PC Gaming Question

1. I don't want to spend too much money, but I'm willing to go to around $1,500 (though I am much more comfortable with 1,000).
2. I want the graphics to look good, but this is not as big of a concern for me.
3. I am not really sure what this means, but I would prefer the game to run smoothly (few bugs or glitches).

I do not plan on playing online and I mostly play for story and fun. I would prefer to have something I can carry with me, which is why I am looking at laptops or Steam Deck.

What should I be looking at to determine a nice balance between performance and budget?

I did. I think it might have settled me on getting a laptop. I just don't know what I would need to look for in order to get the best experience for the most reasonable price.

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I did. I think it might have settled me on getting a laptop. I just don't know what I would need to look for in order to get the best experience for the most reasonable price.

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My opinion here:

What resolution do you like? 1080p (FHD) will be the most popular laptop screen resolution inside your budget. I'm not sure how much more a 1440p (aka. 2K or QHD) laptop is but you need more beef to run it.

If you are ok with 1080p, you'll won't needs as drastic of a GPU/CPU combo. I'm not sure how high laptops go, GPU wise, but they generally start at 4050 and go up from there with 4090 being the most expensive (not sure they put 4090 in laptops). My best guess is that you would want a 4060, min for 1080p.

Processor is going to be very general as well, and I am certainly not the person to try to explain that. Other than that, you'll want a min 16 GB RAM (DDR4 or DDR5).

Then, you'll want to decide how many games you would like to keep on your machine at a time. Some lower end laptops can have 512GB SSDs, other will have bigger. Likely, this can be upgraded later if you choose.

I'm a laptop gamer and can tell you from experience that it's not for the faint of heart. If you're wanting high-end graphics and high-end performance for high-end games, you will have to spend high-end money.

If you're going to stay within a budget of ~$1,500, you're going to have to decide what sacrifices you want to make. Will you be happy with an i7 instead of an i9? 4050 with 8GB VRAM instead of a 4080 with 12GB VRAM? 120Hz screen vs 240Hz? etc.

Something like this would play everything you want, but might not give you the fullest experience at the highest settings.

Also, remember that all that power comes with another cost: heat. If you're going to play Starfield, BG3, Hogwarts, etc then you'll need (not just "want") a cooling pad. I pretty much blew it out on my laptop last year so I could run everything on max settings. It's beautiful but I absolutely couldn't play any of the games I listed with my laptop just sitting on my lap. Even an el cheapo cooling pad can work to draw excess heat from your laptop while also keeping you from setting your clothes on fire.

The new FF7 is PS5 only till at least end of may, and likely the fall or even 2025.

If that's the game you want to play, i wouldn't get a laptop.

I have a deck and gaming rig. The deck is great but it's not going to run high end AAA games like Baldurs gate. I tried and it just doesnt run well or look good. Get a laptop. I would still recommend the deck for older or less demanding games. I love it for the Diablo games.

An i9 with a 4050? That is a terrible suggestion. Yes, even a lappy cpu would get bottlenecked with that in most cases. The Best Buy lappy would be the best in this thread. It's a 115+25 watt gpu. Still lower than their desktop counter parts, but way better than this. Way faster for 400 bucks cheaper.