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HP TECH TAKES /...

Exploring today's technology for tomorrow's possibilities
3 main specs to consider when buying your first gaming laptop

3 main specs to consider when buying your first gaming laptop

You saw a friend playing video games on his laptop. A whole new world opened in front of your eyes and now you want to be part of it.

You decided you want to buy a gaming laptop, and you convince yourself you need to upgrade your old one anyway.

Where to start? All you know is how cool most of them look with their backlit keyboards, but there is more than meets the eye, and through this guide we will give you some tips and recommendations so you can get the best one for your needs.

Here are the 3 main components you should look at for your first gaming laptop:

Forget about lights and eccentricities (for now). What you really want to pay attention to when purchasing a gaming laptop is: a good graphics card, a processor that can handle the card, and a RAM that does the work. These components work together so you can get an overall good gaming experience, so the best thing you can do is look for a balance. However, every person is different and prioritizing one of these features over the others can get you to the specific gaming experience you’re looking for.

Let us then give you a quick tour into the main specs of a gaming laptop and bring forward some good proposals for each feature.

A graphics card

GPU. You need one. But what is it?

A graphics card, also known as a video card, or a GPU, is the unit that processes information that will be displayed on your screen. The better the GPU the better the graphics will be and the more it be seen as the developer intended.

GPUs can be very expensive, but as a new gamer you can start with something affordable to your needs. If you’re a beginner but you know you care about the game display, this HP Pavilion Laptop which features an NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 graphics card is a good choice. Not bad for a newbie!

HP Pavilion 15-eh1008ca FHD touchscreen laptop

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Once you have become one of the top 10 Fortnite players of all time (or not necessarily), why don’t you consider upgrading to this HP Omen Gaming Laptop with a GeForce RTXTM 3070 video card, which offers higher effective speed.

HP OMEN Laptop

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A Processor

A CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the main part of your laptop system.

Not all processors are created equal, but all processors are built with cores, threads and clock speed. By and large, gaming computers have several cores (between four and eight), two threads per core, and clock speed. These features together work as a component that distributes the workload of processes, which make your computer work faster.

If what you care about is speed you can start with the HP Victus 16-e0010ca Gaming Laptop with 6 cores and 12 threads. This choice makes gaming and daily needs a breeze.

Victus by HP 16-e0010ca Gaming laptop - NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050

If you want to explore more alternatives, go for the HP Victus 16-d0020ca Gaming Laptop. The processor of this computer has 8 cores and 16 threads, and with many treads comes great gaming performance. This laptop is also perfect for the multitasking needed for school and work.

Victus by HP 16-d0020ca Gaming laptop - NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Laptop GPU

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A RAM

We store loads of information of daily use in our computers. But there is certain information that we don’t need to keep forever. Such is the case with video games. When we launch a game, its information is stored temporarily in the Random Access Memory so the program can load faster.

If it’s memory what you want to give it a weight to, you can go with the way-more-than-decent 16 GB of RAM, featured in the HP Omen 15 Gaming Laptop.

OMEN by HP 15-ek1008ca FHD Gaming laptop - NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Laptop GPU

If you want to future proof your computer, you can check this HP Envy 15 Laptop with 32 GB of RAM. You can never have enough RAM.

HP ENVY x360 15-es1008ca FHD convertible laptop

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Wondering why we can’t have the best of both worlds, or in this case “three worlds”? There are several reasons why a laptop cannot yet feature all the ideal specs at the same time: reduced space, heat conflicts, and elevated prices. But technology is taking giant leaps, so who knows? In the not-so-distant future we may as well have our cake and eat it too.

Summary

So there you have it, now you know what specs make a gaming machine a gaming machine, and it’s up to you (and your wallet) to decide which path to take on your first shopping adventure.

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