Highest gaming performance:
1. The HP g6t-2300 - 475$, with coupon code “NB6388” with I5-2450M (+20$ for I5-3230M), 6GB DDR3, Radeon 7670M. The This is a good deal. The review indicates the screen is above the average for a sub-500$ laptop. Good temperatures and low operation noise make this laptop a very good purchase for the money.
2. Acer V3-551G-8454 15.6″ – now for 470$ A8-4500M, Radeon 7670M, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD. I prefer it over the Lenovo Z585 due to the better screen and lower noise.
3. Lenovo Z585 15.6″ with Radeon 7670M, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD for 500$.
(???) What can you do with such a configuration? Most games on medium settings at least and too few on high settings – CS:GO, Torchlight 2, F1 2012, CoD: Modern Warfare 3, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Dirt 3 and more. See how the Radeon 7660G manages Skyrim and or how the 7670M handles Skyrim too on high setting.
Note: You could get some 20%-30% higher performance with the 600$ gaming laptops offers currently. Specifically the dv6z.
Saving money – 400$ gaming laptop
Asus K55N (Amazon, Adorama, TigerDirect, B&H), equipped with the AMD A8-4500M cpu and integrated 7640G GPU giving you very high performance for the money.
In both cases, the gaming performance should be higher than comparable HD4000 equipped laptops (which you won’t find for such a price anyway probably), so you are in a good place.
Complete List
For Beginners
The 400$ option (like the current Acer V3) is good for low gaming requirement and also for medium-high settings in games like WoW, Minecraft, Counter Strike and more light games.
The 500$ option (with Radeon 7670M/GT 630M usually) is good for high settings in light games and also medium settings in many games, like Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2, Mass Effect 3 and more. see how the 7660G manages Skyrim
| Model (link to coupon or product) | GPU/CPU | Street Price | Why | Why not | sources |
| Acer V3-551G-8454 15.6″ | Radeon 7670M / A8-4500M | 500$ |
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review |
| HP Envy dv6z-7200 15.6″ | Radeon 7670M / A6-4400M | 560$ with coupon code “SAVE15HP“ |
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HP dv6z-7200 review |
| Lenovo Z585 15.6″ | Radeon 7670M + 7640G / A8-4500M | 500$ |
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review |
| HP g6t-2300 15.6″ | Radeon 7670M / I5-2450M | 475$ including 7670M and 320GB HDD (coupon code NB6388), 495$ with I5-3230M |
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HP g6t-2200 review |
| HP g6z-2200 15.6″ | Radeon 7670M / A4-4300M | 440$ including 7670M (coupon code NB6388) |
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last year g6 review and previous year g6 review (w/ 7450M) |
Hi, looking for a laptop in the $400 range to play guild wars 2 at low to med settings any suggestions would be great Ty.
will you take a used/refurbished laptop?
Yes I would consider a refurbished one
Any suggestion for a decent laptop that could run skyrim on medium settings? ~$600 budget, I was thinking of the Lenovo IdeaPad G780 with NVidia GeForce GT 635M. It’s a decent card I guess, but I think it would be able to run skyrim on medium.
Thanks
woops sorry for the double reply and I’ll use that forum now. Your response didn’t get forwarded to my email..
What’s the cheap laptop, but powerful enough to run skyrim on medium, per se? My budget is ~$600
Suggest me something!
Can you please use the forum?
http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/forum/just-ask/
I’m trying to make it live
k55n is not avaible anymore =( another laptop in that price pls
you got it!
umm which video card is better the 7640g or 7520g because i fount 2 laptops at 380$ and i want to know wich one is better http://espanol.bestbuy.com/site/HP—Pavilion-15.6%26%2334%3B-Laptop—4GB-Memory—500GB-Hard-Drive—Sparkling-Black/7004371.p?skuId=7004371&productCategoryId=pcmcat247400050000&id=1218820832399 this or this http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Sparkling+Black/7336049.p?id=1218840175099&skuId=7336049#tab=specifications&AID=10597222&PID=5672651&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bestbuy.com%2Fsite%2FHP%2B-%2BPavilion%2B15.6%2526%252334%253B%2BLaptop%2B-%2B4GB%2BMemory%2B-%2B500GB%2BHard%2BDrive%2B-%2BSparkling%2BBlack%2F7336049.p%3Fid%3D1218840175099%26skuId%3D7336049%23tab%3Dspecifications&ref=39&CJPID=5672651&loc=01
the link of the g6 that u give us is A6 AMD and 7520g video card =S
my mistake. I’ve replaced it with the Samsung option for 399$ – also a good option
Which would be better for gaming power, the HP g6t-2200 with the i3-3110M\7670 or the envy dv6z-7200 with the a6/7670? it seems like the i3 is a better processor, which makes the g6t not only cheaper, but also more powerful. Is that a correct assumption? I assume the reason the envy is more expensive then is build quality/larger hd/ram, which would not necessarily impact gaming performance? Trying to get the best cost efficiency for the lowest price.
Thanks for the blog!
the g6t is not cheaper, but I’d pick it over the g6z currently. The difference in performance should be that significant
Hmm, I’m a little confused. Perhaps you thought I was asking whether the g6z or g6t would be better, but I was asking about the envy dv6z-7200 performance compared to the g6t. Even above, you have the g6t listed as cheaper than the dv6z.
yes, sorry – my mistake.
I’d pick the g6t-2200. Wouldn’t spend the extra money. For the g6t-2200 however, I’d replace the memory myself (the upgrades are too expensive) – buy from newegg.
The g6t-2200 has good reviews for a 450-480$ laptop. Sometimes the dv6z-7200 can be bought for 500$, so the difference isn’t that big and I’d recommend the Envy, but currently, 50$ is too much
Alright, thanks a ton man, gonna place the order soon then.
Also i was wondering if i would be able to play world at war.
yes, you would. Probably on some good settings
thank you
note that now the g6t-2200 price has changed. I recommend considering the g6z or the dv6z
The Asus K22N is now $349.99 at best buy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+K-Series+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Indigo/Light+Indigo/6940249.p?id=1218816101846&skuId=6940249
For those who prefer intel, the Lenovo G580 with an i3 cpu is on sale for $379.99 at office depot http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/859453/Lenovo-G580-Laptop-Computer-With-156/
350$! this is an excellent price. Thanks for updating me. I’m occupied currently so it helps me a ot.
The K55N in my opinion is a much better choice than an I3 counter parts.
Sorry I meant K55N. Anyway it looks like it is by far the best deal in its price range.
totally agree. I’d buy it
k55n price dropped again. Now only $339.99
Laptop gaming has never been so cheap
another drop! Thanks!
It is only very light gaming, but anyway a very good laptop for the price
ok so if i got the ASUS K55N what kind of games would i be able to play. could i at least play minecraft with no lag and lol on any settings?
minecraft – yes. LoL – no, only on low/medium settings
thank you
Whats the cheapest A6-4400M equipped laptops out now?
I don’t know, but the Asus K55N is sold for 380$ and it has the faster A8-4500M which is quite cheap and there are also Liano equipped laptops for less I think.
What are you looking for?
Well if I can’t find an A10 for a descent price, I’m going to get an A6 and swap an A10 in it ($130). I’ve seen a few for $325-335 around BF/CM but I hadn’t decided if I wanted the A10 or not at that time. Now I know its what I want. The A8 is out because given the perf upgrade and price point, it probably isn’t worth it…if that makes sense.
For gaming, you should focus more on the GPU side. Swapping the cpu, if possible, won’t give you much for gaming, if any. Also, the older Liano CPUs (like the A8-3500M) are easy to overclock and several benchmark show they perform better in games.
Isn’t the GPU on the CPU with AMDs (aka APU)? Thats what I’m interested in here. The A10/7660G
but the 7660G is not as fast as the 7670M which you can get for a lower/same price
The Asus K55N is on Best Buys website at $379 now.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+K+Series+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Matte+Light+Indigo/6087209.p?id=1218717240847&skuId=6087209&st=k55n&cp=1&lp=1
Thanks Lorie! You are promoted!
Junky what do you think about this deal?
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Midnight-Black-15.6-Envy-Sleekbook-6-1129wm-Laptop-PC-with-AMD-Quad-Core-A8-4555M-Accelerated-Processor-and-Windows-8-Operating-System/21634592?wmlspartner=NKa3hZyYoHA&sourceid=41687987574227544178&veh=aff
nice deal, but for gaming there are better deals – all the laptops with the Radeon 7670M
I have a question. You know how they give you the option of customizing the laptop?
Well, i’m currently looking at the hp g6t-2000 and was wondering if the upgrade to
the 2nd gen i5-2450M coupled with the 1GB AMD Radeon 7670M graphics card would be worth
the $600 it costs
I really like cpu speed and the graphics card would be great for gaming since I plan on
keeping the laptop for many years through school work in college while playing games (League, D3, BF3) on the side
For gaming – no, spending another 75$ for the I5 is not a good thing to do.
You’ll get higher gaming performance mainly from upgrading your GPU.
Currently, the offers between 500$ and 600$ do not add anything over the 500$ offers. If you really want higher gaming performance, then go to the 800$ gaming laptops recommendtions:
http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/gaming-laptops-under-800/ and get one of the cheapest options, like Y570 or others – you’ll get much higher gaming performance than simply upgrade to I5-2450M in this particular machine.
or wait few weeks to see if there are new options
thoughts?
Thanks for the reply! Do you think it’s a good idea to wait for Black Friday/Cyber Monday for great deals? Or do they not normally sell off good laptops? (That’s IF everything good is not sold out in the first 5 minutes)
it is hard for me to believe such laptops will be even 50$ less than what they are now, but it might be.
If you are in no hurry, then such deals will anyway show again at some point or another
Hey, Junky — thanks for this site…it’s been VERY helpful in trying to figure out the ins-and-outs of laptop gaming rigs as I look to replace my netbook that died. Whatever PC I buy, it’ll be more about doing my grad-school work on OpenOffice and streaming movies from Netflix and the like, but I’d definitely love to do a bit of gaming — things like Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and the like — I’m not really into things like Battlefield 3 or things like that.
I’m having trouble finding info on the above-mentioned games and how they’d do with systems containing the A8-4500M, like that K55N if I just went with the integrated 7640G and skipped the dedicated card. Do you have any insights?
it should run with quite high settings with the 7660G and 768p resolutions. The new Vegas too as it run well with the desktop part radeon 5670.
can you get to 500$?
Yeah, I can probably go $500 for the right system…for me, it’s more about needing a laptop soon…so any custom options are kinda out for me.
The Z585 is not a good option?
The integrated 7660G is excellent + you’ll get good battery performance for that price.
If you can wait, sometimes there are deals with such a system for 450$, but it’s currently rare.
Also, with Amazon you get free shipping.
From the price/performance perspective, the 500$ options are better than the 400$ ones. You pay 25% more and get 50% higher performance at least.
I’ll definitely consider it! I didn’tget to follow the Amazon link earlier andtandthought it was higher than $500now. Thanks for clearing it up for me!
it comes and goes. I’d suggest selling its memory and getting some 1600MHZ 2x2GB or 2x4GB from Newegg – pretty cheap actually. Since the integrated 7660g and A10-4600M cpu sip from the same memory bandwidth, this would help maximizing the performance.
HP g6z-2200 is not a6 but a a4 will that affect gaming permance in any way?
yes, you’re right
in that case, the difference is very small between A6 and A4
I think the Toshiba L850D offer has changed. It’s still cheap, but not as cheap as your offer says. I had a sweet deal last night…should’ve gotten it. It had 2 external 1TB drives for free, plus a 16gb flash drive for sweet. I should’ve bought it right then.
don’t sweat it. Such deals come and go.
The Lenovo Z585 with A10-4600M is now sold on Amazon for 500$ including shipping, 6GB DDR3 and 750GB HDD – quite nice deal.
Hey junkie,
What do you think about the Toshiba 850D with the A-10 for 433$. It seems the price has dropped a little which adds some more bang for the buck. Can you tell me more about the graphics card? Would it be able to handle intensive games like battlefield on low at native resolution?
Certainly! Thanks!
Only thing is that in order to get the most from the 7660G, you better get dual channel memory configuration – and better buy it yourself because the upgrades on the site are priced real high – I added some example.
Is there something going on now that is affecting availability? It seems there are hardly any choices anymore for decent laptops. Even Newegg has only 2 laptops with a graphics card below $600 and one is out of stock.
Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? I can hold off on getting a new laptop for the moment but if the future looks bleak I might jump on the lenovo. Toshiba seemed nice but after shipping and tax its well above $500 and will take much longer than Prime shipping.
Many good options go out of stock or discontinued rather quickly. I guess they make it on purpose.
But currently there are some good models. All the models with A10-4600M cpus for under 1000$ are quite good actually and also the HP g6t-2000 with I3 and 7670M.
The under 600$ case is more problematic, yea, but you do have 3 options and some more at the range of 600$-700$
I am completely lost when it comes to all the details about everything in a laptop. I have tried to look things up, and learn us much as I can, but there is just so much. I like playing games, mostly WoW and minecraft, yet I am a broke nursing major, and my old laptop finally crapped out. I was looking at Asus Z54C-JS91 15.6″ LED Notebook – Intel Pentium B960 2.20 GHz (copied if from the website…) and Asus K53U-JS11 15.6″ LED Notebook – AMD E-450 1.65 GHz . Which do you think would be better? I found them both for under 400. If you have any other suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.
wow, sorry, I didn’t see there was another comment!
I understand your frustration and you’re right – I’ll try to address this issue with some revision that explain which games you can run smoothly on good settings with each laptop.
My suggestion is the K55N from the list for 400$. For lower price, try to find gaming laptops with 6520G GPU – try finding some refurbished ones.
Man, I got so excited when I first saw this list, but almost everything is sold out! The problem is that the only laptops which aren’t sold out (I even called a couple compUSA’s for store availability on the TigerDirect Acer) are the ones without the Radeon 7670M graphics card which, from the links on this subreddit, seems to be a pretty big step up from the 7640G. Every single other one is sold out. The last one on the list, the HP g6t, comes to $600 with the Radeon card after taxes and that’s with an i3 which is weaker than the AMD A6 of the Acer…
1. I know. Availability is a problem. You’ll have to either wait or go 550-600$
2. I3 is at least as fast for gaming as the A6
3. GT 630M is something like the 7670M gaming performance wise
What do you think about the Toshiba listed but upgrading to the A10 4600M processor. It doesn’t mention but I assume it comes with the 7660G instead of 7520G.
That would run me to $499.
it will be slower for gaming then the g6t, for example, as the 7670M with I3 should be faster a little but, but it should also have longer battery running times. The 7660G + A10 is a potent combination, but it won’t be faster.
why do you want it?
My girlfriend will be using it. She will be mostly using it for photoshop as a photographer but also likes to play games like CounterStrike which isn’t super demanding. (No BF3 or anything)
I always thought it took more battery to run a processor and a GPU vs just a processor with integrated graphics. BTW I just chose the A10 based on your GPU battle article.
I see they have changed the price – it was 400$ with an A8, and now it is 440$ or I got confused.
I suggest that you take the Asus K55N – for 400$ it comes with the A8 and 7640G which will be excellent for CS:GO or the old CS anyway.
it will save you the money and you can buy an SSD with this money, to replace the HDD and make it an external one if you need. Or just save the money
What are your thoughts on this computer?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Inspiron+15.6%22+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Diamond+Black/5892069.p;tab=reviews?id=1218703221538&skuId=5892069#tab=specifications
Cheapest I could find any A8 processor that includes a dedicated graphics card.
Na, not really a good option. I think the 7640G integrated GPUs will be better (like in the K55N)