Best gaming laptop under $2,500: 5 premium gaming laptops in 2023

One could be forgiven for wondering why we’ve picked a gaming laptop such as the Eluktronics MECH-15 G3, which comes with an RTX 3070 GPU, above some of the other RTX 3080 laptops listed below. Well the simple fact is this particular RTX 3070, with its variable TGP of 125-140W packs a punch above many lower TGP versions of the RTX 3080, and competes with the majority you’ll find in laptops at this price range. The Eluktronics MECH-15 G3 isn’t the most powerful laptop here in terms of FPS generation (that honor goes to the MSI Ge76 Raider), though it does scrape into second place, but in terms of price per performance, this laptop is the definite winner.

Depending on where you buy it, you can find this laptop well within this price range, and for that you get a great array of specs: a 2TB SSD, 32GB of RAM (both of which can be upgraded to 4TB and 64GB respectively), an SD card reader, a great quality trackpad, and a mechanical-like keyboard! Keyboard preference is of course somewhat subjective but we found it to be a pleasure to type on and a mechanical-like keyboard will be an attractive feature for many.

The 1440p 165Hz display is as good as you’d need for a gaming laptop – with solid response times (around 7ms gray to gray), a great contrast ratio and superb color accuracy. At 98% sRGB color gamut the laptop won’t quite do for professional color grading, but definitely suffices for gaming.

In terms of the downsides, like many gaming laptops the speakers aren’t the best, though not terrible. The laptop only comes with Freesync rather than G-sync, which is a feature we miss. Build quality isn’t as good as on some of the better-known brands on this list, though we wouldn’t describe it as bad. The fans on the machine get fairly loud under load, so we’d advise wearing headphones.

Battery life depends on the specifications of the version you go with. Although the version listed here comes with the Intel Core-i7 10875H, if you can get hold of the AMD 5900HX for a good price we would heartily recommend it, as the battery life on that model is substantially better, not to mention the CPU performance also being superior.

All things considered, the Eluktronics MECH-15 G3 is one of the best value, high-end gaming laptops you’re likely to come across.

The MSI Ge76 Raider is one of the few gaming laptops we’ve seen that comes with an RTX 3080 with 16GB VRAM (as opposed to the less powerful 8GB VRAM version) with as high a TGP as 150W. As a result, the MSI Ge76 Raider is a much better performer than the vast majority of laptops with lower wattage RTX 3080 and the FPS of this model (coupled with an Intel Core i7-10870H) in games is one of the best we’ve seen. Unfortunately, the MSRP of this laptop is currently somewhat out of the price range of this guide, and the current market scarcity for RTX 3080s has pushed the market price further up, but if you can get hold of one on sale then snap it up!

Another alternative is to go with the RTX 3070 GPU version – significantly less powerful but selling for an MSRP $600 cheaper than the RTX 3080 version with the same CPU, RAM, SSD, Display and other specifications. What’s more, given that the RTX 3070 version also comes with one of the highest TGP/Wattage you will find, its graphics card performs almost as well as some of the RTX 3080 laptops on the market that have much lower power draw!

Besides the graphics card, different options exist for the CPU, including the more powerful Intel Core i9-11980HK, though we’d recommend going with the Intel Core i7-10870H to keep costs down. Similarly, a 360Hz version of the display is also available, but the 300Hz should be more than enough.

The 1080p 17.3” display gives plenty of immersion in gaming, and color replication and contrast are respectable, definitely worthy of a gaming laptop. The 32GB of RAM is most welcome and should help make heavy-duty web browsing and even some workstation tasks a breeze. The 1TB SSD is about what you’d expect at this price point, though the 1080p webcam is a fairly rare sight – usually 720p is the best you’ll get. An SD card reader would have been nice, but you can’t have everything in life! All told, despite the high price point, this gaming laptop is one of the most powerful money can buy, and actually good value given the big performance boost the high TGP GPU brings.

The 1080p version of the ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 15 comes with a blisteringly fast 300Hz display that has one of the best response times you’ll find in a gaming laptop: achieving a gray to gray response time of around 3.80ms in our tests when overdrive was enabled – up there with the best of the best. This makes it an ideal machine for those interested in competitive gaming. Although the laptop doesn’t have G-Sync it does support Freesync to help reduce any screen tearing.

Most of the non-gaming features of this laptop have been stripped back in order to keep the price this low: there is no webcam, no SD card reader, a relatively basic array of ports and sockets (no Displayport or Thunderbolt – just HDMI 2.0b). Color replication and brightness is definitely good enough for gaming (around 98% sRGB and 73% AdobeRGB) but not up there with Razer models – you won’t be doing any color grading work on this machine.

We were able to find a version of the laptop on offer only slightly above $2,500 with an ample 2TB SSD and a ludicrous 64GB of RAM, though 32GB is more than enough for even the most strenuous non-workstation tasks.

The GPU and CPU are of course the most important components when it comes to generating Frames Per Second in-game, and both the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and the more powerful 5900HX CPU option are top of the line at this price point. Unfortunately, the particular RTX 3080 that the laptop comes with, does not compare to the most powerful out there in terms of TGP, which means the FPS performance is not quite up there with the best, however, what you get in exchange is a very good value laptop with a superb display, SSD space, and RAM, for what is a relatively cheap price for such premium features.

The 1440p version of the ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 15 has the option for all the same features as the 1080p iteration, besides the display of course. At this price level though you will likely have to restrict yourself to only going with the RTX 3070 graphics card, as opposed to the more powerful RTX 3080, though if prices fall and you get lucky with a sale, this latter option would be preferable. If you decide to go with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X or the 5900HX CPU, either way, you will have yourself one of the best processors available in a laptop in this price range.

The spec we have here comes with a generous 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Like the 1080p model however it does not have much in the way of port coverage: there is no webcam, no SD card reader, and only a HDMI 2.0b connection.

What you do get though is a cracking 1440p 165Hz IPS display with great color replication (for a gaming laptop). Tests show virtually 99.8% sRGB coverage as well as 86% of the AdobeRGB space, not to mention 98% DCI-P3 – significantly better results than the 1080p version and up there with some of the new Razer Blades. Gray-to-gray response time is not as good as on the 1080p, 300Hz version, but if you’re a competitive gamer who is particularly concerned about such things, we’d recommend going with this faster, lower res, display instead.

All told this is a superb gamer’s laptop for those who favor a lush, immersive experience in their games, over squeezing out the maximum edge possible in competitive shooters.

Typically we wouldn’t advise going with a gaming laptop as small as 14” – for us the loss of immersion is just too great for it to be a premium gaming experience. That being said, some people genuinely don’t mind a smaller screen and/or absolutely prioritize portability; for those people the Razer Blade 14 (2021) with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU is the best out there.

Color replication is as good as you’d expect from a Razer Blade laptop with around 99.8% sRGB coverage and 83% AdobeRGB, making it suitable for light color work in the sRGB space – it certainly looks great when gaming. Add to this the great contrast ratio and peak brightness, and you have a display where the colors really pop on the lush 1440p screen.

Response time is not the best of the laptops on this page, coming in at around 9ms gray-to-gray, however this remains possibly the best response time you are likely to see from a 14” gaming laptop – typically the larger screen sizes just perform better in this area, and so this is a trade-off you need to factor in when considering buying a laptop this small. The 165Hz refresh rate is respectable unless you’re a serious competitive gamer playing First Person Shooters, whose priority is maximizing their edge over their opponents; though if you are you shouldn’t really be looking at this laptop in the first place.

As with most Razer laptops, the build quality of the body of the laptop is superb – the aluminum chassis is durable and feels nice to the touch. Despite the power of the core components (even one of a relatively low TGP RTX 3080) the laptop manages to be both slimline and lightweight – a Razer specialty – and combined with the mere 14” size of this laptop it is a highly portable yet potent gaming machine.

As for how it actually runs games, the RTX 3080 the machine comes with has a TGP of only 90-100W (unsurprising given the small size and thin dimensions of this laptop) and it is the lower 8GB VRAM version, which means you won’t get the same performance from it as you would the other selections on this page. That being said, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU is top of the line, and helps bolster FPS performance somewhat. Ultimately these are still very powerful core specs, and you can expect to get between 90 – 115 FPS in even demanding games on the highest settings at 1080p.

If portability is your priority, you won’t find a better option out there than the Razer Blade 14.