Best Gaming Laptop Under $1000 / $900 / $800 / $700 (April 2013)

Are you looking for a decent budget gaming laptop for less than 1000 dollars, that can nicely play all new games? Then you have come to the right place, because here is a list of best gaming laptops for the price: $1000, $900, $800 and $700. The following laptops were chosen by their gaming performance, other things like battery life, weight or brand name weren't as important. All these notebooks have an adequate dedicated graphics card, so you don't have to worry about bad performance in modern games.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 is currently the best gaming laptop that you can find for under $1000. No other notebook in this price range has an Intel Core i7 CPU, dual GeForce GT 650M graphics cards and a very nice Full HD screen. Most of the current and near-future games should be fluently playable at high settings on this Lenovo IdeaPad Y500. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI configuration is usually faster than single high-end NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 15.6-Inch Laptop

Amazon.com

Intel Core i7-3630QM 2.4GHz, up to 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost

8GB of DDR3 SO-DIMM memory installed

1TB (1000GB) 5400RPM SATA hard drive

Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI

15.6" LED backlight Full HD display (1920 x 1080)

For $900, it's hard to find anything faster than Lenovo IdeaPad Y500. This specific version of IdeaPad Y500 has less RAM and a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor. You have to decide if these 2 things are worth the extra 100+ dollars. If you want better battery life and a quad-core CPU, then consider Lenovo Y580, it has a lower resolution display though.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 15.6-Inch Laptop

Amazon.com

Intel Core i5-3230M 2.6GHz, up to 3.2GHz with Turbo Boost

6GB of DDR3 SO-DIMM memory installed

1TB (1000GB) 5400RPM SATA hard drive

Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI

15.6" LED backlight Full HD display (1920 x 1080)

This Acer Aspire V3-571G-9683 isn't as good for gaming as the two more expensive Lenovo laptops, but all newer games should still run pretty well on it. This notebook is equipped with a good quad-core Intel Core i7-3630QM processor and pretty nice mid-range NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M graphics card (it is based on GeForce GT 645M).

Acer Aspire V3-571G-9683

(Midnight Black)

Amazon.com

Intel Core i7-3630QM 2.4GHz, up to 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost

6GB of DDR3 SDRAM memory installed

500GB (5400RPM) SATA hard drive

NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M 2GB DDR3

15.6" CineCrystal LED-backlit display (1366 x 768)

Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)

Compared to the Acer Aspire V3-571G-9683, this Samsung has a slightly less powerful graphics card. Other specs of Samsung Series 3 NP350V5C-T01US are very similar to the Acer, but the Samsung notebook is much cheaper.

Samsung Series 3 NP350V5C-T01US 15.6-Inch Laptop

(Titan Silver)

Amazon.com

Intel Core i7-3630QM 2.4GHz, up to 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost

6GB of DDR3 SDRAM memory installed

500GB SATA hard drive (5400 RPM)

AMD Radeon HD 7730M with 2GB of VRAM

15.6" LED-backlit display (1366 x 768)

Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)

Here are some popular laptops that aren't that good for gaming (for the price). First one is ASUS N56VJ-DH71, overall it is a very good laptop, quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive, Full HD display etc, but it misses one thing - a good graphics card. NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M isn't what you expect in a $950 gaming laptop.

Second one is Acer Aspire V5-571PG-9814, it has an intel Core i7-3537U processor and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 710M graphics card. Seems nice? But it is not, the i7 is actually a dual-core and the video card is not really strong. This touchscreen laptop is not suitable for gaming, it was never intended for that.