Why Memorial Day is a great time to buy a cheap gaming laptop

Original source (on modern site) | Article images: [1] [2]

(Image credit: Marti Bug Catcher / Shutterstock)

The Memorial Day sales event transforms even pricier gaming laptops into some of the best deals you'll find, next to the holidays at least. Especially as we're in the middle of a new tech generation, retailers are looking to unload laptops with older specs. And to sweeten the deal, they'll wait until a major holiday rolls around and then discount the MSRP.

With Memorial Day weekend nearly upon us, this is the perfect time to get a hold of the perfect gaming laptop that best suits your needs. Whether you're looking for something under $1,000 that just needs to handle low and mid-range PC games, or a laptop with a bit more power that doesn't break the bank, waiting for these deals while old tech is being moved is your best option.

What to look out for in a budget gaming laptop deal

Compared to the best budget gaming PCs, even prebuilt ones, the best cheap gaming laptops are ready right out of the box, with no complicated setup involved. Simply plug it into an AC adapter to charge it and begin the start-up process. From there you simply need to tweak some settings here and there, while avoiding some of the most common pitfalls for gaming laptops.

And thanks to the many Memorial Day laptop sales available for this weekend, you can shave off a sizable amount of money off the MSRP. Though many of these deals are legitimate, there are a few things that you need to know to get the best out of whichever laptop you purchase. And there are also plenty to watch out for to avoid a retailer trying to pull a fast one over you.

Unless you're investing in the best Chromebook and purchasing a PC gaming streaming service like Nvidia GeForce Now, you're not likely to find a gaming laptop for under $800 in this economy, even on sale. However, you can find ones with decent specs between $800 and $1,000, and if you're willing to pay a bit over that, there are some laptops with great specs that can handle any of the best PC games at high settings.

For a gaming laptop, the GPU is most important for both game performance and frame rate stability, while the CPU plays more of a supporting role. As such, make sure that you're getting one of the best cheap graphics cards, at least an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 or AMD Radeon RX 6600. Anything below that for $800 is not worth the cost at this point. For the CPU, as long as it's an Intel Core i5 or above then you're fine. As for RAM and storage space, you should be getting at least 8GB and 512GB, respectively. Though 16GB RAM and 1TGB of storage are preferable if you can afford it.

Today's best gaming laptop deals

You can also check out our Memorial Day laptop sales, more of the best cheap gaming laptop deals, and the best cheap gaming PC deals happening now.