"Gaming" Laptop for Daughter

[Danp]

We had agreed to buy our daughters new laptops once they had completed the GCSEs. 2 Years ago, our eldest wanted a Mac Air, now our youngest would like a Windows device as she uses it for playing games on. Nothing hugely taxing, Minecraft and Valorant sort of thing, but I want to make sure I get something that will do the job. I've not cared about graphics cards for years so tend to look only at processor, ram and storage. Any recommendations? Sub £1K ideally. Something like this https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/asus-tuf-intel-core-i5-11400h-16gb-512gb-ssd-geforce-rtx-3060-15.6-inch-win-fx506hm-hn016w/version.asp

[elsiegee40]

Sounds like one for @ICTDirect_Dave. We got a very good high spec laptop from him for our son.

[bald_pig]

Medion srre usually a decent buy, they're a sub-brand of Lenovo: https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/medion-deputy-ryzen-7-5800h-16gb-1tb-ssd-fhd-geforce-rtx-3060-15.6-inch-win-30033308/version.asp

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I've nothing in right now that has dedicated graphics, sadly.

 

An in fairness, those other options look pretty good!

[slugshead]

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/173-asus-fx706heb-tuf-gaming-f17-fhd-144hz-i5-11400h-8gb-ddr4-512gb-nvme-ssd-4gb-rtx-3050-ti-tb4-win

 

This

[Danp]

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/173-asus-fx706heb-tuf-gaming-f17-fhd-144hz-i5-11400h-8gb-ddr4-512gb-nvme-ssd-4gb-rtx-3050-ti-tb4-win

 

This

 

Out of interest, why would you say this is better (spec or value) than the others that have been share? Just wondering because at first glance, it 'only' has 8gb ram and I would expect 16 or 32gb now to be the baseline.

[Brax]

I don't have a recommendation sadly but just something to bear in mind is that some gaming laptops are good but a lot of the mid-range ones really struggle with cooling in my experience and sometimes can cause bad bottlenecks and reduced performance. Something to look out for:D

[CHiLL]

Out of interest, why would you say this is better (spec or value) than the others that have been share? Just wondering because at first glance, it 'only' has 8gb ram and I would expect 16 or 32gb now to be the baseline.

Out of the laptops linked so far, I'd probably go for the one you linked in your original post from LaptopsDirect. It's basically the same as the Scan one, but with double the RAM and a better GPU, for only £50 more.

 

In terms of RAM usage, 8GB of system memory is generally enough for most gaming needs at the moment, though that is growing.

[Danp]

I don't have a recommendation sadly but just something to bear in mind is that some gaming laptops are good but a lot of the mid-range ones really struggle with cooling in my experience and sometimes can cause bad bottlenecks and reduced performance. Something to look out for:D

 

I tried to convince her to build a desktop together, but she doesn't always sit in her room to play or use it for other stuff, so wanted something a bit portable. She's bought herself a keyboard for her iPad so takes that to 6th form for school work.

[bald_pig]

Out of interest, why would you say this is better (spec or value) than the others that have been share? Just wondering because at first glance, it 'only' has 8gb ram and I would expect 16 or 32gb now to be the baseline.

 

It's a lower grade graphics card as well!

[HTCPCP]

We use the Asus TUF A15 and F15 models on all the new laptops at a computer club for children with additional needs I run, with 75% of our laptops now being different generations of them. The build is very good for the price, and only really a couple minor gripes (Mcafee being preinstalled is one, and the other is fans ramp up very quicky). They perform quite well, and with the oldest model being 3 years old, it's still in very good condition, even with it having been not softly handled every session.

 

The 17" model is good, but definitely not worth the premium (and reduced portability) over the more powerful 15" model unless they are going to be only using the laptop screen.