$1500 is a healthy budget in which you could actually start to see a lot of high-performance gaming laptops that could satisfy most of the gaming enthusiasts. If you are a hardcore Gamer, there might be a couple of things, where you think you are compromising.
But most of us will be thrilled by the experience you can get from this range of machines.
So let’s dive in and find out what is the best laptop you can get for 1500 dollar.
Contents
- What can you expect from a $1500 gaming laptop?
- 1. Asus ROG Strix Hero II Gaming Laptop
- 2.Sager NP7876 17.3 Inches Thin Bezel FHD 144Hz Gaming Laptop
- 3. Alienware M15 Gaming Laptop
- 4. Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop
- 5. Dell XPS 15 9570 15.6in
- 6. MSI GF65 Thin 9SE
- 7. ASUS ROG Zephyrus S Ultra Slim Gaming
What can you expect from a $1500 gaming laptop?
So let's first get our expectations straight. What kind of a spec can you expect in a laptop at this price range? The main component that affects the Quality of your Gaming experience is the following components.
CPU
At this price range, you can definitely go for the latest generation Intel Core I7 or AMD Ryzen 7. So all the laptops we consider have Intel core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 or above
RAM
At this price range, we are only Considering 8GB DDR4 and above only.
Display
A good refresh rate, Full HD and hove display is prefered. A 4K display definitely enhances the gaming experience. But keep in mind that this will have a cost in the battery performance if you can be away from the power outlet most of the time during the day.
Hard Drive
We are only considering SSD or Hybrid solutions. Most of the laptops we considered have the PCIe NVMe M.2 hard drive with atleast 512GB of storage.
Dedicated Graphics card
At this price range, you can definitely expect a dedicated graphics card with at least 4 GB GDDR5 dedicated memory.
Cuda Cores
CUDA is NVidia's proprietary programming language that can leverage the GPU in a particular way to increase gaming graphics performance. So more CUDA core means more processing power from the Graphics Processing Unit. The smooth gaming experience involves rendering all those graphics in the gaming as fast as possible, so CUDA cores help in processing these factors parallel to normal processing, which in turn provides better gaming performance. So, in theory, more CUDA cores mean better performance. But in practice, CPU, RAM and Graphics Card come together to give the total gaming performance.
The gaming laptops we covered here have at least an RTX 2060 or RTX 2070 with a good Intel i7 CPU and at least 16GB RAM and high-speed drive. Check the following table to get an idea about different Dedicated Mobile Graphics cards. Please see the table below to se the detailed spec of mobile graphics cards .
Mobile CPU | Base Clock | CUDA Cores | Boost Clock | Memory | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GTX 1050 | 1354MHz | 640 | 1493MHz | 4GB GDDR5 | 75W |
GTX 1050 Ti | 1493MHz | 768 | 1620MHz | 2GB GDDR5 | 75W |
GTX 1070 | 1442 MHz | 2048 | 1645 MHz | 4GB GDDR5 | 65W |
GTX 1650.. | 1020-1395MHz | 1024 | 1245-1560MHz | 6GB GDDR6 | NA |
GTX 1660Ti | 1455MHz | 1408 | 1590MHz | 6GB GDDR5 | 80W |
GTX 2070 | 1410 MHz | 2304 | 1620 MHz | 8 GB GDDR5 | 120W |
GTX 960M | 1096MHz | 640 | 1202MHz | 8GB GDDR6 | 115W |
RTX 2060.. | 1365 MHz | 1920 | 1680 MHz | 4GB GDDR5 | 50W |
GTX 1060 | 1404MHz | 1280 | 1670MHz | 6GB GDDR6 | 80W |
That's enough intro,let's dive in to the list of laptops and their review.
1. Asus ROG Strix Hero II Gaming Laptop
This is a beautiful laptop which has an 8th generation core i7 processor with 16GB of DDR4 RAM. The 15.6IPS display has a refresh rate of 144HZ, to make sure that you get the very best bright and vivid colors and viewing experience.
The main gaming performance factor for this laptop is the RTX 2060 dedicated graphics card. This is a very good graphics card that is based on the desktop RTX 2060 chip with a reduced clock rate and better power efficiency to work with a laptop. This dedicated graphics card have 1920 CUDA cores, 6GB GDDR6 Memory and a boosted clock speed of 1680 MHz.
512GB PCIe Nvme SSD makes sure the data writing is super-fast and is 5 to 6 times faster read-write speed that a normal SSD.
Pros
Cons
2.Sager NP7876 17.3 Inches Thin Bezel FHD 144Hz Gaming Laptop
Sager is specialised in creating high performance gaming laptop. Actually many companies like ASUS and MSI rebrands sager laptop and sells it as it own. So if you are only worried about getting the performance and not worried about the brand of the laptop, then this is the laptop for you.
This is a pretty powerful laptop which has an 9th generation core i7 processor with 32GB of DDR4 RAM. The 17.3 inch display has a refresh rate of 144HZ, to make sure that you get the very best bright and vivid colors and viewing experience.
The main gaming performance factor for this laptop is the RTX 2060 dedicated graphics card. This is a very good graphics card that is based on the desktop RTX 2060 chip with a reduced clock rate and better power efficiency to work with a laptop. This dedicated graphics card have 1920 CUDA cores, 6GB GDDR6 Memory and a boosted clock speed of 1680 MHz.
512GB PCIe Nvme SSD makes sure the data writing is super-fast . And there is a massive 2TB hybrid drive which you can use to store your any other data.
Pros
Cons
3. Alienware M15 Gaming Laptop
Alienware was a famous makers of high performance laptops evenbefore Dell bought them. Alienware M15 is a beautiful laptop which has an 8th generation core i7 processor with 16GB of DDR4 RAM. The 15.6IPS display has a refresh rate of 144HZ, to make sure that you get the very best bright and vivid colors and viewing experience.
The main gaming performance factor for this laptop is the RTX 2060 dedicated graphics card. This dedicated graphics card have 1920 CUDA cores, 6GB GDDR6 Memory and a boosted clock speed of 1680 MHz.
512GB PCIe Nvme SSD makes sure the data writing is super-fast and is 5 to 6 times faster read-write speed that a normal SSD. And the beautiful backlit keyboard is a pleasure to type and also to game.
Pros
Cons
4. Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop
This laptop have an 9th generation core i7 processor with 16GB of DDR4 RAM. The 15.6IPS display has a refresh rate of 144HZ, to give you the best gaming experience.
The main gaming performance factor for this laptop is the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti dedicated graphics card. This dedicated graphics card have 1408 CUDA cores, 6GB GDDR5 Memory and a boosted clock speed of 1590 MHz.
512GB PCIe Nvme SSD makes sure the data writing is super-fast and is 5 to 6 times faster read-write speed that a normal SSD.
Pros
Cons
5. Dell XPS 15 9570 15.6in
If you are looking a laptop that looks professional and yet have the power to play the latest and greatest games, Dell XPS 15 9570 is the best option for you.
This laptop have an 8th generation core i7 processor with 32GB of DDR4 RAM. The 15.6 4K display is a pleasure to look at and is breath taking.
The dedicated graphics card GeForce GTX 1050 Ti , comes with maximum boost clock of 1620 MHz and 768 CUDA cores. This is a pretty good mid-range graphics card that can play games like Overwatch, Rocket league etc at 1080p at medium to very settings.
The 1TB m.2 SSD is massive and adds to the performace of the machine
Pros
Cons
6. MSI GF65 Thin 9SE
You can't talk about gaming laptops without mentioning MSI laptops. This MSI GF65 is an awesome gaming laptop that can play most games at high settings( Fallout 4-highest settings ,skyrim- Ultimate settings).
The laptop comes with 9th generation core i7 processor from Intel with maximum turbo frequency of 4.5GHz (source: intel site) 6 cores and 12 threads from the Coffee Lake series.
Combine the fast processor and 16GB DDR4 RAM and the dedicated RTX 2060 makes it a pretty powerful gaming machine ,which can take most of the new games you thorough at it without a blip. The gaming performance can be compared to the performance of GeForce GTX 1070(desktop).
The laptop comes with 512GB NVMe SSD and there is an extra slot for an additional hard drive , so it is a good option if you are thinking about upgrading the storage in the future.
Pros
Cons
7. ASUS ROG Zephyrus S Ultra Slim Gaming
This is a beautiful looking laptop with great specs and which can keep its cool under even under intensive gaming sessions.
The laptop comes with 8th generation core i7 processor from Intel with maximum turbo frequency of 4.1GHz (source: intel site) 6 cores and 12 threads from the Coffee Lake series.
The laptop comes with 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD ,which is really fast and got very good IOPS numbers.
Maximum memory capacity is 24GB at a frequncy of 2666Mhz. There is 8GB onboard with 1 expansion slot support up to 16G total at 24G. This laptop have 2 x 8 GB RAM for best performance.
!
This laptop do not have an Ethernet port,so if you need an Ethernet port,you need to get a USB C to Ethernet adaptor(like this in amazon).Most of use Wifi nowadays,but its worth noting if you only have wired connection or prefer wired connection.
Pros
Cons
I been living and breathing computers and technology for the last 18 years. I love learning and testing the latest and greatest gadgets.