Ah, my first ever Cyber Monday. Well, not really my first, as I've been buying, selling, and reviewing PC hardware since the late 1990s, but this is the first one where I've really sat up and paid attention to exactly what deals are out there.
And as far as gaming laptops are concerned, there's only one that I would personally buy. Not because the others aren't great, it's just this one hits all of the things I want from a gaming laptop.
When it comes to gaming, you really want the best GPU you can get for your money. And there are plenty of RTX 4080 gaming laptops around, but this one is quite special, as MSI has given it the maximum power limit and clock speeds. Unlike other brands, which drop these down a bit, here you're getting the full shebang.
Naturally, you have to pay for that in some way, and in this case, it's the amount and speed of the RAM, and the LCD panel isn't as fast as others. But it's all perfectly acceptable to me. I just want the best laptop GPU for my money and this deals wins easily.
PC Gamer PSA
As an example of the point I was making in my last post, here's an MSI Stealth 17 Studio RTX 4080 gaming laptop that's currently $2,399.99 at Amazon.
Looks great, doesn't it, and those specs are seriously high-end. So what's wrong with it? On face value, nothing, but when you delve into the specifications for it, you'll see the problem. Because MSI designed this model to be super slim and portable, it doesn't have room to sport a beefy cooling system for the GPU.
So the power limit is just 105W, a good 40% lower than the MSI Vector model. The boost clock speeds are also down by 615MHz (a decrease of 27%) and the combination of these two aspects will make a serious ding in Stealth's gaming chops.
It's not just about the price tag, folks. Got to know what you're really looking at or just let us do it for you!
Are RTX 4050 gaming laptops worth the money?
You might be hunting through the Cyber Monday gaming laptop deals, just like I am, looking for something that's still decent for games but it's as cheap as possible.
Well, what about this Lenovo LOQ 15IRH8 that's currently $719.99 at Newegg? You're getting a Core i5 13420H, an RTX 4050, 8GB DDR5, and a 512GB SSD. Surely that's worthy of being a great budget choice?
After all, it doesn't seem all that different from this Gigabyte deal, that's just $30 more.
First, let's compare the CPUs. The Lenovo's i5 13420H has four P-cores, four E-cores, and a max boost clock of 4.6GHz. However, the more expensive Gigabyte's i7 12650H has two more P-cores and a slightly higher boost clock, so it's definitely better for gaming.
Then there's the GPUs. The cheaper laptop sports an RTX 4050, that has a power limit of 95W and a max boost clock [[link]] of 2,370MHz. The RTX 4060 in the Gigabyte is a 75W version with a top clock of 2,010MHz so the RTX 4050 is better, yes? Nope.
That chip only has 2,560 shaders compared to the RTX 4060's 3,072 so although it's clocked up to 18% higher, it has 17% fewer shaders. It also has less L2 cache (12MB vs 32MB) and a tiny 92-bit memory bus and a measly 6GB of VRAM.
In other words, ewwwwww. If it was a good $100 cheaper, then that Lenovo might be worth considering but when there's just 30 bucks between them, that Gigabyte G5 is by far the better choice. Which is precisely why it's in our list!
So, back to the opening question. Is it worth getting an RTX 4050 gaming laptop? ROFLcopter, no.
It feels a bit weird posting this deal. On the one hand, this is absolutely the cheapest RTX 4090 gaming laptop I've seen, and it's the full-fat version: 175W, so none of that reduced power malarky. And there's a CPU with eight P-cores, sixteen E-cores, and a boost clock of up to 5.4GHz.
In terms of sheer gaming performance, there's pretty much nothing to touch it.
But on the other hand, you're paying a high price for that GPU. I don't just mean the fact that it costs $2,500 but it's about the rest of the specification. Sure, there's lots of fast RAM there, but 1TB of storage at this price is pretty mean.
And the screen is nice (that 16:10 ratio is super sweet) but nothing outstanding for gaming, when much cheaper models sport 240Hz panels and other laptops around this price use mini LED screens.
But when you can get RTX 4080 laptops for much less money, and still perform just as well as a RTX 4090 one, you're better off saving your pennies. It's a great deal (32% discount!) but it's not a great deal at the same time.
Yeah. Weird, I know.
PC Gamer PSA
When it comes to gaming laptops, not all GPUs are the same, even when they are! Nvidia's latest GeForce RTX 40-series chips sport the most comprehensive feature set of anything they've done before and in desktop PCs, they make for brilliant, if expensive, graphics cards.
However, since laptops just don't have the space for a monster-sized heatsink, they're all limited in power. Each model that Nvidia produces, there are multiple variants, going as low as 35W for ultra-slim laptops, all the way up to 175W gaming behemoths (Nvidia's standard limit is 150W).
This makes it super important to check out the GPU specs when looking at a gaming laptop. Let's say you have two that both sport an RTX 4070, but their power limits are 105W and 150W respectively. The latter will not only have higher clock speeds, but it will be able to maintain them for longer.
You have to hand it to Dell. They really know how to keep the mystique of Alienware going and I have no doubt that lots of people will be really wanting to get their hands on this big, expensive gaming laptop.
At first glance, it looks really good, too. That AMD Ryzen 9 7545HX processor boasts eight cores, 16 threads, and a boost clock of 5.4GHz. It's even unlocked for overclocking! And there's that RTX 4090: Nvidia's largest GPU for laptops and although Dell doesn't state its power limit, it will still be more than up to any gaming job you ask of it.
The display is a nice balance of size versus resolution, and boasts a healthy 240Hz refresh rate. And it's another model that uses a 16:10 ratio; the extra height just makes doing any kind of office work a far nicer proposition.
But then things go down hill swiftly. 16GB of DDR5-4800 isn't right for a laptop of this price (it's too little an amount and a bit too slow for a top-end Ryzen CPU) and 1TB of storage is just downright insulting. You can change these when you order the laptop, though, and for extra $300 you double the RAM and SSD sizes.
Which really means that the Alienware m16 gaming laptop it should be is actually $2,799.99 which isn't so hot of a deal as it would be at $2,500. But you're paying for the name and prestige, of course, and for many people that badge will be all that matters.
Don't get me wrong: It's a good laptop, just too expensive for what it is.
Is anyone else smitten with Framework's customizable laptops?
I've got an eye on a Framework for my next laptop to replace the ancient XPS 13 I'm typing on right now, but [[link]] I'm waiting for AMD's Zen 5 chips to roll out sometime in 2024. I have a feeling the bump in CPU and GPU power are going to be worth holding out for. This year's 13-inch model using an AMD chip is still an absolute banger, though, earning a 91% review from us in October.
Framework doesn't have any flashy Cyber Monday sales, so why bring them up now? Well, as an alternative to big sales, the startup has launched an outlet store on its website selling factory seconds and refurbished parts. And these are all quite heavily discounted. Instead of the latest and greatest, you can get an 11th gen Intel mainboard for $299 instead of $699, or pick up a DIY 11th gen Intel laptop for $639.
At that price you're getting a "B-stock" unit, which Framework says "contains an original display with slight cosmetic issues: fine lines on the surface that are noticeable from certain angle and/or backlight non-uniformity visible from an angle on a white screen (shown in the GIFs). Aside from the display, the A-stock and B-stock systems match the cosmetic specs we use for new laptops."
I'm actually a bit tempted since Framework's big pitch is upgradeability. Here's a few options from the outlet store if you don't mind a few cosmetic blemishes for a few hundred bucks off.
- Factory Seconds Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition (11th Gen Intel) - $639
- 11th Gen Intel mainboard - $299 (save $400)
- 12th Gen Intel mainboard - $549 (save $150)
Speaking of the XPS 13, it's on sale for Cyber Monday, too. $200 off a $799 laptop is quite a discount. I know this is supposed to be a gaming laptop blog, but sometimes it just makes sense to leave the gaming to your desktop (or a Steam Deck) and grab a super light, no-nonsense laptop that sips battery life and lets you get all your work done. This is one of the greats to ever do it.
Cyber Monday is a great time to save a few hundred on a laptop, but often that means a little bit of a compromise, like not quite as much RAM or storage as you'd like. Thankfully most gaming laptops are [[link]] easily upgradeable, and with the rock bottom prices of SSDs right now, you can probably double your storage capacity without spending much. Two deals added together are likely still cheaper than paying full price!
Here's our liveblog of the best Cyber Monday SSD deals if you want to plan to upgrade a new laptop as soon as you get it.
Laptop Mag has a general guide to upgrading laptop memory, but you'll also want to do some googling to find out exactly what RAM spec your laptop shipped with, and the maximum speed and quantity the processor supports, before you go buying some more sticks.
The Black Friday and Cyber Monday discountageddon may have finished but that doesn't mean there are no more deals to be had out there. In fact, some of the best are still live and we'll continue keeping tabs on them in our Cyber Week gaming laptop deals page.