How To Choose The Best Gaming Laptop

Does your day begin with a showdown with your LAN-buddies in a brutal first person shooter (FPS) game or a rubber burning car chase? Then the chances are that you are a computer game freak who cannot live a day without pitting your wits and skills against the computer or your fellow gamers. The requirements of a computer for gaming are higher than for normal applications. So, if you haven’t already got a laptop configured for the best gaming experience, then there is an entire market of laptops out there which caters to your needs. The rate at which developers are improving the graphics and playability of computer games is staggering and needs laptops with advanced configurations tailor-made for gaming. Certain aspects of the configuration of a gaming laptop should be kept in mind when choosing one. Here are a few tips, which will help you decide which laptop to go for when the purpose is pure gaming pleasure.

 

 

Processor 

Gaming requires high speed processing; thus, standard gaming laptops have dual core processors or even the advanced quad-core processors. Make sure that you look for at least a dual core processor with over 2.5 GHz processing speed. Intel processors are the best in the business.

 

Graphics Card 

A graphics card is one of the most important elements in the configuration of a gaming laptop. If the graphics card isn’t top-notch then your gaming experience is compromised as many high resolution games will not run smoothly. The high end games require up to 1GB of graphic card memory. Some of the best Graphic Chipsets are ATi Mobility Radeon 9700, ATI's Mobility FireGL V3200 and Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator 900.

 

RAM 

RAM or random access memory is the memory required to run applications on the computer without slowing them down. Since gaming graphics require huge memory, ensure at least 1 GB of RAM. These days even 3 GB RAM is commonplace. Some laptops even have dedicated Video RAM or VRAM. VRAM only handles graphics or videos and is very helpful in playing 3D games smoothly.

 

Hard Drive 

Present day games take up huge hard disk space. Thus, at least 500 GB to 1 terabyte (TB) is considered to be good in a gaming laptop. Also look for Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives rather than Parallel ATA (PATA) as SATA is 30 times faster than PATA. Hard drive speeds should also be high around 7,200 RPM. 

Display quality should be at the top of your mind too because a small or blurry screen will take away all the benefits of a fantastic configuration. Go for at least a 17-inch wide screen laptop, which can handle resolution and display quality of 3D game graphics. Of the many display resolutions available today, the best is WUXGA (Widescreen Ultra Extended Graphics Array) which has a display resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels (2,304,000 pixels) with a 16:10 screen aspect ratio. 

Brands 

Some brands make specialized gaming laptops, which is always a good choice. Some of the best brands are Alienware, ASUS, HP, and Dell.