They’re not the first unlocked and overclockable mobile processors (Intel’s i9-12900HK is just a one-off), but they do seem to be Intel’s first line of them. They do so with a boosted base power requirement of 55 watts and top turbo draw of 157 watts; the next step down is the H series at 45 watts, with a much lower maximum turbo of 115 watts. Intel promises as much as 81% improvement in performance for rendering, with significant gains in multithreaded speeds, over the HK.
Although Intel and laptop makers may refer to Intel’s newest chip as a “desktop-class” processor, the new HX series of Intel’s 12th-generation Core i9, i7, and i5 CPUs are just the company’s most powerful mobile CPUs to date. They have many similarities to their most recent fixed-location counterparts. They’re primarily aimed at creatives, but with unlocked and overclockable i9-12900HX and i7-12800HX versions, you may expect to see them in gaming laptops as well, such as the Lenovo Legion 7 models released Tuesday.
The higher power also allows them to support more cores — up to eight performance and eight efficient in the case of the i9 and i7, just like their desktop equivalents — and add technologies that haven’t yet made it into Intel-based laptops. Those include PCIe 5 (plus RAID) support on the CPU bus for better solid-state drive performance and the ability to support 128GB of DDR5 memory (twice the current H generation’s 64GB). Of the seven CPUs launched today — the i9-12950HX, i9-12900HX, i7-12850HX, i7-12800HX, i7-12650HX, i5-12600HX and i5-12450HX — one from each line is intended for use by professional workstations, with vPro support for centralized management and security, and support for error-correction memory.
Gaming laptops no longer cost a fortune. They’ve come a long way in the past decade. You can now get a gaming laptop for under $1,000 without sacrificing all the features that make gaming so much fun. In fact, we found affordable gaming laptops between $700 and $1,000. These laptops offer decent gaming performance for their value. Good bargains for these laptops tend to disappear quickly due to limited stock as a result of the microchip shortage.
That means that you’re not limited to low-res gaming on cheap gaming laptops and can get an immersive experience playing games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Apex Legends, CS: GO and PUBG. It still costs a pretty penny to get what’s considered an affordable gaming laptop, but frugal gamers can save even more money if they look for the best cheap laptop deals on a refurbished or open-box option from the likes of Best BuyAmazon, Micro Center and Woot.
The recommendations below are based on our reviews and testing. Our aim is to help you get your ideal gaming experience on a cheap laptop. And if you want to improve your gaming and work-from-home experience, you may want to look into some inexpensive gaming gear to help you do it. We’ll update this list of the best cheap gaming laptop options as we review new products. Also, if you need help deciphering what specs to look for on a good, cheap gaming laptop, we’ve got some advice below.
Dell streamlined its G-series gaming laptops, going from three models down to just one — and it’s all for the best. Instead of having to decode the various feature and quality differences between them, there’s just one chassis available with a variety of configurations with an 11th-gen Intel processor or AMD Ryzen 5000 H-series processor. All of the processors can be paired with up to a 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, 8GB DDR4 RAM or 16GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB SSD or 512GB SSD. They’re basically a more budget-friendly version of those from its Alienware division, but still capable of playing the latest AAA titles. Prices have been up and down lately due to supply issues, so if you’re a gamer on a budget you may have to wait to get the best deal. This gaming laptop has eight USB Ports and the laptop is available in two colors.