The best laptop for Fortnite will give you almost ZERO input delay and maximize visibility.

What is Input delay? 

Input delay : time it takes for the server/game to register your actions (shots). You can either get super good hardware or adjust settings (Performance Mode) or do both to have very low input delays. 

Visibility: By this I mean being able to spot enemies ACCURATELY from very far distances and being able to clearly distinguish the storm in close-combat scenarios.

Now…

Of course…

Buy a cheap laptop then use Performance Mode and set everything to low to get super low input delays.

That’s an option too but you may have to compromise graphics quality which is super useful too. 

Now…you don’t have to spend thousands of bucks to get low input delays + superb visibility.

As long as you get a mid tier dedicated GPU , you should be getting 140fps (close to the ideal competitive 144fps) on Epic settings with DirectX11 or X12 mode. 

If you don’t have a high budget…

Performance mode on Chapter 5 works FANTASTIC. You’ll get very high fps and compromise some visibility.

Before we get to the best gaming laptops, lemme give you a few tips and info so you can also shop for a laptop on your own.

Recommended Laptop Specs for Fortnite

The following is based on benchmarks listed at the very last section.

GPU
If you want low input delays, just get ANY of the following GPUs with decent visibility, you need any of the following GPUs. The higher you go the less the need for performance mode and low settings.

NVIDIA: MX450 MX550 1050Ti 1650GTX 2050RTX 3050Ti 4050RTX 3060RTX 3070RTX 4060RTX   3070Ti 3080RTX 4070RTX 4080RTX
AMD: Radeon Pro RX 555X RX540  RX550 RX 560X RX 580  RX5550M Radeon RX 6700S AMD Radeon RX 6800S 

MX450 MX550 (500-600 dollars): Performance Mode w/ (+100fps) . Textures and meshes med, and view distance to near.
1650GTX 2050RTX(600-700 dollars) : Epic Settings ~63fps on DirectX11 X12 Mode.  ~115fps  Medium settings (Direct X11) . ~187fps on Perfomance Mode.  
3050Ti (750-900 dollars): 200-350fps (Performance Mode) / 80-90 fps (Direct X12 – Epic).  
3060RTX 4050RTX (900-1300 dollars ): 85-115fps(Direct X12 – Epic) / +360 fps (Performance).
3070RTX 4060RTX(1300 dollars): 130-175 fps(Direct X12 – Epic) / 380-430 fps (Performance).
3070Ti&3080Ti&4070RTX:  Useful if you want to play at 1440p or 4k resolution though, the latter resolution is not good for competitive gaming.

Budget under 600?

Get either the  Intel Xe or Vega 7 integrated GPUs on a Core i5 or Ryzen 5. Both can output ~100fps Perfomance Mode with all settings to low.

MUX Switch & Wattage
Usually the more expensive ones have more wattage or power. I have a post dedicated to GPU Wattage or TGP  here but basically having more Wattage on a GPU means much higher performance.After that,  MUX Switch is the second factor into performance difference between two equal GPUs.

CPU
Now…assuming, you maxed out on the GPU according to your budget…

Pick the CPU with the higher clock speed, if comparing different brands you may need to check benchmarks. A rough estimate is shown below:

*It is assume the CPUs are of equivalent generation. Ex: Core i7 118000H > Ryzen 7 5800H. Generations are equivalent (11th = 5th, 12th, 6th, 13th = 7th).

RAM
8GB vs 16GB: 8GB works OK for Fortnite but you get a nice fps boost with 16GB and you also prevent possible stuttering caused by background apps.

Dual-Channel: you can hry an additional 5-15fps if RAM is set up in dual-channel. Check my post on dual-channel RAM here to read more about it.

Display
FHD: All gaming laptops have at least a FHD. Laptops below 450 bucks may not have one.
QHD :Useful if you have a high-tier card that can run games at 1440p resolution.
144Hz vs 365Hz: 144Hz refresh rates are ideal. Anything higher is uselss for most combat games , the eyes cannot distinguish framerates after 150 or so. Stil highier framerates are always good for performance purposes.

 

Top 5 Best Laptops For Fortnite 2024

The following five laptops range from 700 dollars to 3000 dollars. If you want to check out more options, check the benchmarks on the last section. .

Also if your budget is lower than 700, check my post “best gaming laptops under 700”.

Note: These laptops are available in the United States. If you can’t find these in your region, try to search the model name on your own.

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1. Acer Nitro AN515

Best Laptop For Fortnite

  Core i5 12450H

  16GB DDR4

  RTX 3050Ti 4GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15.6” 144Hz Full HD IPS

  5.1 lbs

  2 hours

The number one most recommended , best bang for our buck, laptop this year is also going to have a 3050Ti. 

Unlike last year’s however, this new model , Acer Nitro, will have a much more recent CPU.

With the hardware at hand, you can choose to play the game at high/epic or simply on performance mode to be competitive. 

Before we get to the benchmarks let’s talk about the 3050Ti on this laptop and the 3050Ti on laptops in general.

GPU: 3050Ti 4GB vRAM 80W

Most 3050Ti GPUs found on laptops run with wattages anywhere from 35W to 80W. This HP Victus and most gaming laptops however run at a maximum of 80W. Only ultrabooks (thin and lightweight laptops) with the 3050Ti will run the game at lower wattages.

Temperatures however can run pretty high so its very unlikely you’ll always have the 3050Ti running at 80W.

If you play any game at Epic settings then it will force the GPU to go full wattage, this isn’t practical because high temperatures for long periods of time can damage the GPU & CPU. 

OverClock vs Performance Mode:

You’ll get a software to control how much wattage you want the GPU to use, for Acer Nitro, this is called Nitro Sense.

The lower left corner shows you all the modes for GPU & CPU performance.  The first one keeps temperatures low (it’s recommended you play with this setting for long sesions).

The last one sets the GPU wattage to maximum and the game will use it if it sees necessary (if you set all settings to Epic on Direct X11 or DirectX 12 mode). 

From my benchmarks, the GPU can get pretty hot (84 degrees) if set to ‘overclock’ at a maximum wattage. 

No MUX Switch:

There’s no MUX Switch on the Acer Nitro 5 nor the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 which was also tested on my channel. You can get the extra 15-20% however if you attach an external monitor to the HDMI port since it’s connected to the GPU directly. 

Fortnite Laptop BenchMark: 3050Ti RTX 

In my youtube channel I’ve benchmarked Fortnite with a 3050Ti laptop (different model) that has the same wattage and set up (16GB RAM) but with a different CPU. Results are down below:

You can get higher framerates (up to 90) if you set 3D resolution to lower numbers. If you use perfomance mode, however, the fps gains are gigantic.

The HP Victus is tested in the video below on performance mode with texture & meshes at low and View distance at near:

CPU: Core i5 12450H vs Ryzen 5 6600H

When you shop for laptops with a 3050Ti, you’ll come across all sorts of Core i5 and Ryzen 5 CPUs. To put it simply, if you just plan on gaming Fortnite and not doing anything else in the background you can get extra performance from the Core i5 12450H because it has more ‘clock speed’ performance.

Streaming

If you are streaming using a laptop then you need to run at least two software in the background. For this not to hurt your framerates, you want a Ryzen 5 CPU (preferably 6th or 7th gen) because it has better ‘multi core’ performance, in other words, the cores are more efficient at handling ‘multitasking’. 

The difference in framerates won’t be huge though since Fortnite is not a CPU game, most of the heavy lifting is done by the GPU.

DDR5 vs DDR4

Another advantage of Ryzen 5 CPUs (from the 7th gen) is that you automatically get DDR5 RAM whereas only some 13th gen i5 CPUs have it. This can translate to an extra 5 fps at the most in the game.

Turbo Boost & Temperatures

It may or may not be an issue depending on the CPU you get. For this model, it doesn’t seem to be an issue. For some models, you may want to check the temperatures of the CPU and check if they are too high. If they are, you can disable turbo boost and the temperatures will go down.

Below benchmarks taken with my laptop and other two laptops, notice how little difference the CPU makes:

RAM & Upgrades

There are two slots which are away from the motherboard but they’re both take by x2 8GB RAM DDR4 sticks. Since you’ll have 16GB and Dual-Channel Mode, this should get you an extra 10-15fps.

There’s an extra 2.5” slot for a SATA III upgrade. Can be an SSD or HDD, obviously you want to choose the former.

Bonus: 144Hz Display 

It should be no surprise to find either a 120Hz or a 144Hz on a 3050Ti laptop or 3050RTX laptop in 2024, most will have it. If you don’t get then you should look at other models.

This is useful for competitive gaming since that means you’ll be playing at Performance mode and framerates easily go past 100 (low input delays at the cost of lower graphics) and the display can show every single framerate per second up to 144Hz.

Alternatives & Prices:

Acer Nitro AN515
PROS	CONS
Runs Fortnite at Epic Settings w/ +60fps Cheap 3050Ti Laptop 144Hz Display 16GB RAM in Dual-Channel Mode 200fps on Performance Mode Extra slot for storage upgrades	Poor Battery Heavy

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2. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16

Best Laptop For Fortnite – 4050RTX 125W

  Intel 13th Gen Core i5-13500HX

  64GB DDR5

   RTX 4050 125W 6GB vRAM

  2TB NVMe SSD

  16” 165Hz QHD IPS

  5.73 lbs

  2 hours

If you want to play competitively without resorting to performance but rather to Direct X11 or Direct X12 mode on a laptop, you need at least either a 4050RTX or a 3060RTX.

GPU: 4050RTX 125W

I am choosing the former because right now it’s gonna give you this best bang for your buck and a much more recent CPU & RAM though the 3060RTX is also a good choice. In fact, the 3060RTX can outperform the highest wattage 4050RTX (though not significantly), that is as long as the 3060RTX is running at 130W.

Most 3060RTX laptops running at 130W are too expensive. Meanwhile, the 4050RTX GPUs running at least with 100W have a performance pretty close to the more expensive 3060RTX 130W.

Wattage:

This laptops 4050RTX runs at 125W and 145W with dynamic boost. However, it’s unnecessary wattage as the 4050RTX reaches almost the maximum performance with 100W. Thus if you can find a laptop with a lower wattage 4050RTX you’ll be getting the same performance for the same amount of money.

MUX Switch:

This laptop has Advance Optimus. It isn’t as efficient as having a MUX Switch but it does not require a restart and still gets you around 15% increased dGPU performance (close to what a MUX Switch would get you).

Fortnite BenchMark: 4050RTX 125W

The main reason why I posted this model is because it’s the only model we have benchmarks for as shown below:

Now we know the performance on low settings and performance mode are going to give you +200 fps so for benchmarking purposes it’s best to use very high settings.

 

Where as the 3060RTX…

Note that none of the two benchmarks turned DLSS mode on. The 3060RTX is a clear winner despite the older generation CPU it still outperforms the 4050RTX.

CPU: Core i5 13500HX 

Although GPU is the single most important factor for performance, make sure you don’t miss out a late generation CPU on your 4050RTX because it makes somewhat of a difference. If the 4050RTX laptop featured here did not have that 13th gen CPU, the performance difference would be much higher.

DDR5: Also note that this laptop has a DDR5 RAM which accounts for a slightly increased performance.

Display: 165Hz + 16 inch Screen + FHD

This is a 16” display with 165Hz if you are playing in Performance mode you’ll definitely go pasat 200fps even if you set view distance to high you’ll still be able to get around 160fps which makes the display super useful as there’s a huge difference in visuals from 144Hz to 165Hz.

Unfortunately, it does not have a QHD displayl as most 3060RTX 130W laptops do. However, 1440p gaming on Fortnite is not playable (at least competitively) with either of these two graphics cards. 

Alternatives & Prices:

Below some alternatives, remember that the 4050RTX will perform just as well as this model as long as the wattage is near 100W. 

Acer Predator Helios Neo N16
PROS	CONS
High wattage 4050RTX Advanced Optimus Dual-Channel RAM 64GB RAM out of the Box 16 inch + 165Hz display + QHD Resolution Stylish  Gaming Keyboard No need for storage/RAM upgrades Latest Core i5 Runs Fortnite at 100fps Epic Settings DX11 Mode	Super Low Battery Very Heavy Expensive

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3. Lenovo LOQ

Best Cheap Gaming Laptop For Fortnite

  Intel Core i5-13420H

  16GB RAM 

   2050RTX 4GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe SSD (Free 2.5” Bay Slot)

  15” FHD IPS 144Hz

  5.4lbs

  3 hours 

Time for the  cheapest option on the list.

Now, although this can cost you as low as 500 dollars, it can still get you very low input delays on Performance Mode for competitive gaming.

GPU: 2050RTX

Last year we had the 1650GTX as the cheapest option which was selling for about 600-700 dollars. This year 2050RTX are low replacing the 1650GTX models and doing so at a much cheaper price, the cheapest model I saw was about 520 dollars. The model featured here however is about 100 dollars more (it has a lot of extra features).

The 2050RTX has much vRAM as the 1650GTX and on most games almost the same performance. However, the 2050RTX has tensor cores which enable “DLSS” and also ray-tracing. Obviously, you should NEVER use RTX mode with a GPU like this but DLSS is a nice option to boost framerates.

Wattage: 25W

As for wattages, unlike the 1650GTX, there isn’t a “MAX-Q” version of the 2050RTX because the architecture allows it to run at very low wattages and yet deliver high performance. Thus there is less need to ‘nerf’ the GPU in exchange for lower temperatures. All 2050RTX run at pretty much the same wattage.

MUX?

There’s no MUX Switch on this laptop and there’s no MUX switch on 2050RTX laptops. MUX Switches & Advanced Optimus are mostly reserved for high-tier GPUs where the performance loss (due to lack of either) is huge.

As for 1650GTX, some models do have a MUX Switch and if not they have “optimus” disabled which ALSO gives you the same results as a MUX Switch : they get you 15% increased GPU performance. If that’s the case then the 1650GTX will most likely, despite having an older CPU, outperform the 2050RTX by a significant difference.

Fortnite BenchMark: 2050 (25W) Laptop

The following is going to be the most USEFUL table you’ll see as far as budget laptops for fortnite goes. It shows you how an older GPU running at full wattage with a MUX Switch (or Optimus disabled) like the Lenovo L340 in the third row….can easily outperform newer models. This is the difference choosing the right GPU makes.

If you can find that Lenovo L340 at a cheaper or the same price as the 2050RTX by all means CHOOSE it. If you are under a strict budget then choose the 2050RTX.

CPU: Core i5 9300H vs Core i5 13450H

Notice how the 2050RTX cannot outperform the 1650GTX despite having a CPU that’s 4 generations more recent (i5 13420H vs 9300H). It just goes to show you how unimportant (at least for entry level GPUs like the RTX 2050, 3050Ti & 1650GTX) CPUs are for Fortnite.

This is another proof how much GPU specifications matter even if we are talking about the same GPU. Obviously, had the 2050RTX been paired with a slower CPU, the performance difference would’ve been more significant. 

Display: 144Hz

The laptop here despite being cheap and having a 13th gen CPU also adds a 144Hz display. This is not going to be useful unless you set the game in Performance Mode with settings mostly to low which you should if you want to play competitively. For other games, unless you set graphics to low, framerates will not reach 144fps and you will not feel the benefits of this 144Hz display.

Alternatives 

Below a mix of 2050RTX & 1650GTX laptops, only the Lenovo L340 is known (to my knowledge) to have a high performance 1650GTX. So the remaining 1650GTX laptops should perform just as well as the 2050RTX.

Lenovo LOQ
PROS	CONS
144Hz display 16GB RAM dual-channel Mode Spacious SSD Additional storage support Supports Fortnite 60fps on DX11 High Settings Fast and Latest Core i5	Heavy Low Battery A bit expensive compared to the average 2050RTX

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4. ASUS ROG Strix G16 

Best Laptop For Fortnite  – 4060RTX 140W

  Core i7-13650H

  64GB RAM DDR5

   RTX 4060 (140W)

  2TB PCIe NVMe SSD 

  16” IPS full HD 165Hz

  5.51 lbs

  2 hours

From now on we’ll step into the most powerful thus more expensive laptops for Fortnite. If playing in performance mode, they truly have no advantage than the other laptops we went over.

These are more useful to play the game with direct X11 or direct X12 mode with settings set to high or epic with decent framerates.

GPU: 4060RTX 140W

This is a recent 4th generation NVIDIA GPU. The performance is about the same (though slightly higher) than the old 3070RTX but still below the 3070Ti & 3080RTX.

I chose it over the 3070RTX because  has better support for DLSS mode (boost for most framerates). Though if DLSS is not used the performance is PRETTY close to the 3070RTX as you’ll see soon.

Wattage

The 4060RTX comes with all sorts of wattages the maximum being 140W. This includes Dynamic Boost. It doesn’t really need more than that. The Ada architecture is designed to operate at lower wattages and although higher wattages will give you better performance they aren’t really significant. 

MUX Switch

It has Advanced Optimus as shown in the specifications sheet here and it does give you 15% increased GPU performance.  So basically this laptop’s GPU will give you the best performance a 4060RTX can get you.

Laptop BenchMark: 4060RTX 140W

*All three laptops that follow have a MUX Switch. For links to benchmarks check last section.

These benchmarksare are taken on performance mode and you can see it performs either somewhat faster or just as good as the 3070RTX as far as Fortnite goes. The 4060RTX was tested with Season 5 so performance difference may be slightly higher since the latest season is slightly more hardware demanding.

The above two benchmarks were taken while on Direct X12 mode. Notice how the 4060RTX performs significantly faster than the 3070RTX. Either way both GPUs are good choices for competitive gaming at higher settings on Direct X11/X12 mode.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800H vs Core i7 11800H

In this GPU bracket , CPUs also seem somewhat useless. As long as you grab a Core i7 or a Ryzen 7 , you should get the same performance for a given dedicated GPU like the 4060RTX. You will however have bottlenecking issues if you go for a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 with a 4060RTX but you aren’t likely to find that combination.

Knowing that CPU doesn’t play a role here either, you can pick the CPU with the best multi-core performance (for multitasking purposes) OR you can save a LOT of money opting for the model with a Ryzen 7 (which are usually cheaper).

Display: FHD 165Hz

This model comes with a 165Hz display as well which is EXTREMLY useful given that the framerates on fortnite easily go past 160fps even with all settings maxed out on Direct X11/X12 mode. Virtually all laptops with a 4060RTX will come with a high refresh rate display so your main focus should be on getting the high wattage with a MUX Switch (or Adv. Optimus) version of the 4060RTX.

RAM & Storage:

If you decide to buy this model there isn’t a need to do any upgrades as both storage and RAM are maxed out. You have 2TB storage enough to install pretty much every popular AAA game and 64GB RAM which is kind of useless but nice for multitasking anyways (16GB is far as games find useful).

ASUS ROG Strix  G16
PROS	CONS
4060RTX running at max TGP 140W Advanced Optimus DDR5 RAM Maxed out  storage 2TB Dual-Channel 64GB Great Cooling System 165Hz refresh rates	No QHD only FHD Extremely low battery (>1 Hour)

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5. Acer Nitro 16

The Best Laptop For Fortnite – 3080Ti

  Ryzen 7 7735HS

  64GB RAM DDR5

   RTX 4070 140W

   2TB NVMe SSD  

  16” QHD  165Hz

  5.95 lbs

  >1 hour

 

We finally get to the most poweful laptop on the list.

GPU: 4070RTX 140W

Now although there are more powerful laptops like the 4080RTX or even the 4090. At least, the 4080 doesn’t seem to get you better performance than the 4070RTX as far as Fortnite goes.

You’ll see what I mean soon. Let’s go over the GPU on this particular laptop first.

The 4070RTX is faster than the 3070RTX & 3080RTX and it’s quiet close to the 3080Ti. Interestigly, it is MUCH MUCH cheaper than laptops with the GPUs mentioned. Prices of laptops that have it start at 1200 dollars.

Wattage

And I’m talking about the 140W version like in this model. Sure you can find laptops with lower wattages at the same price but there are MANY MANY models with the 140W version selling for as low as 1200 dollars (almost the same price as the 4060RTX !) yet as you’ll see soon almost double the performance.

MUX

This laptop has a MUX Switch like most 4070RTX laptops. When you’re buying laptops with this much GPU power, it’s almost a given the MUX switch or advanced optimus will be present. 

4070RTX Benchmarks

This is what I mean by saying the 4070RTX is the best bang for your buck high-tier GPU, look at the framerates being 2x as much as the 4060RTX on the same settings. 

CPU: Core i9 13980HX vs Ryzen 7 7735HS

Now you may attribute that to the Core i9 but the Ryzen 7 on the model i’m featuring isn’t that much slower. In fact, as shown on the benchmarks below, it’s pretty close in single-click performance.

As far as fortnite goes there should be a maximum difference of 50fps (on Performance mode) and much much less on Direct X12 – High at 1080p and even less on 1440p resolution. 

Storage & RAM: 4TB & 64GB DDR4

The cool thing about these laptops is that you’ll never see any needs for upgrades as they’re always maxed out in terms of storage and RAM. Though again way to overkill for this game itself. The bonus is that you’re getting a DDR5 RAM because that’s the only type of RAM the 7th generation Ryzen CPUs support and if there’s any difference in performance between the Core i9 it should be even smaller by the DDR5.

Acer Nitro 16
PROS	CONS
High Wattage 4070RTX Runs fortnite at 1440p resolution 2nd fastest laptop CPU as of 2024 Maxed out RAM & storage DDR5 RAM Extremely well designed cooling system	Extremely Heavy Mostly plugged in experience Bloatware Extremely Expensive

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How To Buy The Best Laptop For Fortnite 

Gaming Laptop Requirements for Fortnite

The minimum hardware requirements published are for desktops but for laptops they roughly translate to the following:  

• 5th gen Ryzen 3 or 10th Core i3
• RX Vega 3 or Intel UHD Graphics
• 8GB RAM

The performance is going to be around  70fps at 1080 on performance mode.

Anyways, the focus of this section is to maximize performance for a given budget so you can play competitively. 

Recommended Requirements for Fortnite

To do this we are going to check out the benchmarks of several laptops with different GPUs & CPU set ups. Starting with low performance set ups. 

Now to save you time, we’ll do this in two parts:

A) If your budget is under 500 dollars:

• Read part A which focuses on the CPU. Reason? Because a good CPU means a good integrated graphics card (they come in pairs).

B) If your budget is over 550 dollars:

• Skip to part B). You can afford a dedicated GPU so focus on that. The CPU becomes much less important.

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A) Fortnite Laptops: Under 500 USD

1. CPU: Must be recent

To get the best performance you need to get the best graphics card.

With this much budget you are limited to “integrated graphics” so you need to get the best iGPU (integrated GPU).

Integrated graphics are basically the ‘default graphics card’ when you have no dedicated GPU.

As a rule of thumb, the more recent the CPU (processor) the better the integrated graphics card (they come in pairs, you cannot pick either individually).

But there’s one problem: some of the recent CPUs (7th gen Ryzen) have weaker integrated graphics than previous generations. 

Thus you need to:

Below the table of recent CPUs and their integrated GPUs.

Intel

CPU	GPU
Core i3 1135G5	Intel UHD Xe G4
Core i3 1215U	Intel UHD 64EUs
Core i3 1315U	Intel UHD 64EUs
Core i5 1135G7	Intel Iris Xe 80 (1600Mhz)
Core i5 1230U	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs
Core i5 1240P	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs
Core i5 1345U	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs
Core i7 1195G7	Intel Iris Xe 96 (1700Mhz)
Core i7 1260P	Intel Iris Xe 96 (1700Mhz)

AMD

Ryzen 3 5300U	RX Vega 6
Ryzen 3 7320U	Radeon 610M
Ryzen 5 5500U	RX Vega 7
Ryzen 5 7520U	Radeon 610M
Ryzen 7 5700U	RX Vega 8
Ryzen 7 7730U	RX Vega 8

• The above CPUs are listed in descending power (each table separately).
• As for comparing the tables, those CPUs with the same color (both tables) have more or less the same performance (Intel having the edge).
• Those in in gray must be avoided because the GPU (610M) is Much slower than the remaining GPUs.
• Ryzen 7 and Core i7 CPUs are generally expensive thus they’re not recommended because for the same price you can get a dedicated GPU (much higher performance).
  • Of course if they are under 500 dollars they’re a good deal.

Older CPUs

The above are older CPUs slower graphics cards. They still do run the game quiet well (with all settings down to minimum) but you must favor the recent CPUs shown in the table above because the difference in performance is huge.

i) Core i3 & Ryzen 3 Benchmarks ($300-400 Laptops)

1.Framerates are low due to 3D resolution set to 100%. Recommended to lower down 3D resolution to 50-66% if going for this old CPU
2. Low framerates are caused by the lack of GPU power: 610M is a very slow iGPU.

• These are the cheapest yet useful CPUs for Fortnite. Be sure to keep in mind my advice to stay away from 7th gen Ryzen 3 CPUs and opt for the more recent ones from Intel or the 5th gen Ryzen 3 CPU.

• In order for these laptops to reach the framerates in the table:
  • Graphics must be set to Performance mode
  • With texture and meshes to low.
  • You compromise some visibility in exchange for better input delay which is far more important for the game.

ii) Core i5 & Ryzen 5 BenchMarks ($400-500 Laptops)

*There are no benchmarks of the Core i5 13th gen low voltage “U” CPU yet however since the same graphics the 12th gen i5 CPU is used, expect similar results.

**3D resolution is 75%. Display resolution is FHD (1080p) too.

• If you’re budget is around 450-500 bucks or slightly more: Choose either a Ryzen 5 or a Core i5:
  • Compared to the Core i3 & Ryzen 3 there’s a massive performance boost (~ +101 on DirectX11 Mode).
• You must avoid 7th gen Ryzen 5 CPUs too, notice how poor the performance is compared to previous generations.
• Some of these benchmarks have very poor performane because High textures & Meshes on Direct X11 mode are used.
  • 35-40 fps is very low for competitive gaming.
  • You want to set all settings to low on DirectX 11/12 or set it to Performance Mode(Low), whichever gets you +60.
• Note that the fps numbers may not be exactly accurate because some of these benchmarks were taken with different 3D resolution settings. Some had the bar at 66% and others as high as 85%.
  • I recommend you set it as low as possible while keeping view distance as high as possible before dropping to below 60fps.

iii) Core i7 & Ryzen 7 BenchMarks 

Ryzen 7 and Core i7 CPUs are many times faster than Core i3 & Ryzen 3 as well as Core i5s and Ryzen 5s. However, the performance gain isn’t dramatic, the only reason why you see some significant games in the benchmarks is because they set resolution to lower numbers.

At least for fortnite, they aren’t a good investment since the game is very GPU-dependent and these CPUs do not have better (maybe slightly better) GPUS (integrated) than Core i5 or Ryzen 5s.

Instead of trying to find a ryzen 7 or core i7 under 550 dollars, focus on RAM.

2. RAM: 8GB RAM? or 16GB RAM?

Although the game will run fine with 8GB RAM and there will be no RAM bottlenecks for the CPU (the CPU will run just fine with 8GB RAM), you can still get lots of extra framerates if you optimize RAM.

RAM for Integrated GPUs

If you have an integrated GPU (basicall any of the configurations we went over) having 16GB RAM as opposed to 8GB RAM will improve iGPU performance massively. That’s because after windows and all background processes take up RAM, there will be PLENTY RAM left for the iGPU to use for graphics processing. Though 8GB RAM is fine, iGPUs perform better with 16GB RAM.

I’ve seen fps gains up to 20 from having extra RAM especially as you lower down settings. Now you don’t have to buy 16GB RAM on laptop, you can do the upgrade yourself as shown here.

Dual-Channel Mode

This means having RAM set up with TWO STICKS of the same size & type. As long as your laptop supports dual-channel mode, in other words, both RAM slots are near each other and use the same lanes, say if you install x2 8GB RAM sticks for a total of 16GB RAM, you’ll get an additional performance boost. For fortnite, this is usually 10fps.

DDR4 vs DDR5

Some laptops have DDR5 as opposed to  DDR4, the former has a higher bandwidth which means it can deliver data at higher speed. For fortnite, this speed difference isn’t that huge. It’s about 5 fps depending on the settings. 

B) Fortnite Laptops : 550-2000 USD 

1. GPU: Must be Dedicated Graphics

When you have this much money you want to focus on the graphics card ONLY.

CPUs still matter of course we’ll go over those later but the dedicated graphics will have the BIGGEST impact.

Before we go over the dedicated GPUs and their performance with fortnite, let’s make it clear what the settings on fortnite mean.

Rendering Mode: Performance vs Direct X11 vs Direct X12

Performance:

This mode disables some rendering features (lowers graphics quality). This improves framerates SIGNIFICANTLY and reduces input delay massively while still making the game graphics good enough for competitive gaming.

Direct X11 & Direct X12:

These two modes run the game as it’s supposed to . Basically they render all objects with higher details. Unless you have a beefy GPU you’re going to get lower framerates and terrible input delays. Direct X12 is less taxing but you still need a dedicated GPU and install SMG shaders. 

Which Rendering mode is best for Fortnite?
Depends on the hardware.

If you have low-end hardware in other words a low end dedicated GPU or an integrated GPU, then use performance mode.

If you have a good GPU, use direct X11 or X12 mode as long as you get very high framerates (80). 

 

i) MX 150, MX250 Benchmarks ($500-550 Laptops)

NVIDIA	Cores	vRAM	Speed
MX150	384	2GB-4GB	1532
MX250	384	2GB-4GB	1582
MX230	256	2-4GB	1519

I’m not going to list benchmarks for these graphics cards because they are not worth it (unless they’re selling under 500 dollars), they are really not much faster (if not slower) than the integrated GPUs found on 450-500 dollar laptops. If you’re on a budget, you should instead look for the “modern” variants of these graphics which we’ll go over next.

ii) MX 350, MX 450, 1050 GTX Benchmarks ($550-600 Laptops )

**For more details on settings check the youtube links. Rendering resolution as well as texture settings may change. 

• The best bang for your buck out of these is going to be the MX450. Although the MX550 is significantly faster, it’s usually just as expensive as the more powerful GPUs we’ll go over soon.
• MX450 GPU despite not being GeForce has a 20% performance gain 1050GTX  for most games. 
  • On fortnite, they have almost the same performance 1050GTX vs MX450..

Warning:! Note that the above benchmarks usually have a core i7 or ryzen 7. Although these are significantly faster CPUs , laptops with the Core i5 or Ryzen 5 as long as they have the same dedicated GPU and same amount of RAM (16GB) should give you almost the same framerates.

***Do not overspend on the core i7 or ryzen 7 models, they are listed for performance comparison purposes only***

Competitive Settings: MX GPUs

Use these settings for decent visibility & low input delays. For better input delays, you can set it to Performance mode but remember to keep visibily to high.

Rendering Mode: Direct X11 or Performance
View Distances: Epic
Texture & Meshes: Low
Anti-Aliasing: OFF
Effects & Post Processing: OFF

iii) 1050Ti, 1650GTX Benchmarks ($600-750 Laptops)

[1]No Shadows
**1400×1050 resolution

• If you compare the benchmarks with the same settings and different CPUs you’ll notice there’s little if any difference in framerates. (Check the rows highlighted in green)
• The core i5 9300H however outperforms the rest only because the GPU, despite being the same, has a much better performance.
  • Why better performance? It has optimus disabled. Optimus basically hinders GPU performance to save battery.
  • The performance different should be bigger but the core i5 9300H was running at higher settings

 

[1] Game is tested in OFFLINE mode

• Regardless, 1650GTX & RTX 2050 laptops should handle Epic settings on Direct X11 or Direct X12 mode with approx ~50fps.
• However, it’s not a good idea to play at Epic settings with these GPUs because it is too taxing and temperatures will be too high which becomes dangerous with long gaming sessions. 

Recommended settings: 1650GTX & 2050RTX

• High or Medium textures, Epic View Distance , Resolution to 72% on Direct X11 or X12 mode. 
• No need for performance mode.

---

iv) 3050Ti, 1660Ti, 2060RTX Benchmarks ($700-900 Laptops)

The 3050Ti is the fastest ouf of the group and the 3050RTX despite having 4GB vRAM (there’s a 6GB vRAM version) will perform just as well as the 1660Ti & 2060RTX. These two (3050Ti & 3050RTX) are the best bang for your buck GPUs for a gaming laptop.

However, do note that they’re all limited to 1080p resolution. They can run the game at 1440p (especially the 6GB vRAM versions) but they’re too slow for decent framerates.

^[2]This one has NVIDIA Reflex low latency/Motion Blur ON addition to it.

• Any of these GPUs in this group are the bare bone minimum to be competitive while playing at Epic settings.
  • They’re also the bare minimum to handle Epic settings for long gaming sessions (several hours).
• In the 3050Ti group, you can see a performance difference despite having the same settings:
  • Reason is the CPU, there’s a big jump in performance from Core i5 to Core i7 and likewise from Ryzen 5 to Ryzen 7.
  • The 3050Ti laptop I’ve tested has a Ryzen 5 and comes super close to the laptop with a Core i7.
    • This is because RAM is settled in dual-channel mode and my laptop’s 3050Ti is set at a higher wattage (all laptops can do this through the software installed for GPU settings in the quick access bar).

Recommended Settings:

•  Performance mode with View Distance to epic:  super low input delays AND maximum viewing distance.

---

v) 3060RTX & 2070RTX Benchmarks ($900-1300 Laptops)

GPU Wattage (TGP): Most important Spec

These GPUs are expensive and if you want to make sure to get the best bang its important you understand the concept of  GPU Wattage .

Basically, low wattage GPUs from these group can perform poorly whereas high wattage GPUs will perform extremely well.

In fact, the difference is so huge that the high wattage versions (Ex: 3060RTX 130W) can run the game at 1440p whereas the low wattage versions (Ex: 3060RTX 85W) will barely run it with 60fps at 1440p.

You can read on how to  find out which laptops have the highest GPU wattages if you decide laptops outside of this post.

MUX Switch

MUX Switch are NOT nearly universal on laptops. You have to double check whether a model comes with a MUX Switch or not. You can read more about MUX Switch here. If a laptop has a one, it can improve GPU performance by 15-20%..

Fortnite BenchMarks: 3060RTX & 2070RTX Laptops

1080P Resolution

**All following benchmarks have DLLS on Quality or Performance.

[1] All settings here are set to low except Textures & View Distance. DLLS is OFF.
[2] This laptop tested is the ASUS TUF A15 FA506QM. The TGP (Wattage) can go as low as 75W , this is why I’m telling you CPU matters very little it’s all about GPU TGP.

• GPU Wattage is the biggest factor for high performance.
  • The 130W 3060RTX outputs far more framerates than the  95W and 105W versions  on Direct X11 Mode  and Performance Mode.
• 95W 3060RTX laptops may not perform better than 3050Ti GPUs.
  • It all depends on their cooling system and whether or not GPU throttling is present so you have read reviews. 

• The 4050RTX is no different than the 3060RTX, the higher the wattage the higher the performance.
  • However, you don’t need to get 140W to get the full performance of the 4050RTX. Anything above 100W will be enough
• The benchmarks here have been taken with Season 5 so it may not be a good comparison to the 3060RTX results.
  • However the 3060RTX at 130W-140W should be somewhat faster than the 4050RTX at 140W (15 fps difference)

1440P resolution

The 3060RTX and 2070RTX can support the game at 1440p, since higher resolutions depend on vRAM (video memory) both 6GB vRAM have decent performance at 1440p. The 4050RTX should also support 1440p resolution (though with lower but playable framerates) but there aren’t benchmarks with the 4050RTX yet.

• All 3060RTX & 4050RTX should perform decently at 1440p. 
  • Even the low wattage versions will make the game playable. 
  • The reason is that it has an easier time processing bigger chunks of data due to the extra vRAM (6GB vRAM).
• Do not use 1440p resolution on Epic settings, it will be way too taxing not just for the GPUs here but for all laptops in general.
  • Use Performance mode or set pre-sets to Medium on Direct X11 Mode.
• The last two benchmarks may be misleading, the framerates are that high because those laptops are using a external monitor (which increases performance by ~15%) . This is because doing this bypasses optimus. You can read more about this topic here.

vi) 3070RTX , 4060RTX, 3080RTX Benchmarks 

The price of these GPUs on laptops can change anywhere from 1300 to 2000 dollars because the wattage and CPU + display resolution is all over the place.

1080P Resolution:

[1] RTX mode is turned ON. This is very hardware demanding.

• Some of these benchmarks used an external monitor which increases performance by 15%.
• For 1080p resolution, there’s very little improvement on Direct X12 mode over than 3060RTX laptops running at 130W.
  • This only applies to HIGH wattage 3070 & 3080RTX & 4060RTX models.
  • Low wattage may not outperform the high wattage 3060RTX.

1440P or 1600p Resolution:

*Graphics Presets set on Epic . DLLS set to Quality.
**Graphics Presets set on High. DLLS set to Quality.

You can see here even the low wattage 3080RTX runs the game at 1400p with higher framerates than the high wattage 360RTX. It can do so even at HIGHER settings. This is because more vRAM (8GB) handles higher details (resolution & higher settings) much better.

Its much wiser ot buy these GPUs if you want to play at 1440p.

4k resolution: 

The low powered 3070RTX can run fortnite at 4k with  DLSS on.

What is DLSS? An  AI-powered tech to boost framerates (kind of like “predicting” what the next frame will look like, more details on DLSS here).

 

vii) 3070Ti & 3080Ti Benchmarks (+$2000 Laptops)

• The 4070RTX gets you about +10-15 more framerates on the same settings than the 3070RTX (both measured on combat).
• Not a worthy upgrade performance wise.

• If you want to be competitive at 1440p (on laptops), use the settings above.
• Benchmarks with these GPUs on laptops are scarce because they are OVERKILL for fortnite.
  • They are good choices for 1440p gaming but people play the game at 1080p on laptops.

 

vii) 4080 & 4090 Benchmarks 

Note how even a laptop pretty much MAXED out in both CPU & GPU struggle to run the game at MAX settings with 1440p with RTX mode on.

Again for 1440p gaming , if you want to be competitive you need to run the game with performance mode at the lowest settings.

2. CPU: Clock Speed > Cores

Benchmarks above have shown that performance is pretty much down to the graphics card.

However, you can’t just ignore the CPU you’re getting for two reasons.

The first one is CPU bottlenecking.

1.CPU Bottlenecking

Say you have a GPU like the 4060RTX with a Core i5 as opposed to a Core i7 or a Ryzen 7.

Your GPU will output high quality images at a speed too high for a Core i5 to keep up. Since both are needed for the processing of images, the CPU will slow down the whole process due to lack of processing power. This can results in massive perfomance loss for a given GPU, it isn’t so much of a problem for the low-tier GPUs like the 4050RTX and 3050Ti but it becomes a big problem for the high-tier GPUs: 4060RTX.

A 4050RTX, 4060RTX, 4070RTX is better paired with a Core i7 or Ryzen 7.
A 3050Ti, 3050RTX and other cards can be paired with Core i5 or Ryzen 5s and higher GPUs.

For laptops, having this happenning is rare. Usually a GPU is paired up with a fast enough GPU, it’s more of a problem when building desktop PCs.

2. Gaming Performance

The gaming performance of a CPU is down to clock speed as far as fortnite goes. Some games favor multiple cores over clock speeds. For example, overwatch & call of duty.

That doesn’t mean Fortnite isn’t multithreaded. It’s just not as a multi-threaded for you to focus on clock speeds above everything else.

 

AMD 

It’s very easy to tell which one have better clock speed performance within the same brand. However, it gets a little more complicated when you compare to brands because there’s turbo boost , wattage and depending on how it’s programmed a higher clock CPU on paper may or may not beat a slightly lower clocked CPU from another brand.

Solution? Use benchmarks. You can either use  notebookcheck and check the single-clock speed benchmarks or just check CPU benchmarks on youtube.  

3.RAM

Dual-Channel & 16GB RAM

It’s not necessary to upgrade RAM to 16GB RAM but today 16GB RAM is the standard for gaming and that’s because there’s a BOOST in performance when you have 16GB RAM. Having 8GB RAM however will NOT bottleneck the GPU or CPU, the extra 8GB RAM stick will only give you a performance boost albeit small ~5-15fps depending on the settings.

However…

If you do the upgrade in dual-channel mode (check how to do it here: how to make the upgrade in dual-channel mode ) on top of the extra 8GB RAM, you can get an extra 5-10 fps to make it a total of 20-25 fps gain.

If you further pick a laptop with DDR5 RAM, you will get about 5 fps gains too. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

Q: What is the best laptop for fortnite under $500 ?

It’s going to be a laptop with the best  GPU in this price bracket:

MX450>MX 350>Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs>RX Vega 7

It’s going to be next to impossible to find the MX450 or MX450 under 500 so you’ll have to settle with the  best integrated graphics: Intel Irix Xe G7 80UEs which is found on 12th or 13th gen Core i5 laptops.

Q: What is the best laptop for fortnite under $300 ?

As for 2024, the best one under that money is going to have a 11th or 12th gen Core i3 with 8GB RAM like the Lenovo Ideapad 3 shown here.

Q: What are cheap laptops that can run fortnite under $200?

There’s no way to find a BRAND NEW Windows laptop that can run Fortnite. Your only choice is to check those refurbished or used laptops with a Core i3 or Ryzen 3.

Another option is to buy a refurbished 11” MacBook Air with an Intel CPU. Ideally, you’d want this MacBook Air to have 8GB RAM but that’s kind of difficult to see under 200. Fortnite is now available on OSX so any old MacBook you’ll find should be able to run the game.

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Author Profile

Miguel Salas

I am physicist and electrical engineer. My knowledge in computer software and hardware stems for my years spent doing research in optics and photonics devices and running simulations through various programming languages. My goal was to work for the quantum computing research team at IBM but Im now working with Astrophysical Simulations through Python. Most of the science related posts are written by me, the rest have different authors but I edited the final versions to fit the site's format.

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