Nvidia and AMD are (still) fighting it our for gaming dominance, with new products like the Nvidia RTX Super line and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 series. Right now, the landscape can be confusing, but generally the best gaming laptops are running Nvidia's RTX graphics, which first came to desktop PCs in late 2018, and to laptops in January 2019.
If you're building a desktop gaming rig, then start with our guide to desktop graphics, but if you're in the market for a gaming laptop, these are the very best ones we've tested. All of these gaming laptops, from just under $1,000 to $5,000 or more, can easily support high-end virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and many new designs fit top-tier graphics hardware into wafer-thin laptop bodies.
The current AAA-rated gaming norm is 8 GB of RAM, with a 16 GB standard for heavier PC users. Most modern motherboards, including many budget motherboards, support up to 16 GB.
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For this roundup, we've taken all the laptops with discrete graphics hardware we've tested over the past year and a half and ranked them based on 3D performance. Below are the top performers from that group, and you can also scroll through the full list of game benchmark results here.
When reviewing a gaming laptop or desktop, we run preset tests using several games, including Far Cry 5, Metro: Exodus and others, along with standard benchmarks like 3DMark, which is designed to test a computer's 3D graphic rendering capabilities.
For this list, we're ranking the laptops in descending order of 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra scores, but the real-world game scores (presented as the number of frames of animation per second the laptop can render) match very closely. Note that these scores are specifically for the exact configurations of each laptop we tested, and almost all can be configured with a wide range of options.
At the very top are two high-end gaming laptops that use desktop-class processors and full-power Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics: the Alienware Area-51m and the Origin PC Eon-17X. Those are both at the top end of the price scale, but gaming laptops at more reasonable prices, including systems from Asus, Dell, Origin PC, Lenovo, HP, MSI and Razer, among others, are all represented.
New and notable for this summer update are the Acer Triton 900, a unique laptop with a pivoting hinge, the Razer Blade Pro, and a new Origin PC Evo-16S, which has a still-rare 16-inch display.
The exact scores and graphics hardware specs for all tested gaming laptops are located here.
Disclaimer: CNET may get a share of revenue from the sale of the products featured on this page.
Sarah Tew/CNETOn top of a satisfying visual refresh of Alienware's highest-end laptop, the Area-51m offers plenty of processing overhead from desktop CPUs and the latest RTX GPUs.
Sarah Tew/CNETLike the Alienware Area-51m, the Origin PC Eon-17X features the desktop-class Intel Core i9-9900K and the new Nvidia RTX 2080 GPU. This combination made these our two top-performing laptops so far from all of 2018-2019.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe Predator Triton 900's rotating display is a great idea that's also well executed. The keyboard incorporates mechanical switches that feel very good, and it's fast.
Sarah Tew/CNETThe 2018 version of this laptop, with a desktop CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU, was right behind the updated version.
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Sarah Tew/CNETThis updated Zephyrus combines both a slim, professional-looking design with the expanded power of Nvidia's new RTX graphics cards.
Dive into the exact scores and configurations for all the top performers in the full list of 30-plus gaming laptops.
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- ReviewAlienware Area-51m review: a gaming laptop that goes the bigger-is-better school of design.
- NewsAlienware Area-51m vs. Origin PC Eon-17X: Battle of the big laptop-desktop hybrids