Choosing a gaming laptop is like putting together a well-balanced adventuring party. You need to look at what you plan to use it for, and what kinds of quests you’ll tackle, and try to match its capabilities to your needs—without emptying your coin purse. To that end, weary travelers, we took it upon ourselves to source the latest and greatest gaming laptops from forges large and small. We gathered them in our keep and ran them through several tests to sort the god-rolls from the vendor trash. Here they are, the best gaming laptops for every kind of player.
Be sure to check out our picks for the Best Laptops, Best Gaming Mice, Best Keyboards, Best Gaming Headsets, and our favorite PC Games (as well as how to build a game library for free).
Updated April 2024: We’ve added the Razer Blade 14 (2023), Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024), Asus ROG Strix Scar (2024), and added an Honorable Mentions section.
Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.
-
Photograph: Razer
Best Overall
Razer Blade 14
The Razer Blade 14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) blew me away when I tried it right around when Starfield came out. Razer is known for its high-end gaming laptops, and the slim, aluminum chassis on this laptop has the same luxe build quality we’ve liked it for in the past. But the 2,560 x 1,600 IPS, G-Sync-compatible display is what caught my attention. Even at 30 to 40 percent brightness, it felt bright and vivid, with blacks so dark it’s as if the screen disappears in dark rooms. It’s not quite what you’d see in an OLED display, but it was close enough that it fooled me for hours while I flew through space. Best of all, the 240-Hz panel allows for ultrahigh frame rates for the smoothest gameplay.
Inside, the Blade 14 comes equipped with the powerful AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS. There is a slightly newer version with the Ryzen 9 8945HS, but you likely won’t see much of a difference in performance. You also get 16 GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1-TB NVMe SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (upgradeable to an RTX 4070). The RTX 4060 is decently powerful, but the RTX 4070 is a respectably strong GPU that can help power through even demanding games like Starfield. It also has a USB-C and USB-A port on both the left and right of the laptop, making it convenient to plug in peripherals. It comes with a full-size HDMI port too. It includes a large charging block, which you’ll need for charging while playing power-hungry games, but you can charge it via USB-C if you need to top it off while working. It’s pricey, but the Blade 14 routinely dips to $2,000, which is great value.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060/4070 Laptop GPU, 16 GB DDR5, 1-TB NVMe PCIe SSD, 14-inch 2,560 X 1,600 IPS display with 240-Hz refresh rate.
-
Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft
Best Gaming Laptop for Portability
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
The 2024 iteration of Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G14 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the closest thing I’ve found to a Windows laptop that feels like my Macbook Air. It has a slim, silver aluminum chassis, all-day battery life (so long as you stick to regular work), and a slender 14-inch frame. It also stands out, with a gorgeous 3K OLED display and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (upgradeable to an RTX 4070). It comes with a 1-TB SSD, giving it plenty of room for both games and all the files you need for work.
On paper, it’s pretty similar to the Razer Blade 14, though its OLED screen is slightly higher resolution at 2,880 x 1,800, and limited to 120 Hz instead of 240 Hz. However, depending on your needs, this might be a benefit. The RTX 4060 (and even the RTX 4070) can struggle to put out more than 120 frames per second for some heavy games, and there aren’t many where it makes that much of a difference. Fewer frames mean less power consumed, and the Zephyrus G14 appropriately gets slightly better battery life than the Blade 14, which makes it great if you intend to take your gaming laptop with you out of the house more often than not.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen R9 8945HS, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060/4070 Laptop GPU, 16 GB DDR5, 1-TB NVMe PCIe SSD, 14-inch 2,880 X 1,800 OLED display with 120-Hz refresh rate.
