Did you know that the most expensive consumer-grade gaming laptop available today is the MSI Titan GT77? It can cost as much as $9,000 on Amazon, and it's not even that good of a laptop for most users. When it comes to value, you'll get a much better dollar to performance ratio out of a less expensive gaming laptop. The definition of cheap has changed over the years, but it's mostly understood that a value gaming laptop costs about $1,000 or less these days.
Below is a selection of cheap gaming laptops that should get the job done. Our selections are at or below $1,000 when not on sale. However, we highly recommend checking your local Best Buy or Micro Center, if you have one, for sales and open box deals. You can easily get a laptop one or two steps up from these for the same price if you track sales events or open box deals.
Our top picks: Best cheap gaming laptops
MSI Cyborg 15 (2023)
The MSI Cyborg 15 has you covered across multiple price ranges
The MSI Cyborg 15 is MSI's budget lineup and comes in configurations ranging from under $800 to a little over $1,000. At its best, it's a competitive gaming laptop sporting Nvidia 4000-series graphics.
- Good specs across its price range
- Solid performer with decent thermals
- User-expandable storage and RAM lets you upgrade further after purchase
- Screen quality isn't the best
- Cooling system is loud under load
The MSI Cyborg 15 is likely your best bet when surfing for cheap gaming laptops. It's available at a number of retailers, so you can take your pick. MSI also has several configurations in case you want to shave off a few extra dollars at the cost of storage or performance. What makes this laptop especially nice is that the storage and RAM can be upgraded by the owner. You can spend a little less now, and then upgrade it with better storage and more RAM later. At these lower price points, the ability to eek out a little extra after purchase is nice to have.
The laptop performance itself is decent. The $1,000 variant comes with a 12th generation Intel Core i7 along with an NVIDIA GTX 4060. That's a reasonable price for reasonable specs, especially in a year when GPU prices are a little out of control. Lower variants use NVIDIA 4050s, which perform well enough, but we recommend going up a tier if you can afford it. The cooling system could be quieter and the display could be better, but other than that, the MSI Cyborg is a solid package.
Gigabyte G5 KF
A good all-arounder with more expensive options if you choose
The Gigabyte G5 KF is a variant of Gigabyte's successful G5 lineup. This version comes with multiple configurations that range from budget friendly to spec powerhouse.
- Almost perpetually on sale for less than $900
- Solid construction, performance, and decent thermals
- User upgradeable storage and RAM
- Speakers aren't great
- Power supply could be better
- Cooling system is loud under load
The Gigabyte G5 KF is part of Gigabyte's popular G5 lineup. This one comes with many configurations that range from an Intel Core i9 and an NVIDIA 4090 to the one we recommend, which has a Core i5 and an RTX 4060. The MSRP for this one is technically around $1,100, but it's been perpetually on sale for months and has been under $1,000 for most of that time. This is about as good of a deal as it gets for an RTX 4060 laptop.
Somewhat ironically, stepping down to the RTX 4050 makes this laptop more expensive, at least on Amazon, so the 4060 variant is the one we'd recommend. It's otherwise a solid laptop with the same downsides as most laptops in its price range, which includes some cost-cutting in terms of sound dampening. Purchasing at this lower cost is a great starting point, but we do recommend future upgrades since 8GB of RAM is a tad low for 2023 as is the 512GB of storage. Luckily, you can upgrade those yourself down the line.
MSI Delta 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop
Your only real choice for a Radeon-powered cheap laptop
The MSI Delta is one of the few cost-effective gaming laptops that has an AMD GPU. The Radeon 6700M offers a bit less performance than an RTX 4050, but it's a chance to get an all-AMD laptop in a market where that isn't common.
- Your only real option for a cheap gaming laptop with Radeon graphics
- 240hz display is a higher refresh rate than most cheap laptops
- Surprisingly decent screen for its price
- NVIDIA 4060 performs roughly 20% better than the Radeon 6700M
- Laptop chassis can feel a little plasticky
The MSI Delta 15 is your only chance to experience Radeon graphics in a cost-effective gaming laptop. There are plenty of them out there, but most of them are a lot more expensive. The MSI Delta 15 has a decent overall experience. It comes with 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM out of the box. Users can upgrade that if they want to, but it may not be necessary. Along with that, you get a reasonably good Ryzen 7 5000-series CPU and a screen that does 97% of the SRGB color space and a 240 Hz refresh rate, much better stats than most budget gaming laptops.
The only real downside to this one is the Radeon 6700M graphics card. Both the NVIDIA 4050 and 4060 outperform the Radeon card at this price point, with the 4060 doing up to 20% better in some benchmarks. Thus, as a pure gaming machine, you can do better. However, the Delta makes up for it by being an excellent choice for productivity with a little bit of gaming thrown in.
Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3
About as good as it gets for under $700
The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 is a surprisingly good machine for how low in price it typically goes for. You get modern amenities like a 120 Hz display but much less than many competitors.
- Cheaper than most cheap gaming laptops
- User upgradeable storage and RAM
- Modern amenities like 120 Hz diplay and a USB-C port
- Performance is fine, but spending an extra $200 nets you a huge boost
- Screen is a little dull
- 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage needs to be upgraded
At its lowest price, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 dips below $700, making it one of the absolutely lowest cost gaming laptops we could find. It comes with a Ryzen 5 6600H and an NVIDIA RTX 3050. That makes it the lowest specs of any gaming laptop on the list, but that's what happens when find a model this wallet-friendly. It'll still get you there, and it should handle a lot of older games, indie games, and emulators. It's usable for productivity as well. However, it'll struggle if you push it too hard.
We only recommend this laptop if you need something right now, and you only have $700 to spend. You can upgrade the RAM and storage later, which helps remove the sting from that 256GB of storage out of the gate. It's better than any other gaming-oriented laptop at this price point, but we do recommend saving up a little extra money and getting something with better specs. You'll be happier in the long run if you do.
Acer Nitro 17 Gaming Laptop AN17-41-R7G3
It costs more to go with 17-inches
The Acer Nitro 17 manages to put a large screen on a budget laptop and keep it under $1,000. However, it does require going a tier down in terms of graphics to make up for the cost.
- Outstanding 17-inch screen
- Good specs for its price
- Modern amenities like USB-C and Wi-Fi 6E
- More expensive than most budget gaming laptops
- Cooling gets loud under load
The Acer Nitro 17 is a solid laptop for its price. It manages to squeeze in a 17-inch display with reasonably modern specs for under $1,000, although you have to catch it on sale. Luckily, it's on sale pretty often. The NVIDIA RTX 4050 is a step-down from the 4060 laptops on the list, but sacrifices had to be made to increase the screen size. Other than that, this is a satisfactory laptop with a Ryzen 7 7735HS, 1TB of storage, and 16GB of RAM. Storage and RAM are user upgradeable, but fortunately, it's not a big need.
The screen is the biggest draw here. It sports nearly 100% of the SRGB color space, which makes it great for creative work on a budget. The 165 Hz display is also good for smooth visuals while gaming. Honestly, even when it's not on sale, the screen alone is a step up from most other budget gaming laptops. You can also upgrade to an RTX 4060 for about $300 more, which may be worthwhile if you intend to game heavily.
Acer Predator Triton 300 SE
Good power in a smaller package
The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE is a 14-inch laptop with good specs and a decent price tag. Smaller gaming laptops are uncommon, so there are slim pickings out there.
- Good display
- Decent battery life for a gaming PC
- Good build quality
- Older RTX 3060 can struggle on AAA gaming titles
- Expensive considering the smaller screen
The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE is your best bet for a smaller than average gaming laptop. It's surprising that it still costs almost $1,000 despite sporting a last generation graphics card and a smaller screen, but the lack of 14-inch laptops on the market may be to blame. What you do get is an Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. That's not a bad package at all, even if the aging RTX 3060 struggles a little bit these days.
The 14-inch screen steals the show. It sports 98% SRGB coverage, which makes this a good entry level laptop for creators who also want to game. The build quality is also quite good, which is nice because it's small enough to take with you when you travel. We wish there were a few more ports on it, especially for folks who intend to add peripherals like a keyboard and mouse. Fortunately, a good USB hub can fix that. It's a budget gaming laptop, though, so it's more or less forgivable.
ASUS ROG Strix G15 (2022)
It'll do what you need it to do
The Asus Strix G15 gaming laptop is a good budget laptop. It comes with a Ryzen 7, a 1TB SSD, and 16GB of RAM.
- 100% SRGB coverage for content creation
- Ryzen 7 and RTX 3060 will do well in content creation
- User upgradeable storage and RAM
- The RTX 3060 may struggle with modern AAA titles
- It's expensive for a budget gaming machine
The Asus ROG Strix G15 is a modern gaming laptop that can also do productivity. It comes with a Ryzen 7 6800H and an NVIDIA RTX 3060, which is a decent combination for content creation work as well as the occasional PC game. In addition, the display boasts 100% DCI-P3 color space, which is necessary for color correction work. It also comes with 165 Hz refresh rate for smooth operation and gaming.
Gaming, however, is a secondary thing for a machine like this. The RTX 3060 is an older graphics card as we mentioned earlier, and it'll struggle with today's latest games. You should be able to get 60 FPS on most titles with the graphical settings turned down, but you won't take full advantage of the 165 Hz screen unless you're playing older games. It's also a bit more expensive than your standard cheap gaming laptop, but the high-end display more or less accounts for that.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14
This little guy can live longer than most others
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 sports good specs and decent overall performance. However, its ability to scrape a few extra hours of battery life compared to competitors is where it really shines.
- The best battery life of all the cheap gaming laptops on the list
- Reasonably good specs for its price
- Good number of USB ports
- You're paying the 14-inch price tax
- The RTX 3060 is old at this point
Rounding out our list is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop. It's a 14-inch laptop and, like the other smaller laptop in the list, it's a bit more expensive than it probably should be for its specs. What you get, though, is a good-looking display and decent performance from the Ryzen 7 5800HS and the NVIDIA RTX 3060. It has some parts available for user upgrades, but there is an 8GB RAM stick soldered in that you can't replace.
This is also one of the few cheap gaming laptops with a neutral design. It doesn't come with the usual array of gamer-oriented lights, logos, and sounds. That makes the laptop easy to take into public without drawing a lot of attention. It's good for productivity work as well as gaming, provided that you don't overestimate the capabilities of the last generation graphics card. The battery life, as noted, is better than most, although you will need to tweak the settings a bit to get it there.
Best cheap gaming laptops: The bottom line
Gaming laptops are a weird space as it is, especially in a post-pandemic space where electronics are still expensive, but not quite as bad as during the height of the chip shortage and crypto mining craze. That said, we think most people will enjoy the MSI Cyborg 15 since it contains modern specs and a reasonable price tag. It doesn't have any huge weaknesses, and it's a solid middle-of-the-road option.
MSI Cyborg 15 (2023)
The MSI Cyborg 15 is MSI's budget-oriented laptop. It can be had in several configurations ranging from nearly $800 to a little over $1,000, depending on what you're looking for.
Barring that, the Gigabyte G5 KF is a great second choice while the MSI Delta is your only choice for AMD Radeon laptops. All three picks here have 15.6-inch displays as well as user-upgradeable parts, so you can add RAM and storage later on if needed.
How did we choose these cheap gaming laptops?
The challenging part was finding laptops at or under $1,000 with 2023 specs. The above list contains most of the laptops we found that met that criteria. From there, it was cutting out the Nvidia RTX 3050 and 4050 laptops as much as possible. The reason is that the 3060 and 4060 is such a large performance boost (comparatively) that it's categorically worth the extra money. Why spend $800 on a laptop when you can save up an extra $200 and get something that you might actually be happy with for longer than a year?
Once we weaned down the list, we performed the usual checks, including online reviews, Reddit, and consumer reviews on websites like Best Buy and Amazon. We ran products through Fakespot to keep the fake reviews at bay, so we believe the information we collected is legitimate. Finally, we sorted them into categories and broke down user options according to cross-performance and screen size.
What should I look for in a cheap gaming laptop?
We wouldn't recommend anything under an RTX 4060 in 2023. It's the latest budget graphics card on the market, and you can find laptops for under $1,000 with it. You can go lower than that if you need other features aside from raw gaming performance, like a good display for productivity. However, we absolutely do not recommend integrated graphics of any sort. Those are there for perfunctory reasons and aren't good for gaming, at least not at this time.
However, at the end of the day, there are dozens of laptops available, and the sweet spot for a midrange gaming laptop is around $1,500. You can often find models at that price going on sale for around $1,000 on a fairly consistent basis if you look around. Open box deals can also drop the price of a midrange laptop into budget-gaming levels. It's worth your time to inspect the inventory of nearby big box stores that sell gaming laptops like Best Buy or Micro Center to see if you can get a good deal.
Where is the best place to buy a cheap gaming laptop?
Amazon, Newegg, Micro Center, and Best Buy have good selections of laptops. Plus, all four online retailers have refurbished or open box models that can save you a few hundred bucks. Just beware that open box or refurbished models come with some risk.
What's a good cheap gaming laptop for Minecraft?
Minecraft is one of those wonderful games that have been around for ages, and it's still popular. Essentially any laptop on the list above will play Minecraft without a problem except maybe the MSI Delta since Minecraft has a history of acting funky on Radeon graphics cards.
Should I upgrade my cheap gaming laptop after purchase?
It's not the worst idea. These days, 16GB of RAM and about 1TB of storage are widely considered to be the minimum ideal spec in 2023. Going higher than that will let you download more games, open more browser tabs, and interact with more productivity platforms without running into hiccups. However, hardware bottlenecks also exist, so make sure you get a laptop powerful enough to do what you need it to do first, and then worry about upgrades.