Gaming is serious business. And if you're familiar with gaming hardware, you know that it's an expensive one too. However, a decent setup doesn't have to run you upwards of $1000 if you know where to look. Here are four of the most affordable gaming laptops on the market today. Granted, at these prices you won't be loading up unlimited Skyrim mods, but you can easily outfit the macho man dragon mod to make playing that much more fun.
ASUS K501UX 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop ($799)
ASUS makes good, affordable laptops. And while $799 may not seem cheap, it’s a great price for a gaming setup, especially considering the hardware installed on it. It comes with an Intel Core i7-6500U 2.5GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, a NVIDIA GTX950M 2GB GDDR3 graphics card, and a 256 GB solid-state drive, which runs Windows 10. The battery life can run for a solid five hours without stopping.
“Only 256GB?!” you say?
I hear you!
You’ll have to purchase another hard drive or a massive flash drive, but a solid state drive is (arguably) better for gamers. A laptop with an SSD typically boots faster, runs programs smoother, and transfers better. These hard drives are more expensive, but they do make games run quite nicely.
HP Pavilion 17t Touch Optional ($649.99-$879.99)
HP Pavilions are built to last—it's the only brand I’ve personally owned for a decade or more. The 17t model comes with Windows 10, an Intel Core i5-6300HQ (2.3GHz) processor, 8GB of RAM, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics card, and a 1TB hard drive to store everything.
The battery life is an estimated nine hours and 30 minutes, so you can get a World of Warcraft raid finished (if everyone knows what they’re doing). You can customize this laptop to get a better processor and more RAM, which will make it better, but the basic specs make this an affordable gaming laptop that can play many popular games already.
Dell 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop ($779.99)
This Dell laptop is perfect for a student that has time to game in between class and doing homework. Hey, gamers have to find time wherever they can!
Not only is this Dell a gaming laptop, but it can also be a touchscreen computer, allowing for easy use when a keyboard isn’t convenient.
Running on Windows 10, this laptop’s hardware includes a 2.3GHz Intel Quad-Core i5-6300HQ processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics card. It weighs in at a light six pounds, meaning you can carry it to-and-from school without issues. Be sure to bring your charging cord with you, though, because the battery of this laptop is only four and a half hours.
ASUS K501UX 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop ($799)
Another ASUS makes the list with one of the best processors around. This laptop comes with a powerful 6th-generation Intel Core i7-6500U 2.5GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid state hard drive. It all runs on Windows 10 and has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M gaming graphic card. Like other solid-state drive laptops, you may want to purchase an alternative hard drive or flash drive to store your games and information.
Due to the powerful hardware installed on this ASUS, the battery life is only around five hours, depending on what you’re doing. It’s also lighter than some of the others on the list at 4.4lbs. Best of all, it comes with a one-year international warranty and one-year accidental damage protection.
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