5 Best Laptops For DotA 2 (Latest Patch)

Intros out of the way, let’s talk about how to find the best laptop for Dota 2.

Now…

I’ve been playing Dota 2 for the past 15 years…

Back in the day, Dota 2 could run on any laptop.

However, since the introduction of Reborn after Dota 2 was acquired by Steam, the game now supports higher graphics and advanced effects.

So…

If you want to play at maxed-out settings, you’ll need a recent dedicated GPU (preferably with 4GB of VRAM) like the GTX 1650 or 2050RTX as the bare minimum.

2GB VRAM GPUs also work fine, but you won’t get stable framerates throughout a match if you play at the highest settings—especially during intense group fights.

These GPUs are best suited for settings 2 and 3 on the graph below.

Best Laptop Specs For Dota 2

 

If you try to play the game at the highest settings without a dedicated GPU on a laptop, you will experience frame drops, which can easily get you smoked in a group fight.

However…

If you don’t mind playing at the fastest settings, pretty much any laptop released within the past three years will run Dota 2 just fine, as long as it has at least 8GB of RAM.

Do not listen…

To people saying you can play Dota 2 on much older rigs (which usually have only 4GB of RAM).

Dota 2 is the oldest MOBA out there, so you’ll find a lot of people underestimating its system requirements—still thinking in terms of pre-Reborn Dota 2 when giving advice.

GPU

1. Low Settings (1-2):  No need for a dedicated GPU—integrated GPUs (which come by default) work just fine. The more recent the laptop (and its CPU), the more powerful the integrated GPU will be.

Ex of iGPUs: Intel HD 520/620 Intel UHD & AMD Radeon Vega 5/7 are old but okay. Recent ones are Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 & AMD Radeon 660M.

 

2.  High settings (3-4): 2GB vRAM GPU for (3) settings & 4GB vRAM for (4 – max) settings.

Minimum (2GB vRAM): MX550, MX450, 1050 GTX.

Note: MX150,MX250,MX230 , Radeon RX 555  are 2GB vRAM GPUs that perform just as good as recent iGPUs. So avoid them if they’re too expensive.

Recommended (4GB vRAM): 1050Ti  1650GTX 2050RTX 3050Ti 4050RTX. 

6GB vRAM GPUs are overkill as Dota takes no more than 4GB (usually 2GB vRAM).

CPU

Luckily, for those on a budget, Dota 2 is very CPU-bound (its engine was coded before League of Legends, back when dGPUs weren’t very powerful). This means small improvements in CPU performance can make a huge difference in gameplay.

1. Number of cores: Dota 2 runs mostly on a single Core as shown in my benchmarks here. Although Steam recommends a multi core (dual core) that’s just to make sure you have one core dedicated to Dota 2. 

2. Clock Speed:  You should focus on picking the CPU with the highest ‘clock speed’ Ex: 4.2GHz over 4GHz.

 

RAM
4GB RAM: This is found on older laptops. Not enough to even run Windows.
8GB RAM:  Minimum for the game. You can bump framerates if you set up 8GB RAM in dual-channel mode.
16GB RAM:  You’ll get slightly more framerates (due to iGPU using the extra RAM) but it’s more useful for streaming.

Either way whatever you get you can always upgrade RAM. 

Storage

Size: Doesn’t really matter if you’re only playing Dota 2 since the game takes 50GB. To install several AAA games you want at least 1TB.
PCIe NVMe:  the latest is PCIe NVMe 5.0 but PCIe 4.0 are much cheaper and found on most laptops. There isn’t any performance difference for gaming with the two. As long as you get a PCIe NVme (universal now), the game will launch ultra fast.

Display
FHD: All laptops have FHD now except those below 350 dollars. (You have to double check). QHD are nice but they’re not going to bump up your gaming.
Refresh rates: If you’re paying more than 650 dollars for a laptop with a dedicated GPU, you should demand one.

Top 5 Best Laptops for DotA 2 

Instead of talking about the hardware in these machines, I’m going to talk about how much performance you can expect from each of these puppies. 

I’ll attach a youtube video if that same model has tested the game on it.

If not, I’ll just post performance stats (framerates and settings) based on youtube benchmarks from similar machines. 

Please beware that any laptop with higher and more powerful hardware than what will be shown next it’s just going to be wasted money for this game . Surely, useful for other more graphically demanding games but not for Dota 2. 

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1. HP Victus

Budget Laptop For Dota 2 – 2050RTX

  AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

  16GB DDR5 RAM

  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050

  512GB PCIe M.2 SSD

  15.6″ FHD 144Hz

  5.06lbs

  3 hours

 

If you just want a laptop for Dota 2 , MOBA games and basically games that don’t have super high graphics like CoD.

Then you should just buy a 2050RTX and wrap it up. There’s really not much to think or compare to. 

All 2050RTX are very very cheap….usually well below 600 dollars and they can still run Dota 2 , LoL and similar games at the highest graphics with stable framerates up into the 90s even in group fights as shown below:

Dota 2 BenchMark – Ryzen 5 + 2050RTX

GPU:  2050RTX vs 1650GTX

If you do some research on youtube of the 1650GTX vs 2050RTX (cheapest laptop GPUs for dota 2)…you’ll notice that the 2050RTX slightly outperforms the 1650GTX and yet you can even find it around 550.

The main difference between the two GPUs though is that the 2050RTX allows you to activate RTX mode on games and this includes Dota 2. You can also turn on DLSS mode (on games that allow it) for an additional FPS boost.

You can read more about the differences between these two GPUs and the fps differences with DLSS on and OFF on my post: 1650GTX vs 2050RTX.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

The AMD Ryzen 5 7537HS has better multi-core performance than 13th-gen Core i5 CPUs. Unfortunately, for a game like Dota 2, this doesn’t really matter since the game relies on single-thread performance.

You’ll actually get higher framerates if you can find an RTX 2050 laptop paired with a 13th-gen Core i5. Not available with a 2050RTX at the time of writing.

That said, the Ryzen 5 7537HS still outperforms 12th-gen Core i5 CPUs and their predecessors. So, if you’re comparing it to GTX 1650 laptops, you can expect about 20 FPS more, since those older laptops typically come with CPUs that are 2–3 generations behind.

Alternatives and  Prices

There’s really not many other good alternatives to this model. If it runs out of stock, just look for it with the 2050RTX + HP Victus phrase. All other models are too expensive.

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2. HP Victus – AMD version

Cheapest Laptop with dedicated GPU for Dota 2

  AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

  16GB DDR5 RAM

  AMD Radeon RX 6550M

  512GB SSD

  15 ” 144Hz Full HD IPS

  7 lbs

  2 hours

This GPU was released last year but the prices have recently been reduced to match the price of a 2050RTX. You can expect the game to have the same performance as a 3050RTX as shown below:

Dota 2 BenchMarks: RX 6550M GPU

The settings shown here are a little more extreme than what was benchmarked on the 2050RTX. Here you have shadows set at the highest settings and this brings the fps down to 90fps pretty much the same framerates as the 2050RTX.

GPU: RX 6550M GPU

It is difficult to judge where the RX 6550M GPU sits compared to the 3050RTX and 2050RTX because the performance is different on most games. However, the vRAM is the same ~4GB vRAM…memory bus and bus bandwidth however is lower…which causes iregularities on the framerates across different games. Also the wattage makes a huge difference. An 80W RX 6550M GPU should perform about as good as the 3050RTX as shown in this link.

The main reason why you should buy the RX 6550M is price. Sometimes you can even find under 500 dollars. You could check the links that will take you to the product and see if the price has go down or you could just check on your nearby store yourself.

CPU & Display: AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

There’s no need to go over the CPU shown here nor the display since its pretty much the same model as the previous laptop with a different GPU. If you need to compare CPU performance of other models with different CPUs be sure to check my post: Ryzen vs Intel Core Laptop CPU performance comparison so you can pick the fastest of the two and remember to focus on the single-thread benchmarks as Dota 2 is pretty much single-threaded.

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3. Acer Nitro V

The Best Laptop For Dota 2 – 4050RTX

  Intel Core i5-13420H

  8GB DDR5 RAM

   RTX 4050 6GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD

  15 ” 144Hz Full HD IPS

  4.66 lbs

  3 hours

 

I would’ve loved to post a 3050Ti laptop next but the prices are just not worth it. If you do some research, you’ll notice that the 4050RTX laptops cost either the same as 3050RTX or slightly more.

I know I said the 4050RTX is overkill for Dota 2 but why would you not want it when there are models with a 4050RTX selling for as low as 700$!

Ideally you want to choose the 2050RTX of course…about 150 dollars cheaper and pretty much all you need for Dota 2. So this option is for those who want to play OTHER more graphically demanding games on top of Dota 2.

Dota 2 BenchMarks: 4050RTX

GPU: 4050RTX – Overkill

Take a good look at the benchmarks shown above. The 4050RTX is not fully used…despite the game running at the highest settings with shadow quality set to maximum…the game is only using 50% of the 4050RTX’s GPU resources.

Again…Dota 2 is a very CPU bound game and relies mostly on a single-thread so this is expected. Plus the game isn’t really that graphically demanding…hence why this GPU is OVERKILL.

Now if you want to play the game at QHD resolution…then yes it’s a MUST to play the game smoothly. The laptop shown here does not have a QHD display though and that will add about 100 dollars to the price.

Lastly, note that when you step into 3050RTX & 4050RTX laptops , having a MUX switch will give you a significant boost in GPU performance. Again for Dota 2 this isn’t going to be significant since it is CPU bound and single-threaded but for other GPU-bound games, performance gains can be as high as 20%.

CPU: Intel Core i5-13420H vs AMD Ryzen 7th gen

The cool thing about 4050RTX laptops (even the cheapest ones) is that they will usually come with the latest generation CPUs such as the 13th gen Core i5 or the 7th gen Ryzen 7. If you pay 100 more dollars, you can get the 13th gen Core i7 CPU with the 4050RTX as shown here. But again overkill for the game as well….however that will definitely increase framerates much more than buying a laptop say with a 4060RTX.

Alternatives & Prices

I’m listing all the three best 4050RTX laptop alternatives. Just in case this one runs out of stock.

[ScrollableTable]

Link	GPU	CPU	Refresh Rate	Storage	Price
Acer Nitro 5	4050RTX	i5 13th	144Hz	512GB	699
Acer Nitro 5	4050RTX	R5 7th	144Hz	512GB	710
Acer Nitro 5	4050RTX	i7 13th	144Hz	512GB	799

[/ScrollableTable]

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4. HP Victus 15-fb2002la

The Best Laptop For Dota 2

  Intel Core i5-13420H

  8GB DDR4 RAM

   GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe SSD

  15 ” 144Hz Full HD IPS

  5.10lbs

  3 hours

The good ol’ 3050RTX is not a good option if its too expensive. However, the HP Victus shown here is selling for about the same price as the 2050RTX & AMD Radeon 6550M yet its significantly faster.

Dota 2 BenchMarks: 3050Ti Laptop – Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3

GPU:  3050Ti RTX

The laptop featured is a different machine than the one that was benchmarked (I’ll post a link to the model I benchmarked in the table later). However, performance should be the same since botoh have the same 3050Ti , same vRAM and a CPU with more or less the same single-thread performance. 

One thing I forgot to mention when going over the other GPUs is GPU wattage . Those GPUs that run at higher wattages will significantly outperform those that run at lower wattages.

However, for Dota 2, these wattages dont make much difference since the game never seems to FULLY use most of its GPU resources. Thus whenever you buy a GPU it may be wiser to use the built-in software for the GPU and set the wattage to something lower (in the case of the 3050Ti that would be 50W-75W).

RTX Mode 

The reason why I’m no longer posting a 1650GTX this year is not just the prices (2050RTX is very cheap now) but also the fact that most games now support DLSS & RTX (dota 2 doesn’t really use DLSS but does support RTX).

It’s not a reason to pay a lil extra if you’re just playing moba games but definitely if you are playign other games. In Dota 2 and LoL it will make a few animations, mostly special attacks, look cooler(Currently not available on Dota 2 but in the works).

CPU: Intel Core i5-13420H vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600H

I tested the game on a 3050Ti laptop with a AMD Ryzen 5 5600H. This AMD Ryzen 5 is 3 years older than the Core i5 13420H so obviously it’s going to be a lot weaker in terms of clock speed. What difference in performance can you expect? Well I’d add a ~15 fps performance difference at the highest settings since dota 2 is very single-threaded and CPU bound and the difference in single-thread performance between these two CPUs are significant.

Alternatives & Prices

There are really no alternatives as all other 3050RTX laptops are way more expensive than the HP Victus.

[ScrollableTable]

Link	GPU	CPU	Refresh Rate	Storage	Price
Lenovo Ideapad	3050Ti	R5 6th gen	60Hz	512GB	698

[/ScrollableTable]

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4. ASUS ZenBook 14

Best Laptop For LoL – MX 450

  Ryzen 5 5500U

  8GB DDR4

   MX 450 2GB vRAM

  256GB PCIe NVMe 4.0 SSD

  14” 60Hz FHD IPS

  4.85lbs

  5 hours

 

Ok technically this laptop has a dedicated GPU but the performance of this dedicated GPU is much lower than all other GPUs we went over.

However, it’s still faster than All the integrated GPUs you find under 500. 

GPU: MX550 & 450

Now, you could go for either the MX450 or MX550—it really depends on the price.

Here, I’m posting a laptop with an MX450, along with benchmarks for the MX450. Performance-wise, it’s only slightly slower than the MX550. I personally don’t think the MX550 is a good option given the prices (700-1000)..because even if its portable the performance gains for gaming is not significant.

Now…

keep in mind that this laptop costs around $500, which is pretty close to the price of AMD dedicated GPU and RTX 2050 laptops we discussed earlier. That means you should only go for an MX GPU laptop if you need something lightweight because you commute often but still want to game outside your house.

Carrying around a heavy gaming laptop all the time isn’t ideal. This laptop also has a sleeker design, so people won’t immediately think you’re a gamer—it actually looks a bit like a MacBook.

Dota 2 Benchmark : MX450  

If you check benchmarks on youtube for the MX450, you will find:

Benchmarks on the MX 550 show:

That’s a significant difference in performance knowing that the MX 550 is only about 17% more powerful than the MX450. 

However, given the price increases…I’d say it’s not worth it.

CPU: Core i5 1240P vs Core i5 1135G7

One big factor of the performance gain is the more recent CPU with better single-thread performance. 

So, if the prices are nearly the same, you should go for the MX550, since you’ll also get a newer-generation CPU, typically just one generation behind the latest models. (Though I doubt it).

That said, I don’t recommend paying more than $600 for an MX series laptop.

Display: 60Hz vs 120Hz

Most MX450 laptops will not come with a 120Hz display whereas the MX550 laptops do. 

You’ll definitely appreciate the higher refresh rate if you go for the MX550 which hovers around 100fps at the highest settings. 

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How to Buy Best Laptop for DotA 2

In this guide we are going to cover everything there’s to know about Dota 2 and its hardware usage. This is useful if you want to extract every bit of fps out of your budget.

This is also useful if you’re venturing into older laptops off of ebay (here you have to know what you’re buying so you don’t end up with something that’s totally useless ).

First, let us talk about the bare minimum official requirements.

They are written for desktops but translating them to laptops is easy:

• Dual Core processor 2.8GHz ~ This means any CPU made within the past 10 years basically.
• 4GB RAM ~ Not even useful for Windows 10 and much less useful for Windows 11 both taking at least 3.5GB.
• GTX NVIDIA GPU 930M ~ This is basically telling you to get a 1GB vRAM dGPU.

Those guidelines are pretty useless if you ask me and they’re just not accurate on so many points.

You see Steam assumes you’re all at least getting a laptop or computer made within the past 5 years for which , because of its low hardware usage, the game will run with no hiccups. 

So they just list the bare minimum specs the game will launch and run since the chances of you actually going for a laptop with such low hardware are basically zero.

What if you get a laptop off of ebay with those specs? 

Truth be told, you should be getting ~30FPS on low settings which isn’t bad at all.

The problem however is the RAM listed there, that’s just only going to get you 500MB left (after windows and background processes ) for the game to run and the chances of crashing are going to be pretty high when you’re entangled in a teamfight.

Dota 2 Laptop Requirements

The point is, you can ignore those recommendations and instead follow my advice here:

CPU

 

More specifically, this is because the game engine of DoTa 2 was developed way before we had access to the awesome 2GB vRAM GPUs (which came around 2010) we have today. LoL and the rest of the gang only became prominent after 2012 for which we already had a lot of 2GB vRAM GPUs market. 

This means the code of DoTa 2 is meant to focus more on the CPU than the GPU.

How can you test this? 

Well if you check around youtube, you’ll see fps gains of +20fps if you compare two laptops that have the exact same hardware except for a slightly faster (~100Mhz = 0.1GHz) CPU.

Multithreaded Performance

Dota 2 is not multithreadded , more cores doesn’t help unless you’re also streaming

This is important to keep in mind if you’re buying a laptop for the ultimate DoTa 2 performance because you can definitely overspend a lot of money on laptops with 8 core or 10 core CPUs.

Although Steam has been doing a great job optimizing the Source 2 engine to take advatange of multiple cores. As of 2022, the game is still mostly single threaded (it uses one core for the most part).

You might benefit a bit if you shop for 6 core or 8 core CPUs but clock speed will get you much more performance

Modern CPUs

Intel

[ScrollableTable]

CPU	Base	Turbo	Cores
i3 10050G1	1.2	3.4	2
i3 10100U	2.1	4.1	2
i3-1115G4	3	4.1	2
i3 1215U	3.3	4.4	6
i3 1315U	3.3	4.5	6
i5 1135G7	2.4	4.2	4
i5 8300H	2.3	4	4
i7 8550U	1.8	4	4
i7 1165G7	2.8	4.7	4
i5-11300H	2.6	4.4	4
i5 11260H	2.6	4.4	6
Core i5 1240P	1.2	4.4	12
i5 12540H	2.6	4.4	8
i5 13420H	1.5	4.6	8
Core i7 1255U	3.5	4.7	10
i7-11375H	3.3	5	4
i7-11370H	3.3	4.8	4
i7 8750H	2.2	4.1	6
i7 9750H	2.6	4.5	6
i7 10750H	2.6	5	8
i7 12700	3.7	4.7	6+8
i9 8950K	2.9	4.8	6
i9 9900K	3.6	5.1	8
i9-11900H	2.5	4.9	8
i9 10890K	2.4	5.3	8
i9-11980HK	3.3	5	8
i9 12900H	3.8	5	6+8

[/ScrollableTable]

AMD

[ScrollableTable]

CPU	Base (GHz)	Turbo (GHz)	Cores(#)
Ryzen 9 6980HX	3.3	5	8
Ryzen 9 6900HS	3.3	4.9	8
Ryzen 9 5900HX	3.3	4.6	8
Ryzen 7 7745HX	3.6	5.1	8
Ryzen 7 7840HS	3.8	5.1	8
Ryzen 7 6800H	3.2	4.7	8
Ryzen 7 5800H	3.3	4.4	8
Ryzen 7 5800U	1.9	4.4	8
Ryzen 5 7535HS	3.3	4.5	6/12
Ryzen 5 6600H	3.3	4.5	6
Ryzen 5 5600H	3.3	4.2	6
Ryzen 5 4600H	3.0	4.0	6
Ryzen 5 7520U	2.8	4.3	4
Ryzen 5 5500U	2.1	4.4	6
Ryzen 3 7320U	3.4	4.1	4
Ryzen 3 5300U	2.6	3.8	8

[/ScrollableTable]

Green CPUs: They’re plenty fast to run the game at medium settings and get you up into the 80fps. As you’ll see soon, they also come with really good and recent integrated GPU which is why you’ll get this much performance over older CPUs with the same clock speed yet older integrated GPUs.

Blue CPUs: This is probably as much as you need to hit +80fps (with a dedicated GPU , any) on maximum settings also because they will (99%) come with a dedicated GPU. There’s really no need to go higher unless you feel more “at ease” running the game with at least 120-150fps (which is claimed to be the sweet spot for competitive gaming).

Pink CPUs: Those are just as much CPU power I would get for this game alone, they’re even good for to get both: MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE+ STREAMING. You’ll usually find them on laptops with very powerful GPUs which we’ll go over soon. I can’t give you exact benchmarks for these because that will depend on the GPU too (blue CPUs will 99% have either a 1650GTX or 1050GTX , MX450 GPU).

Red CPUs: These are way way too powerful for this game alone. I would only buy these if I know I’m going to run much more hardware demanding games like Fortnite or Call of Duty. 

GPU(Graphics Card)

Now as long as you get a dedicated GPU and by that I mean a dGPU with at least 2GB vRAM, you should be able to hit ~80fps with all settings maxed out. The issue becomes when you’re on a budget and you can only go after integrated GPUs or older dedicated GPUs.

Integrated Cards

Any GPU that doesn’t have it’s own “vRAM” , is integrated.

Anything that says Intel HD is integrated or any Radeon GPU that doesn’t have the RX or Pro suffix.

Now integrated GPUs are plenty fast today so as long as you grab something modern you can get those 80fps (on medium settings). 

Thus you must avoid the following:

I would only grab those in green if you’ve got no more than 250$ and want to get something off eBay.

If you’ve got something above 250$, you should instead opt for something like the following:

 

Blue GPUs: those are old but not very old (~2018 GPUs) but they’re definitely a lot  better than Intel HD GPUs. You should pay no more than 300$ for laptops with these.

Pink GPUs: these are the latest and the most powerful as of 2022. Once you up that RAM to 8GB RAM or higher, (yes RAM not vRAM), they can perform just as good as entry level dedicated GPUs! I have another post on this!

Discrete Graphics Cards

The following are literally ALL the dedicated GPUs you’ll find on eBay, Alibaba or Amazon (ignoring 9th and 8th gen – aka older NVIDIA GPUs).

[ScrollableTable]

NVIDIA	Cores	vRAM	Speed
MX150	384	2GB	1532
MX250	384	2GB	1582
MX230	256	2GB	1519
MX350	640	2GB	1354
MX450	896	2GB	1580
MX550	1024	2GB	1320
1050	640	2GB-4GB	1493
1050Ti	768	4GB	1620
1650	1024	4GB	1560
2050RTX	2048	4GB	1470
1060	1280	6GB	1670
1660 Ti	1536	6GB	1590
3050Ti	2560	4GB	1485
2060	1,920	6GB	1680
3060	3584	8GB	1780
4050	2560	6GB	2370
3070	5120	8GB	1620
3080	6144	16GB	1710
3070Ti	5888	8GB	1485
3080Ti	7424	16GB	1590

[/ScrollableTable]

[ScrollableTable]

AMD	Shaders	vRAM	Speed	Equivalent
RX 555X	768	2GB	855	MX150/MX250
RX 540	512	4GB	1219	~950M
RX 550	640	4GB	1287 – 1476	+950M
RX 560X	1024	4GB	1172 – 1275	1050GTX
RX 580	1536	6GB	1077	~1060GTX
RX 5500M	1408	8GB	1327-1645	~1660Ti
RX 6700S	2304	10GB	1890	~3060RTX (Low power)
RX 6800S	2048	12GB	1975	~3070RTX (Low Power)

[/ScrollableTable]

Any discrete (dedicated) GPU with 2GB vRAM should let you play the game with at least 60fps on MAXIMUM Settings. Modern dedicated GPUs, especially those with 4GB vRAM, will hit 80 or even 150 fps.

Green GPUs: I would still avoid those in green (unless they’re cheaper than $500) because integrated GPUs like the Intel Xe or AMD Vega 7 will perform just as good if not better once you up RAM to +8GB RAM. 

Blue GPUs: If we are talking about being comptitive, those with blue will do. They will all let you hit +60 fps (more around 80fps, 3050TI 1660 ~120fps) on maximum settings. If you lower down settings to med or low, you can get past 200fps.

Pink GPUs: This is as high as you want to go even for competitive purposes. Anything more is just useless for DoTa 2 alone (those in gray).

Older GPUs

The MX150, MX250, MX230 and the 1050GTX can be considered relatively old so you should pay no more than $500 for each of these. 

Now if you’re fine buying refurbished laptops off ebay witih dedicated GPUs, those will do too as long as they’re not:

Only the 960M, 970M, 950M and 980M are worth considering because the truth “integrated GPUs” like the Intel Xe or the AMD Radeon Vega 7.

Why soome people claim to run DoTa with much older machines and still getting +60 fps?

That only applies to desktops. Laptops are much much weaker than desktops this is especially true if we are talking about older laptops with 9th generation NVIDIA GPUs. Modern laptops (10th gen NVIDIA GPU or RTX GPUs and the latest Intel 11th , 12th and AMD Ryzen 5th CPUs) have dedicated GPUs and CPUs which are pretty close in performance to desktops.

However, CPUs on laptops are downclocked severely to mantain safe temperatures. Thus most desktops , even those with older CPUs, will vastly out perform laptops.

RAM

DotA 2 uses roughly 2GB RAM.
Windows 10 (the latest updates) take ~3GB RAM.

Needless to say 4GB RAM is just not enough. You need at least 8GB RAM.

Streaming

Now if you’re streaming, you want at least 8GB RAM but having a bit more (12GB-16GB RAM) will provide some headroom for everythiing else in the backgrund run without interrupting DoTa 2.

Integrated GPU 

You can massively increase the performance of integrated GPUs by upping RAM beyond 8GB RAM, the extra RAM basically acts as “vRAM” turning your integrated GPU into a sort of “entry level” dedicated GPU with 2GB vRAM.

Dual Channel

Now if you really want to squeeze every bit of framerates (which is definitely a must if you’re going for budget laptops that only have integrated GPUs), you can up your RAM to 16GB RAM and make it dual-channeled. 

I have a whole post on what dual-channel RAM means and how to set it up on your laptop but it basically means having two RAM sticks of the same characteristics (size, brand, type, speed, etc). Doing this, somehow increases CPU “data-reading”efficiency thus improving gaming performance (more framerates).

Storage

Size

Not an issue on every laptop released within the past few years. Windows 10 or 11 take ~40GB, Steam + Dota 2 ~20GB and if you like to save tons of replays ~5GB. Thus you’re looking at 65GB and most laptops have at least 128GB (even the cheap $350 laptops).

Speed: HDD vs SSD

SSD isn’t required to prevent the game from crashing. However, honestly, SSDs are far far better than HDDs and they can make an enormous difference in your computer’s overall performance which includes launching the game. Most laptops have SSDs today it’s only a concern if you’re buying refurbished budget laptops below $300. If you are be sure to do the upgrade later. I have another post on how to do the upgrade (check it out here).

Display

IPS FHD

IPS are not standard yet and there are a lot of “TN” displays on laptops even today. Either is fine unless you plan on doing some graphic design.

The game will look more “colorful” with IPS panels though but not by that much.

Virtually all gaming laptops will have IPS displays with FHD resolutions, it’s only a problem when you start looking at budget laptops.

Refresh Rates: 60 vs 120Hz

Because this is just a MOBA game and not FPS game , refresh rates don’t matter. Save yourself hundreds of bucks by steering away from laptops that have 120Hz or 144Hz although they are kind of unavoidable once you start looking at 3060RTX laptops. 

If you’re getting a 120Hz display at a good price then by all means grab it, it’s not going to bump up your gaming but it will make everything look really cool.

Comments?

If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or recommendations on how to find the best laptop for Dota 2 . Please let me know in the comments below, I’ll try to answer as soon as I can.