Should You Buy a Gaming Laptop Now?

We’ve seen pretty interesting gaming laptops in recent times, and with the introduction of Nvidia’s mobile GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1650 GPUs, even more affordable gaming laptops are very capable now. In fact, right now is arguably the best time to buy a gaming laptop.

However, now that Intel’s latest generation Ice Lake CPUs are official, should you hold out a bit longer? Or should you just take the leap? We’ll look at either sides of the argument.

Why You Should Wait

One of the biggest reasons to hold out from purchasing any gaming laptop right now is to wait for Intel’s new 10th generation processors. Even though the company already unveiled some Ice Lake processors for the generation, the H-series lineup has not been announced yet – that’s the one typically found in gaming laptops.

What makes the Intel’s 10th generation CPUs exciting is the die shrink: it is Intel’s first real batch of 10nm chips. With the smaller manufacturing process, better power efficiency is the most immediate benefit, and that is always a good thing.

At the moment, there’s not much detail on upcoming 10th generation Intel chips specifically for gaming laptops. Who knows, perhaps there will be other important features that will make these CPUs superior to the current 9th generation H-series processors, especially in terms of processing power. Creative professionals will definitely appreciate that.

Why You Shouldn’t Wait

While it is important to have a capable CPU that will not bottleneck the system, it is the GPU that affects gaming performance the most. Sure, a faster, more power-efficient CPU is always desired, but it doesn’t bring that much of a difference in terms of raw gaming performance.

Of course, future processors will definitely be faster and better than current 9th generation chips found in gaming laptops, but Intel only introduced these processors…well, last month. Although the performance gain isn’t particularly great, it will still take quite some time for the chipmaker to introduce the next generation.

Even if you don’t mind waiting, the current crop of mobile GPUs in the market right now already offer some of the best value for money. Take the GTX 1660 Ti: it’s only slightly slower than the higher-end RTX 2060 GPU, but it costs considerably less. The Asus TUF Gaming FX505, for example, retails at RM4,399 for the GTX 1660 Ti model, and it’s a very capable gaming laptop.

And if you’re looking to get something even more affordable, great news: the GTX 1650 fits the bill. You can easily get a gaming laptop with that GPU in the RM3,000 price range, and it has very good performance for the money.

While it is not quite as fast as the older GTX 1060, the GTX 1650 is a lot faster than its direct predecessor, the GTX 1050 Ti. In fact, it will be relatively easy to get over 60fps in popular games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, and Fortnite at 1080p with high graphics settings.

The point is, whether you’re looking to get a gaming laptop with the best value for money or gaming performance, you have plenty of options to choose from right this instance. As we speak, a number of manufacturers are already bringing in more gaming laptops with the new GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1650 GPUs to Malaysia.

Conclusion

Those who are looking to get a gaming laptop right now shouldn’t be worried about missing out on “the next big thing.” Current gaming laptops in the market already offer excellent performance for the money, and if you’re already eyeing a particular laptop, there’s little reason to wait any longer.

Plus, no matter what, future gaming laptops will always be more capable than current offerings; it’s inevitable in the tech industry. But how big of a leap that would be still remains to be seen, but rest assured, it won’t happen anytime soon.