Advice on gaming laptops please...ideally that don’t require a second mortgage

[EllebellyBeeblebrox]

Morning all, any advice welcome please as I’m a bit of a technotwat.
DD has asked for a gaming set up for her birthday (she’s going to be 12)
At the moment she plays minecraft, fortnite, genjin impact (?) and wants to be able to play Raft on steam but although we downloaded it on DHs Mac it’s far too slow to play. If possible I’d like her to have a gaming laptop as she could also do with a new laptop for schoolwork so something that could do both, and we have neither the space or the budget for another desktop.
Basically I’m asking what system requirements I would need to look for in a laptop to run games on steam? I could ask them at PC world I know but I tend to smile and nod and glaze over when it comes to computers.
Thankyou clever people in advance!!

All I can say is that it will be really really expensive!

Yeah that’s my worry I wish I understood more about these things

My advice is tell her it's not a realistic present. My DS wanted a computer he could game on. I did some research and found one that wasn't a gaming computer but in theory should have been high enough spec to play fortnite etc. It wasn't. I bought a new graphics card and the game would play at a decent FPS but then crash. I downloaded a driver software program to fix it (all on the advice of someone who understands computers) and that didn't work. At that point I cut my losses and we now have an expensive desktop that DS doesn't even use for homework since they use iPads

If you buy a laptop you won't be able to upgrade it/parts are very expensive. It's not going to last as long as a desktop PC and can cost the same if not more.

Can you look at building a PC or hiring someone who can if you buy the parts?

Alternatively, you can go for a pre built PC and that gives you the option to upgrade in the future. I recommend this so that you get your money's worth and it is cheaper and easier to buy replacement parts.

Thankyou both, DH suggested building one but I think I scoffed at that until I realised it doesn’t mean literally making it yourself. Will do some more research and see if a desktop is an option.

We are having this problem in our house at the moment. DW wants a new gaming laptop or PC.
The laptop she is looking at is £1200 and it might not be upgradable (like the one she has now)
Or the other option is to build a PC but you cannot buy a graphics cards for love nor money at the moment because of people mining bitcoin or something. 🙄

You can check what requirements a game needs if you got to the store page>Raft and
scroll down the page to see system requirements for that game.

We had this issue at Christmas. Ended up spending £650 and that was the cheapest actual gaming laptop out there (in stock). We'd have had to buy her a laptop for school anyway so that helped justify the cost a bit.

We bought at Alienware R17 but has hardly ever been used for gaming. It is a fabulous laptop, 17 inch screen and 5 years on is still I incredibly fast whereas a cheaper one we bought is grindingly slow.

The problem is that cost £1500

Knowing what I do about laptops now..I prob wouldn't spend under £1000 for a normal one to get a decent lifespan

Forgot about the graphic card problem.
You can spend £1200+ on building a decent gaming PC.

I bought a gaming laptop about 8 years ago for half price, £500ish.. it's not worth the money to upgrade it and it runs like a potato now. It would not be able to run Raft.

We got a custom built pc from chillblast, it's not small but with flashing lights it looks good. We don't have issues with playing games and plays all the games mentioned. We decided against a laptop, love my laptop for work but I can't imagine gaming on it!

Yeah if your idea is to buy a gaming laptop you have to go all or nothing.

I got one as I like gaming but have to move frequently. The best ones out there are IMO Asus ROG laptops. They cost around 1500€ or more but they're amazing, sturdy, fast, will last a while.

If you're not able or willing to spend that much I'd stick to desktop.

My ds built his own gaming pc. What is nice about it, is he gets birthday money and upgrades something. So it's grown with his requirements. But, I know nothing about it, he was on his own. So far he's spent about £1500, maybe £1750. The initial cost was just under £1000.

I would also build your own PC but graphics card prices have really increased in the last year or so. You can buy an older model and upgrade the parts that make it run faster.

What’s your budget? Would she be happy with a second hand one? I recently got a really good one second hand, paid around £450 for it but it was well over £1.2k when new

This is DPs area of expertise.

Gaming laptops are, in his words, a waste of money, they are not upgradable, so you’ll realistically only get a couple of years of use out of it before technology and game mechanics outdated it and they are more expensive than PC’s.

Your second issue is there is a massive shortage of chips atm, so the price of graphics cards specifically has skyrocketed,
In fact most computer parts and laptops have gone up because of the demand caused by WFH.

DS desperately wants a new gaming set up for Christmas but it’s unlikely it will be possible.
And this is even with DP being able to order parts through his work.

DS has been saving up all his Christmas and birthday money for the last two years and bought a gaming computer from MESH which allowed him to spec the memory, graphics etc. It was £850, but he's now saving again for a new graphics card when they become available again - his is usable but could be better etc.

I'd definitely recommend a desktop rather than a laptop, but there is a shortage of chips etc at the moment.

We bought a second hand gaming laptop for £600 and a second hand PC for £900. You couldn't tell either of them were second hand to be honest but I appreciate that may not be ideal as a birthday present.

My Dh has a gaming desktop as well as a PlayStation and Xbox

His graphics card it’s out by about 2 years but he can’t get hold of a new one.

It’s custom built and he just upgrades bits and pieces when he wants to. He said laptops are not worth the money as they become obsolete very quickly.

Thankyou all for your excellent advice, will ditch the laptop idea. Budget is ideally under 600quid which is still a stretch but she’s had a shit year and doesn’t ask for a lot bless her. Will have a look at second hand ones, Thankyou all.

I know nothing about the spec you need, but suggest that you talk to a supplier of such kit, tell them what you want it for and see what they suggest.

This is a company local to me (no connection, just a satisfied customer) that has a range of gaming PCs at a wide range of prices, some of which not too scary, no idea if the spec is what you need though. So try somewhere like there, or see if there is someone local to you.

We picked my son up a Lenovo Legion on sale just after Christmas for around £ 800 / 900. It runs Fortnite, Roblox, Steam etc and he can also do his school work on it although it’s probably a bit clunky to carry around for that purpose. We were actually really impressed with it as my older son has a full desktop set up bought in dribs and drabs which has probably cost a lot more altogether.

It’s true what others have said about laptops though, you’re not able to add bits on really so once the parts start to become dated we will probably end up having to replace instead of upgrade.

I’m trying and failing to attach a picture to show you the basic things we looked for on the advice of my other son as I’m definitely not an expert either but if you Google something like Fortnite spec for example, you should be able to find out the minimum requirements to run the games she plays and go from there.

You should be able to find a run down of processors in order of speed etc, you will need to decide on a graphics card, preferably the best that is affordable but bearing in mind that these also date and some of them will be on their way to being dated already and then also look at memory and also go for the highest you can afford.

Reconditioned / ex display models can also be a good shout if you’re trying to save money, look at websites like Scan and Overclockers and also contact local pc companies as somebody else said.

outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdY9cWKS5BlsEAyeqOf5%2bTZ3RFYhc%2fB3cNqO%2bqyFVzy8%2bxrVCvX6l04WYEnw%2ftyrmxrdk4RnOtRs0LrHmxNLFKrIJ%2fmYjARY7L5NZnPFai8D%2f4IkRclfGi49JLMw%2fA0U2M6LEb%2bhgQg%2b4w7ZeRTIJNkD5cwU7lucWdH3gUawUDTgXlxnUAVpzf5VcLPQN4BtKpI8x9%2bZlrK67uznq1%2fYBeNNTwwZrp3E3iZ8BerPok7GQ3eA%2ftLXKtUs%3d

That’s a dell refurbished gaming laptop for £618
BUT I don’t know the hardware requirements of the games your DD wants so it could be an underspecced GTX graphics card.

Building your own pc is fine but it’s a very confusing environment IMO and you usually end up overspending. Plus you need £100-£250 for keyboard, mouse and monitor. That’s assuming you’ve got a decent chair to sit on!

With that budget you won't get a gaming laptop.
We've replaced our desktop pc and initially looked at upgrading the old one, which is what we've usually done. However RTX cards are like hen's teeth at the moment. In the end we bought a whole new system as it worked out cheaper than to buy the individual bits for the old one. Now we have two desktops which stops ds1 and DH squabbling.