The best gaming laptop can mean different things to different people, but it’s something we spend a lot of time thinking about and testing ourselves on PC Gamer. In fact, of all the hundreds of products we prod, poke, and benchmark throughout the year, gaming laptops make up around 10% of the total we test.
So, we know our silicon onions when it comes to mobile machines for making good with the gaming. Each and every gaming laptop that crosses our path gets put through the same rigorous process, where we test gaming and productivity performance with a curated set of benchmarks, and monitor power and thermals, too. And, because we test a ton of them, we can compare each against all the gaming laptops that have gone before.
In this list right here are all the highest-rated machines we’ve scored over 80% so far this year, with links to their full reviews, and all the benchmarking data you could wish for. And we’ll keep adding them as they keep on making good ones.
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Amazon: Gigabyte Gaming A16 RTX 5070 gaming laptop for $1,350Best Buy: Asus RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptop for $1,600Razer: Our best 14-inch gaming laptop pick for $2,100Lenovo: Up to $700 off Legion gaming laptopsNewegg: Lenovo Legion 5 OLED RTX 5060 gaming laptop for $1,100Dell: Up to $500 off Alienware laptops
đź’» RTX 5060 – HP Victus | $1,000 @ Newegg
đź’» RTX 5070 – Gigabyte Aero X16 | $1,280 @ Best Buy
đź’» RTX 5070 Ti – MSI Vector 16 HX AI | $1,500 @ Newegg
đź’» RTX 5080 – MSI Vector 16 HX AI | $2,000 @ Newegg
The laptop low-down
Simply the best
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Dave’s verdict: 90%
“This is the first gaming laptop that has been able to deliver the sort of all-round PC experience that would have me consider ditching both my work laptop and my desktop gaming PC. And that is saying something. The Blade 16 is a genuinely lovely device, that can deliver whether plugged into a wall socket or running on its battery.”
Read our full Razer Blade 16 (2025) review.
A little surprise
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Jacob’s verdict: 89%
“This gaming laptop is ideal for those who want to be able to take their laptop around with them and use it for more than just gaming. Its subtle design and form factor make it very portable, and its RTX 5060 GPU has surprisingly strong gaming chops, especially with frame gen enabled. You can probably get a little better performance for cheaper, but probably not in such a great form factor and premium chassis.”
Read our full Asus TUF Gaming A14 review.
Fastest around
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Dave’s verdict: 87%
“The new Legion chassis looks good, and the performance is absolutely top-notch. But it’s the level of customisation that sings to me, allowing you to create a gaming profile that at once delivers the frame rates and the noise level you desire. Just a shame the battery life is still so weak.”
Read our full Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 review.
Object of desire
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Dave’s verdict: 86%
“Razer’s “aggressively priced” Blade still manages to be frustratingly pricey, especially in the face of cheaper, more powerful competition. But when it comes to actual use, it’s a huge improvement over last year’s model and there’s now no other gaming laptop I’d want to have my digits on or spend my money on.”
Read our full Razer Blade 14 (2025) review.
A classic
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Dave’s verdict: 83%
“A classic gaming laptop, that makes up for its lack of battery performance or pencil-thin chassis design with serious gaming frame rates even outside of its cacophonous Extreme Performance mode.”
Read our full MSI Vector 16 HX AI gaming laptop review.
Second best
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Dave’s verdict: 83%
“The strangely inconsistent fan noise really takes the shine of this generation’s G14, despite it still being a delicious device, with a beautiful OLED screen, and decent gaming performance. But with a new Blade 14 rectifying all the issues Razer’s compact machine has had over the past couple of years, it certainly suffers by comparison.”
Read our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review.
Sturdy
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Ian’s verdict: 81%
“A relative bargain among today’s top-end gaming laptops, the 2025 Acer Predator Helios 16 offers solid performance and exceptional screen brightness with the usual drawbacks of running hot and having almost no battery life.”
Read our full Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI review.
Budget boi
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Zak’s verdict: 81%
“Lenovo’s hit the mark just right on three things in particular. The graphics card. The screen. The build quality. It’s exceptional in those elements and delivers excellent 1080p gaming performance. Sadly, however, due to what are assumedly cost-cutting measures on the RAM and SSD front, it doesn’t quite nail the landing with its entry-level model.”
Read our full Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 10 review.
That chassis
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Jacob’s verdict: 80%
“The Alienware 16 Area-51 is a great pick for someone looking to game primarily on a laptop and still have some semblance of portability. It lacks an OLED panel, which is its biggest miss, and performance is a touch slower than some we’ve seen. But it more than makes up for these with a price tag lower than others offering the same level of quality.”
Read our full Alienware 16 Area-51 review.
Chonker
Nick’s verdict: 80%
“With such a high price tag, you’d expect Alienware to pack this laptop with all the best goodies. For the most part, it has, and the performance and general experience are great. But the screen is disappointing, the unplugged performance isn’t great, and the keyboard feels cheap. At least this gives Dell plenty of scope to make next year’s version better.”
Read the full Alienware 18 Area-51 review.
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