The latest NVIDIA, AMD and Intel tech is nice, but fitting power into a small form factor still means compromising. Dell and HP, to start with, are using Vega M GL graphics (equivalent to around GTX 1050 Ti) for their latest 2-in-1 models and are claiming stellar battery life, even on 4K touchscreens. The result is a laptop with GTX 10 levels of power, Intel claims, but lower power consumption than NVIDIA's chips. Intel, meanwhile, worked with AMD to integrate an eighth-generation CPU, AMD Vega graphics and GDDR5 memory onto one chipset.
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So performance for the GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU ranks somewhere between the full GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 versions, but closer to the full GTX 1070 for most models tested so far. They run at clocks speeds 10 to 15 percent lower than the full versions (depending on how the manufacturer tweaks it) but otherwise have the same specs. To deliver that muscle without killing your battery, NVIDIA launched Max-Q versions of its GTX 1050, 1060, 10 chips. Modern games, however, still require maximum power. As it happens, many gamers actually prefer this less-is-more vibe anyway.
With two such defined markets, many of the laptops on this list carry understated styling, rather than the flashy looks common to gaming-first models. The defining traits I mentioned - discrete graphics and a small size - benefit not just gamers on the go, but folks who do video editing, 3D animation, VR and other jobs that require extra GPU power. Other features, like a touchscreen, are icing on the cake. Those are the basics, but models with better performance, longer battery life and smaller profiles will obviously be the most desirable. They should also weigh less than five pounds, or else you're getting into regular, possibly backbreaking gaming laptop territory. They should have discrete GPUs by NVIDIA or AMD, as opposed to just integrated graphics.
The basicsįirst, let's define the category of lightweight gaming laptops. But which ones are best? Let's take a look. Over the past few months, a slew of lightweight gaming laptops using this tech have hit the market.
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Now Intel has ramped up the power further with its six-core, eighth-gen Core-i7 and Core-i9 portable processors. It started last year with NVIDIA's small, power-efficient Max-Q graphics, followed by Intel and AMD's surprising team-up on Core H with Radeon RX Vega M graphics. Back at CES a few months ago, I wrote that we were entering a golden age in lightweight gaming laptops.