The best gaming laptops for levelling up and beating the competition

For all you AMD devotees out there, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 is one of the best AMD-powered gaming laptops you're going to find.

This Asus rig strikes a healthy balance between style and substance. It’s a good-looking chassis — a pleasingly minimalist aesthetic — that plays down the power inside. Indeed, this laptop boasts incredible all-round performance thanks to its AMD Ryzen 9 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card.

Also included is a hefty 1TB SSD and a beautifully vibrant display that'll keep your games looking top-notch (even on such a small screen). It can power through any games, no matter how new or graphics-heavy they are.

The only real downside is the price, though gamers know this stuff doesn’t come cheap. And, actually, it’s great value. Oh, and there’s no number pad or webcam included. Worth noting in case those are important additions for you.

Just think of the Razer Blade 15 Advanced as the MacBook Pro of PC gaming laptops. With its sleek design, it's a nearly edge-to-edge gaming machine inside of a beautiful and durable aluminium unibody chassis and display that's upgradeable to 4K. 

This gaming laptop also has the high-end specs you'd come to expect from Razer, including an 8-Core 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H processor, NVIDIA RTX 3070 graphics card, 16GB of memory, and 1TB of SSD storage. This machine is also expandable with an open Razer Core X. 

Although its fans spin loudly when working at full capacity, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced features a vapour chamber cooling system that Razer developed for a substantial power boost while you're playing. This laptop might be on the expensive side, but it's worth it for this level of performance inside of a sleek design. 

The Dell G5 is great when it comes tp price-to-performance ratio. It’s at the lower end of the price scale but comes well recommended, which makes it especially good for beginners. Laptop gaming is a world of its own, and we all have to start somewhere.

The G5 15 has a really solid CPU and GPU setup for this price range, prioritising raw performance over fancy bells and whistles that other gaming laptops may opt for. The Dell G-Series laptops definitely don't reach the heights of their premium Alienware line, but on a budget, the G5 15 is the best of the Dell bunch.

The hardware is a bit chunky and is reported to overheat during those mammoth playing sessions, but if you can handle those issues, the Dell G5 15 is a speedy beginner's gaming laptop and well worth the money.  

Some gamers prefer AMD hardware. That’s just a fact for gaming life. Others prefer to spend as little as possible. Put those two things together and you get the Acer Nitro 5, a top budget pick that delivers where it counts.

But a low price wouldn't mean anything if it wasn't also, you know, a good laptop. Which the Acer 5 totally is. In fact, it has a lot of the inner components as a few of the more expensive machines out there in the games-verse. The RAM and storage are pretty impressive too. Don’t get hung up on AMD if that’s not your thing. You can also find it configured with Intel CPUs, though availability can be an issue.

The price does come with some downsides, though. The graphical performance can't match up to the high-end laptops, and the battery will max out after a few hours — so keep that charger nearby! But you can't have it all at this price.  

If you're a bit more familiar with the world of PC gaming and you feel comfortable enough to pick out your own parts to create a laptop that's tailored to your needs, the Alienware m17 R5 will be right up your alley. 

Its default version comes chock full of stellar internals, but, if you have extra cash at your disposal, why not customise the machine to your liking? That’s all possible on the Dell website. Want more storage? This baby goes up to 4TB SSD. What about better graphics? Simply bump up to the GeForce RTX 3080 instead. 

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves because even without the add-ons it’s a premium piece of gaming kit — a slick chassis with a stunning 4K (not to mention Dolby Vision-enhanced) display, and all the power to eat through the games with speed and fluidity. Other nice touches include cooling technology, AI-powered performance, ray tracing and G-SYNC, and Dolby Atmos audio.

The MSI Titan GT77 is for serious gamers only — a ferocious gaming laptop with size, power, and literally game-changing performance.

The first thing to know is this: it’s big. Like, really big — the sort of machine that can take the place of a gaming desktop. And certainly not a laptop you can just throw in your bag and carry around. But with that size comes a 17.3-inch 4K display and spec that more than matches its stature. The internals and memory will tear through the latest, most complex games with ease. The MSI Titan GT77 is a true beast.

It’s also built with a Cooler Boost Titan system, though expect some engine-like noise, and an RGB-lit gamer-style keyboard. But make no mistake, all the spec is going to cost you. It’s an eye-watering, top-of-the-line price that will suit die-hard gamers only.

If you’d prefer MSI craftsmanship in a laptop you can actually carry around without killing your back, the MSI GF63 Thin gaming laptop is your best bet. 

If you want the ASUS reliability but you don't want to pay the big bucks for the ROG Zephyrus G15, check out the Asus TUF Gaming A15 instead — among best AMD-powered laptop you'll find in this lower price range.

It’s actually had a bit of a glow-up from previous-gen versions, as the AMD Ryzen 7 CPU is now paired with an upgraded NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. In addition to the speedy performance, the A15 is just a well-rounded machine that serves as a great starting point for those new to the PC gaming landscape.

It has a large SSD — 1TB is impressive at any price level — that'll give an extra power boost to that already decent CPU-and-GPU combo. Plus, a gorgeous 1080p display and a full RGB backlit keyboard for true gamer style. It's also VR-ready, just in case you've been thinking about picking up an Oculus Rift.