorus 15G are all well and good if you've got buckets of cash lying around, but let's face it, most of us balk at spending over two grand on a gaming laptop, even if we were buying it as a desktop replacement. At £1300 / $1450, the Asus TUF Dash F15 is still pretty expensive as gaming laptops go, but this RTX 3070-powered machine still packs a pretty decent punch for the money, and it's also one of the few RTX 30 laptops this year to come with one of Intel's new 11th Gen H-Series Tiger Lake CPUs.
]]>When Nvidia announced their new slate of RTX 30 series laptops coming out this year, they told us we'd be seeing RTX 3060, RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 models starting to appear over the next few months. Now it looks like there might be RTX 3050 Ti versions joining the fray as well if new specs leaks are to be believed, as laptops from both Acer and Asus have been spotted listing this currently unannounced GPU in their specs product pages.
]]>Razer's Kraken Ultimate RGB gaming headset is back down to its all-time lowest price over on Amazon US today, matching its Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day deal price. Having fluctuated between £100 and its original price of $130 for much of the last year, Razer's flagship USB gaming headset can now be had for just $70, nabbing you a total saving of 46%.
]]>If the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 represents the very best of what gaming laptops have to offer in 2021, then the Gigabyte Aorus 15G is probably what you'd call the next step down. It still has one of Nvidia's powerful new RTX 3080 graphics chips inside its slim black chassis, but it's the 8GB variant rather than the top 16GB one you get on the Scar. It also only has a 1920x1080 resolution display, albeit one with a higher 240Hz refresh rate, and its CPU is a fraction older as well, with Gigabyte choosing to stick with Intel's still very fast Core i7-10870H instead of opting for one of AMD's shiny new Ryzen 5000 chips. That's still a formidable set of specs, of course, and it's a potent combination for those after a top-notch 1080p gaming experience that will last for many years to come.
]]>Of all the new gaming laptops coming out this year, the 2021 edition of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 is almost certainly going to be one of the most powerful, high-spec machines you can buy. Not only is its top spec packed with the full 16GB variant of Nvidia's new RTX 3080 graphics chip and an overclocked model of AMD's brand-new Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, but it also comes equipped with a 165Hz refresh rate display that has a gorgeous 2560x1440 resolution. It's a real beaut of a machine, and could easily replace your entire desktop - provided you've got deep enough pockets for it, of course.
]]>I know I've said in the past how much I love having a second display attached to my PC and laptop, but man alive, there's something uniquely sinister about having seven of them unfold from a single machine. And yet that's precisely what Expanscape's done with their Aurora 7 prototype. I should stress, this isn't a gaming laptop, but a "proper mobile security operations center", according to Expanscape's website - although it does have an Nvidia GTX 1060 chip inside it if you did fancy having a cheeky Hades run on the sly. I mean, it's not like you're short on screens, is it?
]]>Nvidia's new super-charged RTX 30 laptops may be just around the corner, but with entry-level RTX 3060 machines costing well over $1000 at time of writing, it's unlikely we'll see any good deals on them for some time. Fortuantely, there are plenty of good gaming laptop deals on slightly older models floating around at the moment, including $400 off one of MSI's AMD-powered Alpha 15 laptops. Plus you can bag a free headset and mouse mat bundle worth $50 while stocks last, too.
]]>There are dozens of RTX 30 gaming laptops arriving over the next couple of weeks, but Gigabyte's new crop of Aorus models might be the coolest ones yet. And I mean that literally, as the new design of their Aorus 15P laptop has apparently cut temperatures on the CPU and GPU by 10 degrees, resulting in better performance under heavy load.
]]>Nvidia have just announced their RTX 30 GPUs are coming to laptops, and that can only mean one thing. We're about to get inundated with dozens and dozens of newly refreshed gaming laptops, all with beefed up innards and even higher resolutions and refresh rate displays to make the most of Nvidia's latest crop of mobile RTX 3060, RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 chips. While many laptops are familiar riffs on what we've seen before, there are a couple of new ones on the horizon that look set to offer even more ways to play when we're away from our PCs. Here are the most exciting gaming laptops to watch out for in 2021.
]]>Intel have just announced their first crop of 11th Gen H-series CPUs for gaming laptops. Comprising of three processors in total, this new trio of high-performance Tiger Lake CPUs will help usher in a new era of even thinner and lighter gaming laptops in 2021, with the first laptop designs coming in at just 16.6mm. Here's everything you need to know.
]]>Acer's Predator gaming laptops have always impressed in the past. Their high-end Triton 500 laptop remains one of my favourite gaming laptops to date thanks to its sensible specs and quiet fans, and their flagship, swivel-screen Triton 900 is both brilliant and bonkers in equal measure. The Helios 300 on test today sits at the other end of Acer's Predator line-up. As their entry-level gaming laptop, the Helios 300 isn't quite as slick as the Triton 500 when it comes to its overall design, but the Core i7, RTX 2060 model I've been sent for review still packs a pretty decent punch all the same.
]]>Despite a flurry of new CPU and graphics card launches at the end of last year, 2021 is already shaping up to be quite a busy year for PC gaming hardware. Not only have we got Intel's new 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPUs due before the end of March, but 2021 will also be the year Intel finally enter the graphics card arena with their new desktop Xe GPUs. That's not all either, as we're also likely to see Nvidia's RTX 30 series GPUs make their way over to gaming laptops, plus significantly faster game loading times thanks to Microsoft's DirectStorage tech. So, to help you keep on top of everything that's coming up, I've put together this handy guide on all the exciting new hardware we're most excited about in 2021.
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