Laptop hardware: a look under the hood
Hardware upgrades.
One of the best things you can do for your laptop is upgrade to an SSD. Most modern gaming lap-tops come with some type of SSD, but older or cheaper models may not. Even an older system will gain an incredible and tangible speedup. You’ll see massive improvements in overall system responsiveness and game startup times but you’ll also largely overcome those annoying level loading screens and area transitions. After all, who wants to spend time looking at a spinning loading icon?
RAM is another upgrade option. You’ll want to have 8GB as a minimum these days. Moving to 16GB will help with particularly demanding modern games, but it will also help if you frequently alt-tab out of games and into other applications.
Upgrading the graphics card is impossible on many laptops, but there are exceptions. Many laptop GPUs use the MXM PCIe interconnect, but unlike most desktop cards, many use significantly different form factors. The cooling assembly is likely to be tailored to suit the specific GPU, and changing to another could present a major obstacle. So, with a few exceptions, upgrading the GPU is pretty much off limits to most users.
GAMING ON THE BATTERY; CAN IT BE DONE?
Can you use your laptop and game with the battery? The easy answer is yes and no, but mostly no. GPUs suck a large amount of power. Some laptops with high powered GPUs throttle significantly when powered by the battery, dealing a major performance hit while only delivering a full charge gaming session measured in minutes. Even less powerful models might struggle to hit the one hour mark before running flat. If you’ve got access to a power point, use it.
If you do intend to game on the go, consider playing something that doesn’t load the GPU so much. Today’s e-sport titles don’t require much grunt, so games like CS:GO or DOTA are not going to tax a laptop as much as Battlefield V at high settings.
If you really want to game on the go, Nvidia produce what are called Max-Q graphics processors. Several manufacturers offer Max-Q versions of the GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080. Simply put, they are down-clocked variants of those GPUs that run at lower frequencies, but with much improved power consumption. Recommending Max-Q laptops is difficult. They come with a hefty price premium and do give up quite a bit of gaming performance. Consider them only if battery life and low noise levels are at the top of your priority list, otherwise go for one of the standard non Max-Q variants.
“Moving to 16GB will help with particularly demanding modern games, but it will also help if you frequently alt-tab out of games and into other applications. ”