If we are talking about being competitive,

the best laptop for Fortnite should make input delay non-existent while keeping visibility at maximum levels.

What’s input delay?

It’s how long it takes for the game to register your actions (Ex:click on mouse -> gunshot), the lower the better obviously.

How about max visibility? 

A laptop that can support “view distance” to epic will let you spot/fight enemies from afar easily.

And if your laptop can support “meshes” , “textures” and other image details to epic or high….you’ll be better equipped to known WHEN AND WHERE a storm is whether you’re in and out of the zone..

This just means…

You need really  good hardware, especially GPU (graphics card).

This is exactly why…

Ninja invests TONS of MONEY on a gaming rig and he even went as far as getting his own internet station to eliminate any possibility of lag spikes .

The good news is…

The new chapters of Fortnite are improving hardware usage effciency so you don’t have to spend that much money.

You’ll just have to make a few tweaks (a mix of settings or rely on performance mode) to be competitive enough.

 

Not any laptop will do of course. Your laptop still needs to meet a few hardware requirements.

How much it’s going to cost?

I’d say 650$ will get you to play the game w/ at least 60fps on Epic Settings and +120fps on Medium.

Now 60fps is imo enough to be competitive, although most people would say 120-144fps is the sweet spot. It depends but we’ll talk about it later.

Recommended Laptop Specs for Fortnite

Before that though, let us briefly go over the kind of hardware we want for Fortnite so you can understand the selection process and maybe pick up a laptop on your own when you show up at your computer local store.

You’re welcomed to skip this section though and jump right into the 5 best laptops for Fortnite using the ToC.

GPU

You can hit +100 fps on Performance Mode (for super low input delays) with integrated GPUs but you’ll need to set most settings to low including Texture/View Distance.

For a high view distance and high meshes, you’re going to need a dedicated GPU:

NVIDIA: MX150-MX450 1050 1050Ti 1650GTX 1060 1660Ti 2060RTX 3050Ti 3060RTX 3070RTX 3080RTX 3080Ti
AMD: Radeon Pro RX 555X RX540  RX550 RX 560X RX 580  RX5550M

Low end GPUS: best configuration supported would be Performance mode (+100fps) with some settings on Epic.
Mainstream GPUs: ….50 fps on Epic Settings with all settings maxed out (Direct X11). 110fps+ Med settings (Direct X11). 170fps+ (Performance). 700-800$.
Low mid-range : 200-350fps (Performance). 80 fps (Direct X12 – Epic). 200-350 (Performance). 800-1200$.
High mid-range GPUs: 85-105fps(Direct X12 – Epic) . +360 fps (Performance). 1200$-1500$.
High end-GPUs: 130-175 fps(Direct X12 – Epic). 380-430 fps (Performance). 1500$+

CPU

To maximize framerates, pick the CPU with the best clock speed performance (usually the oen w/ more “clock speed” as in Hz.)
Every bit is helpful especially in maps like Endgame scrim where there’s a lot of stuff to render and in which almost every CPU uses  95% of its resources.

*The comparison is simple for CPU of the same brand. It doesn’t work so well when you take two different brands (AMD vs Intel), You must rely on benchmarks here. Check the last section.

MUX Switch
Make sure your gaming laptop has it. It “switches OFF” the integrated GPU so that the dedicated GPU can fully take over. Most laptops don’t have a mux switch so the dedicated GPU will share the load with the integrated GPU taking a toll on graphics perfroamnce by 10-20%.

RAM

8GB: The bare minimum and virtually everyone will be fine with this (if nothing’s running in the background).
12GB: If there’s no dedicated GPU (but an integrated one ), this much will boost framerates by 10-20. The extra RAM will be used by the integrated GPU.
16GB: This is today’s standard for gaming since most people are running stuff in the background or streaming.

Solid State Drive
All laptops made within the past 3 years have solid state drives, they are not going to help with framerates but will eliminate any “loading” bars and any loading screens when switching between maps/instances/launching the game. Just be sure to install the game on the “SSD” drive if your laptop ALSO has an HDD.

Display
FHD + IPS screens: If you want to play at FHD you need a FHD display, all gaming laptops have it but not all budget laptops do (<400$) if you look long enough you’ll find them under 400$ though.
QHD/4k displays: Likewise these are necessary for 1440p & 4k gaming. Fortnite doesn’t run well at these resolutions (on laptops) so you don’t have to get either.
144Hz vs 365Hz: Refresh rates only become useful up to 120-144Hz, anything more is imo unnecessary. So you can save yourself hundreds of bucks here. Why? 

• You are not going to over +150fps on Direct x11/x12 mode.
• Even if you do, the game will look the same running at 140fps and 400fps.
• If fps exceeds your monitor’s refresh rates, you still get the benefit of super low input delays high fps brings.

Top 5 Best Laptops For Fortnite 2022

All laptops shown here will have dedicated GPUs and all of them can be used to play competitively. You may need to adjust settings to high/medium depending on how powerful your GPU is.

Instead of re-stating specifications, I will tell you why these are the best deals and what exact settings you need to use for each of these models to have both super low input delays and great visibilities.

 

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1. Lenovo Ideapad 3 

Best Budget Laptop For Fortnite

  Core i5 10300H

  8GB DDR4

   GeForce GTX 1650

  256GB PCIe SSD

  15.6” 120Hz Full HD

  4.85lb

  5 hours

How competitive you can be on the game is really down to skill and preferences. Some people do great with just 60fps while others will  struggle with anything less than 144fps. It’s a matter of trying it out. A laptop with a 1650GTX gives you the option to try both of these settings.

  Performance

Youtube Benchmarks show that a laptop with either a Core i5 9300H , 10300H or any of its variants should let you run the game with:

• 50+ fps on Epic Settings using Dirext X11 rendering mode w/ Epic View Distance and textures. This is great to mess around with the game but not enough to competitive. You’ve got great viewing distances but the input delay won’t be great. 
• You can decent input delays if you set graphics to high or medium on Direct X11/X12, this will keep decent visibility as well and framerates well over 60 fps (some people are able to rock the game with this much framerates).
• If you depend on super low input delays (150fps) to rock (most people do), performance mode will get you as low as possible with framerates easily going past +150fps.

  Hardware

This laptop has a 10th generation Core i5 CPU , 11th generation Core i5 CPUs are available but they are much more expensive with really no improvement in clock speed performance. 

Several benchmarks have shown that the  Core i5 9300H , 10300H, 11300H and the Ryzen 5 4600H , 5600H, all perform more or less the same. Yes you may a +5fps increase in framerates with the latter generation but not really worth it for an extra 100$. You could get a better GPU for that price which we’ll go over soon.

*The Ryzen 5 laptop is another great deal that performs just as well as Core i5 and has a 120Hz display too.

Display:  120Hz Refresh Rates

If you’re going to play this game on performance because you need the super low input delays super high framerates in performance mode bring, you don’t necessarily need to get a 120Hz display for it.

You will still get great input delays even if your monitor can’t display every framerate. 

So…

120Hz are only useful if you want the game to look twice as smooth, I decided to feature a laptop with a 120Hz display because it’s not too expensive. It will only add 50$ bucks to overall price. If you’re on a budget, feel free to choose any of the laptops with an old generation CPU and a 60Hz though.

 

Buy Now

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2. Acer Nitro

Best Laptop For Fortnite under 1000

  Core i5 10300H

  8GB DDR4

   RTX 3050Ti 

  256GB SSD PCIe NVMe

  15” full HD 144Hz IPS

  5.07

  4 hours

If you have a budget anywhere from 800 to 1200$, you’ll come across 3050Ti laptops and if you’re after one you have to be very careful here because you’ll have a wide variety of CPU choices. 

3050Ti laptops can have anywhere from a low voltage Ryzen 7 4800U to the high end and powerful Core i7 11800H. 

You obviously want the CPU with the best clock speed performance but that depends on your budget.

I’d say the two best deals out of all 3050Ti are the two laptops highlighted above. Not only are they the cheapest ones out of their bunch but they also give you the best clock speed performance/money ratio.

  Performance

This is the performance you can expect out of these two CPU+GPU configurations.

The above benchmarks used a sligihtly different CPU however, you can expect either equal or BETTER performance with the Core i5 10300H and Core i7 11370H (the latter has more clock speed performance, check the last section or use the google search bar).

Q: Wait there’s only +15 and 30 fps increase with the 3050Ti as opposed to the 1650GTX?

Yes, but please keep in mind that you need to factor what difference these increase of framerates make. 

The difference between 50 and 60fps are significant, while the difference between 170fps(1650GTX) and 190 fps(3050Ti) is insigificant and pretty much negligilble (if we are talking about input delay). It’s all about diminishing returns, you’d want to invest on a 3050Ti laptop if you want high visibility and slightly better framerates and NOT if you want to +50fps on Performance mode, you’d be saving yourself hundreds of dollars by choosing the 1650GTX instead.

Buy Now

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3. Acer Predator Helios 300

Best Gaming Laptop For Fortnite  at 144 Fps

  Core i7-11800H

  16GB RAM DDR4

   GTX 3060RTX

  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD (2x PCie Nvme slots free)

  15” IPS full HD 144Hz

  5.07lbs

  4 hours

 

Likewise, 3060RTX laptops come with a wide variety of CPU choices.  Unlike, the 1650GTX or 3050Ti market, things can get a little tricky here when picking up the best CPU. It’s more wise to rely on benchmarks than anything else because more factors play a role into hardware performance such as power output, cooling design, CPU cooling system,etc.

In theory, however, if we are talking about Intel CPU, you’ll get the best performance out of the latest generation Core i7 CPUs with the highest clock speeds NOT the CPU with the highest number of cores. In this case, the 11375H will give you the best bang for your buck (it has +0.2GHz extra clock speed – although with fewer cores). 

There are no  benchmarks for this specific GPU+CPU set up but you can get a sense of what

Unfortunately, it seems the user doesn’t know how to play so there are no benchmarks in combat mode. The data below is taken while the user is hitting on walls and breaking stuff (this makes framerates go down significfantly).

So you can expect at least 100fps and +10-15 fps if you get a Core i7 as shown here. So we’re looking at 115fps or so on Direct X11 Epic with all textures/viewing distances set to maximum. That’s really close to the ideal 144fps and yet you’re getting the best visibility possible in this game. Obviously if use performance mode you’ll easily go past +300fps.

Ryzen 7 5800H/4800H + 3060RTX:

I would avoid Ryzen 7 5800H/4800H set ups because they do not seem to perform as well on Direct X12 at least on Fortnite, the benchmarks are in the “GPU section” below for you to check it out.

Buy Now

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4. ASUS ROG Zephyrus DUO

Best Gaming Laptop For Fortnite – 3080RTX

  Ryzen 9 4900HX

  32GB RAM DDR4

   RTX 3080 16GB vRAM

  1TB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15” FHD IPS 300Hz

  5.47lbs

  3 hours

FHD vs 1440p & 4k Resolution:

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5. Razer Blade Pro 17

Gaming Laptop Fortnite 240 fps – WorldCup Settings

  Core i7-12800H 4.8GHz

  32GB RAM DDR5

   3080Ti RTX 16GB vRAM

  1TB PCIe NVMe SSD

  17” IPS QHD 240Hz

 10lbs

  1 hours

This laptop holds the latest and most powerful dedicated GPU as of 2022 , the 3080Ti, which was released this year and the latest 12th generation Core i7 CPU released just a few weeks ago.

The 3080Ti RTX shown here is basically the same 3080RTX used on desktops, unlike the 3080RTX on laptops which was featured on laptop #4, it’s not downclocked and the power output is higher and that’s exactly why it will perform just as good as the 3080RTX desktop variant.

Add that the latest Core i7/Core i9 12th gen CPU and you got yourself a machine that can give desktops a run for their money.  This means you can use this bad boy to run the game at 4k/1440p resolution and easily go past 140fps with all epic settings checked ON which is basically the same performance you get on desktops as shown below.

There are no benchmarks for this laptop yet, so this is not 100% certain, it will depend on how good the newest models are handling temperatures.  Both MSI and ASUS are gaming laptop brands though and they are known to do this job quite well hence if you’re buying one of the latest laptops withi this much hardware , I only suggest you go for either of those two.

 

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6. Acer Aspire 5 A515

Best Laptop For Fortnite under $500

  AMD Ryzen 3 3200U

  8GB RAM DDR4

  AMD Radeon Vega 

  128 GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15” IPS full HD 1080p

  3.75lb

  8 hours

 

If you’re on a very low budget, you can still play the game, though maybe not competitively it should be enough to get you started.

Fortnite handles low-end hardware systems quite well. As long as you set everything to low you should be able to get at least 60fps.

Core i3 / Ryzen 3: The bare minimum for Fortnite

You’re going to need to grab a laptop with one of these two CPUs though. There are dozens of several different version of these CPUs but most of them will perform more or less the same with framerates dipping as low 30 fps on FHD resolution medium settings to as high as 50-60fps on 900/720p. There is a table with all the video benchmarks taken from youtube in the next sectionut rest assured if you set everything to low, any Core i3/ Ryzen 3 laptop should output 60fps.

Acer Aspire 5:

I’m featuring the Acer Aspire 5 here over all the other Core i3/Ryzen 3 models because it’s the cheapest laptop, has the most recent Core i3 CPU AND it even has a 1080p all under 360$ (prices will depend on the time of the year).  You will need to update the RAM to at least 8GB though:

 

I’d recommend upgrading the RAM to 12GB or 16GB  as I mentioned before, this will give the integrated GPU some memory to work with instead of taking memory the CPU’s using.

Dual Channel:

You can also try making it dual channeled if you’re going for 8GB or 16GB.

I’ve got a separate post explaining what this is but basically you want two RAM sticks of the same size on your laptop. This will increase efficiency and up your framerates slightly.

Gaming Laptop Requirements for Fortnite (Ultimate Guide)

This section will go into full detail about how each piece of hardware can increase graphics settings (texture & mesh details) and framerates(less input delay) on Fortnite. You can use this section to:

• Maximize LAPTOP performance out of a given budget 
• Build PC: by using the general ideas mentioned here, you can start checking parts/hardware prices.

I will go over each hardware component separately: CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage,etc.

However, each sub-section will have two parts: Low-Med settings & High-Ultra settings. In other words, “budget section” vs “high performance section”. 

 

Official Requirements

Before we start with the CPU section, let’s go through the official requirements for the sake of completeness and for those after the cheapest laptop that can run Fortnite.  These are the the bare minimum requirements:

• GPU: Intel HD 4000 / Iris Pro 2000
• CPU: Core i3 3.3 Ghz
• RAM: 4 GB
• OS : Windows 7/8/10 64-bit + Mac OSX Sierra

They translate to 200$ desktops or laptops under 350$ like the MacBook Air.

This is only going to get you 30fps at 720p though, should be enough for your son/daughter mess around with the game. 

The official recommended basically only add a dedicated GPU on top of the minimum requirements and that will get you  +80FPS on 1080p at medium settings, a massive improvement. 

That’s because Fortnite is one of the most GPU demanding games there is, we’ll talk about that soon in much detail. 

Let’s start with the CPU first.

1. CPU

Although Fortnite is more about graphics cards than processors that doesn’t mean you can skimp on a good processor.

While dedicated GPU can process those super high detail epic images at high resolutions and get you super high viewing distances…

The CPU will play a bigger role for “lifting” or “pushing” those images into your monitor, aka,  get your framerates up therefore reduce yout input delay.

#Cores vs Clock Speed:

The only helpful part of a processor for gaming purposes is the “clock speed” as measured in Hertz (Ex: 5GHz) and NOT the number of cores.  

  

A) Low-Med Settings (720p,900p,1080p)

This is especially true if you’re on a budget because you are not going to get a good dedicated GPU.

All the image processing will be done by the CPU.

These are all the CPUs available on budget laptops or those without “dedicated GPUs” in 2022 and their respective benchmarks:

Intel 

*Note that this rule of the “higher clock speed” processor being faster only applies to CPUs of the same brand.  It isn’t that straight forward when you compare different brands (AMD vs Intel).

Intel Performance

*Resolution has been set to 100% this reduces performance severely. All other benchmarks have it either at 44% or 66%.

AMD 

AMD Performance

Green CPUs

Low, 60-85 fps, 720p – (Performance)

All of these are found on 350-500$ laptops, the cheapest ones are those of older generations (10th for Intel, 3rd for Ryzen).

Overall, the Ryzen processors slightly outperform the Intel Core i3 processors probably because the Radeon graphics (integrated GPUs on Ryzen Chips) are better than the Intel HD iGPUs on Intel Chips.

So if you’ve got the option to choose between these two, choose Ryzen.

Blue CPUs

Low: 80-100 fps, 1080p , 720p (Performance)

These are found on 450-600$ laptops.

The benchmarks on the table might be misleading, Ryzen 5 processors aren’t necessarily better than Core i5 processors, it’s just that we lack the benchmarks to prove it. They basically have the same performance , they will all get you up into 100 fps on Low settings/Performance Mode at 1080p but they will struggle out of Performance Mode (Direct X11/X12) or High settings.

Purple CPUs

Low: 65-85 fps, 1080p ( DirectX 11, Direct X12 )

These are found on “business class” laptops so they can be very expensive (700-1000$) and yet as you can see they still cannot perform well out of performance mode. Direct X11 and Direct X12 are still quite hardware demanding for these CPUs because they simply lack a dedicated GPU.  

I’d advice you to stay out of these and instead invest that money on ANY laptop with a dedicated GPU if you want “better view distances” and more “mesh/texture detail”.

B) High-Epic Settings (1080p)

If you have a high budget (700-1500$) and you want to hit high or ultra settings and get +100 fps, you will need to look at high performance “H” CPUs.

Ex: Core i5 11300H , Ryzen 7 4800H etc. These are found on “gaming laptops”, here’s basically all the “H” CPUs you’ll find:

Intel 8th-11th

Intel 12th

AMD 4th-5th

AMD 6th

The performance of these CPUs are highly dependent on the type of dedicated GPU they have so it’s kind of pointless to list benchmarks without talking about dedicated GPUs.

However, there’s still a few things to point out about CPUs if  you want to squeeze more framerates out of an already high budget or if you want to save yourself hundreds of bucks:

AMD vs Intel

These are all conclusions taken from several dozens of youtube benchmarks that are listed in the GPU section.

The following will assume all other hardware specs (RAM & GPU) stay equal:

• All Blue “H” CPUs   in the table above (both AMD and Intel) will have nearly the exact equal performance.
  • You can save a lot of money if you go for an older generation CPU (assuming its selling for cheaper of course).
  • You can choose intel or AMD it doesn’t matter, input delay improvement seems to be the same (benchmarks are listed below)
• All Green “H” CPUs , Ryzen 7 or Core i7, seems to also have more or less the same performance. Although Fortnite, at least on laptops, seem to work best with Intel chips here (10th, 11th gen only). So still choose Intel over AMD here.
• Red  CPUs  do not seem to add much performance boost over Intel Green “H” CPUs. So if you want to squeeze more framerates higher than +300 fps (on perfromance mode) or higher than +150 fps ultra 1080p on Direct X mode, you should pick  the Purple CPUs (from Intel).

Clock Speed! Not Cores!

Don’t forget to stay true to the rule of “more clock speed” over “more cores”.

Fortnite doesn’t care about # cores just clock speed.

So if you’ve got two processors, say  a Core i7 11730H and Core i7 11800H, pick the former because it has slightly better clock speeds ( 4.8 vs 4.6), the latter has an extra of +2 cores which isn’t useful for gaming and can make a laptop quite more expensive. 

This comparison only applies to CPUs of the same brand! It doesn’t work so well if we compare AMD to Intel. Ex: Core i7 11370H (4.8GHz) isn’t faster than a Ryzen 9 4900HX  (4.6GHz). It’s the oppossite here so for these cases just rely on youtube benchmarks of the Fortnite running under these CPUs or third party benchmark tests  such as the Single CLock CineBench Test. 

6th gen Ryzen and 12th gen Intel Core CPUs

These beasts have just been released this month and are scarcingly available on laptops.
They are on a class of their own faster than any of their counterpart CPU above.

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GPU

There are two types of “GPUs” or graphics cards, integrated (iGPUs) and dedicated GPUs (dGPUs).

A) Integrated GPUs: Low-Medium Graphics 

iGPUs are basically embedded into a CPU and hence they’re name being “integrated”, they do not have their own memory and lack the architecture to run very high resolution images.

They have come a LONG way though and today’s integrated GPUs can get you as high as 60fps on Medium settings(performance mode)

Which integrated GPU will give me more framerates?

Because they are embedded on CPUs, you can’t choose an integrated GPU even if you build a desktop. A CPU will automatically come with a specific integrated GPU.

The only way to get the best integrated GPU is by choosing the latest and most recent CPU you can afford. For example:

I would not be so picky about these though because as you’ve already seen in the benchmarks shown in the last section, they will all perform more or less the same. But yes always opt for the most recent and latest CPU, if prices are all the same, a few more framerates can’t hurt.

b) Dedicated GPUs: High-Ultra Graphics 

Fortnite is one of the few most GPU demanding games as of 2022 and that’s exactly why even a measley and old dGPU (dedicated GPU) can massively improve framerates at higher settings and unlock far more graphics settings.

These are all the dedicated GPUs found on gaming laptops released during the past 5 years:

NVIDIA

AMD

NVDIA vs AMD dGPUs:

The GPU market in the laptop industry is dominated by NVIDIA, it is very unlikely you’ll ever come across an AMD dGPU but I’m listing it here just in case you find a good deal. (Use the NVIDIA Equivalent colum to get a sense of the power).  

This isn’t the case for desktops though, AMD GPUs are actually a good choice if on a budget, they will get you the same performance for about the same cost of NVIDIA GPUs (in the mid-range market). That’s another post though.

Rendering Mode: Performance (ALPHA) vs Direct X11 vs Direct X12

Before we dig deep into the performance of each GPU group (red, blue, green, purple) in the table, let’s make sure you know what these rendering modes means as they will have huge impact on framerates and texture/mesh details.

Performance(Alpha or Beta): This type of rendering mode can increase frameates massively, usually by +100-200 (if you set it to low). It does so by discarding fancy graphics and a a lot of texture details especially from afar. 

Direct X11/Direct X12: These include very nitty gritty details and more detailed viewing distances. However, these settings are kind of hardware demanding especially if you set them to high. You’ll be very hardpressed to go past +150fps on Ultra in this mode even if you get the latest and most powerful CPU+GPU.

 

Q: Which rendering mode is best for fortnite?

This is debatable, there are thousands of videos with different takes on the subject but if you want to know my opinion, IT DEPENDS.

Here’s why:

Performance mode will basically increase framerates (and therefore input delays) with the trade off taking a little more time for things to render. Now for competitive gaming, having super low input delays is far far more important than anything else so performance mode will help you tons IF you don’t have great hardware.

However, if you DO have great hardware, 

Something like  a true mid-range GPU ( those in PURPLE)  and at least a High Performance “H ”  CPU  ( those in blue in the table),  your framerates will be pretty high REGARDLESS of what RENDERING MODE you use. So you don’t need to use Performance Mode to improve your input delay.

You can just leave it at Direct X11/X12 Mode which will make things render BETTER so you can ALSO have an easier time telling when you’re in the storm or when you’re about to see the storm. 

Entry Level dedicated GPU: MX 350, 450 , 1050 GTX

All of these will have almost the same performance. Except the MX450 which is %20 faster than the almighty 1050GTX.

Although they’re only x4-x6 faster than “integrated GPUs” they’re always paired up with the high end of the low voltage “U” group – those CPUs in green .

If you get an MX450 GPU AND a very recent “U” CPUs (11th gen Core i7/5th gen Ryzen 7),  you can get up to ~100 FPS on Performance Mode with several settings set on Epic as shown in the video.

If you get an older versions of the MX like the MX350 (usually paired with older generation CPUs),  you will be limited to lower settings.

On the other hand, the old 1050 GTX almost the same framerates as a MX450 across all settings.

Mainstream dGPUs: 1050Ti , 1650GTX , 1060

*This laptop doesn’t have a MUX switch so the integrated GPU is also doing some work which makes the performance of the 1650GTX look about 10-20% slower.
**1400×1050 resolution

Note that framerates are measured as you run through a big campus and into a fight so these may not be 100% accurate numbers check the links on the videos if you want to see how much framerates will change depending on location. But basically here’s what you should get out of these benchmarks:

• Older generations CPUs ( Ryzen 5 4600H vs Ryzen 5 5600H) do not negatively impact performance substantially if anything at all.
  • So you could save a few hundred bucks if you’re after a 1650GTX laptop.
• All 1650GTX laptops will handle the game at Direct X11/Dirext X12 on Epic settings with at least  50 fps.
• Epic settings on Direct X11/X12 mode can be very taxing on a 1650GTX system and the input delay can be a problem, so you may want to try Performance Mode while setting viewing distances/meshes to high/far or just use Direct X11 on high.

Low Mid-Range dGPUs: 3050Ti, 2060RTX, 1660Ti

These are all slightly better than mainstream GPUs, some of these were “mid-range” or high-end GPUs a few years ago but now they’ve all similar performance across all games.

**All benchmarks (out of Performance Mode) have ALL settings on Epic. This one has NVIDIA Reflex low latency/Motion Blur ON addition to it.
* All laptops run the game at FHD

• You can get as much as 53% performance increase (+30 fps) on Epic settings on Direct X12 over the 1650GTX. 
  • This is only true if you get a 3050Ti/1660Ti with a high end CPU like a Core i7 Ryzen 7 which raises the price significantly.
  • The lower priced 3050Ti laptops (800$) will have the same CPU used on 1650GTX laptops and that will only get you +15 fps with all settings kept equal on Epic+Direct X12/X11 rendering mode.
• Notice how the old 1660Ti outperforms both the 3050Ti  despite having a slower CPU. 
  • This is a very GPU dependent game, minor increases in GPU power will translate to moderately higher performances.
  • The 1660Ti has 6GB vRAM as opposed to 4GB (3050Ti).
  • You could get better performance for the same price if you find 1660Ti laptops online.
• All of these GPUs on laptops can hit +300 fps on performance even with some features set to High/Epic.

High-Mid Range dGPU: 3060RTX, 2070RTX, 2080RTX

1080P Benchmarks:

The latter two are last year’s high end GPU but with the release of the 3060RTX, they can now be considered “mid-range” since the 3060RTX has almost the same performance. Now there are barely any benchmarks available with the old GPUs but there are hundreds with the 3060RTX because it’s the GPU with the best performance/cost ratio. 

• You’ll find them with all sorts of different CPUs but I don’t think it’s wise to grab those with a Core i5/Ryzen 5 as the last one shown.
• A 3060RTX is going to be super useful once you pair it up with a Core i7/Ryzen 7 and you’ll get pretty close to 100 fps with all settings maxed out.
• Now how the 4th benchmark has much less framerates than the rest and as much as the last one with a much weaker CPU. This is because:
  • Shadows/Motion Blur which is usually turned off and has been turned off for every benchmark shown so far is being used here. 
  • Minor details/settings can take a moderate amount of framerates (10-15fps) so you can always deactivate them if you want to go over 100 fps.

1440p and 4k: 

Another cooling thing about the 3060RTX is that it unlocks the ability to play the game at 1440p and 4k resolutions.

• All 3060RTX laptops even the ones with a Core i5/Ryzen 5 will be able to run the game at these settings.
  • You will most likely need to attach an external monitor if you’re on a budget :
    • The most affordable 3060RTX do not have QHD/4k displays.
    • 3060RTX laptops w/ 4k/QHD displays on board usually cost +1500$.
• Note that the 3060RTX is not able to run the game at 4k or 1440p without settings 3D resolution to less than 50% as well as checking off other minor settings. This may mean you will trade off some “storm visibility” to play the game like this.

High-End dGPU: 3060RTX, 2070RTX, 2080RTX

• On performance mode high end GPUs are the only ones that will get you +400 fps if you set settings to low. That’s already too much and although input delays are non-existent, they’re really no different from the input delays you’d get at 150fps.
• On Direct X11/X12 Mode maxed out at Epic and High meshes, you can get +150fps if you opt for Intel CPUs as opposed to Ryzen 9 CPUs.
  • For some reason, Ryzen 9 CPUs although in theory faster than Core i7 CPUs don’t perform well on Direct X11/X12 Mode on this game.
  • So you can save hundreds of bucks and get even more framerates if you make sure your 3070RTX/3080RTX has an Intel Chip on board.

*Everything set on Epic including Shadows/Motion Blur. DLLS Quality.
*Everything set on High including Shadows/Motion Blur. DLLS Quality.
*Everything set on Mediumincluding Shadows/Motion Blur. DLLS Quality.

*ANTI ALIASING set to High as well
**Walking(Combat)
*** All settings on Epic

• Fornite can only run at ~50fps on 4k resolution with all settings maxed out to Epic.
• If you set settings to low at 4k, you will be able to play competitively w/ +150fps on Conmbat/Roaming.
   

It’s going to be impossible to play Fortnite at 4k resolution and still have get low input delays (high framerates) and great visibility (high texture/meshes). This is only true for laptops though.

The 3080RTX desktop GPU is a lot faster than the mobile 3080RTX and can handle 4k game play with more framerates as shown here.

GPU or CPU Bottlenecking

So what’s more important GPU or CPU?

Some people claim that Fortnite is extremely GPU intensive and you should all get something higher than a 1660Ti/3060RTX if you want ultra settings. As you’ve seen above, that’s not true, Fortnite can easily run on Ultra settings with +100FPS w/ a 3060RTX. 

Your GPU will NOT bottleneck UNLESS you want to play the game at 1440p or 4k resolutions.

What’s really going to limit framerates at Epic Settings (Direct X12) FHD is the CPU, the 3060RTX will struggle if you don’t get a proper CPU with it. 

On average GPUs will not bottleneck, they will hover around 60-80% usage almost all the time. If you upgrade the 3060RTX and still fail to get a decent CPU (Core i7 11th or Ryzen 9), your 3080RTX or 3070RTX will still stay at 60-80% usage.

If they could upgrade their GPU to something more decent like a 1060Ti , a 1660Ti or even a 1650GTX, they’ll quickly realize that even at the highest settings, GPU usage will hover around  60-80%. So if they start experimenting with this…and upgrade their rig with a 1080Ti/2080…GPU usage will still be the same.

Display

FHD Screen

To play at FHD resolution, you need a FHD display. This is not an issue for gaming laptops because virtually ALL gaming laptops have a FHD.

On the other hand, budget laptops may or may not have a FHD display. But there’s always at least a couple budget laptops (under 400$) that have them so make sure to do a thoroughly search before you pull the trigger and buy one of these. If you do NOT find a FHD display on a budget laptop, it’s not the end of the world since you aren’t likely to run fortnite at FHD with the kind of hardware these have and will have to settle with 720p / 900p gameplay.

1440p(QHD) & 4k(UHD)

These displays add  A LOT to the overall price of a laptop. 

If you want to play super competitively you could save it a lot of money by discarding these displays altogether and just settle witih FHD displays.

The reason is that laptop’s hardware (even the 3080RTX) do not have enough power to run the game at super high resolutions with “epic” visibility and “super high framerates” at the same time. You can play at 1440p/4k having only one of these advantages on you: either super low input (by getting super high framerates through low graphics) or epic visibility (by using direct x11/x12 mode which will take a huge toll on framerates).

Refresh Rates(120Hz,144Hz,240Hz…)

Performance Mode: Since you’ll have anywhere from 200-450fps with some configurations of performance mode you may think investing on a laptop withi a high refesh rate display is a must. The truth is that high refresh rates aren’t necessary to get the advatange of having super low input delays. You can still get the benefits of super low input delays even if your monitor can’t display all framerates.

120Hz, 144Hz:  The game does not really look smoother once you go past 140fps or so, so it’s also kind of unncessary to invest on a high refresh rate displays if you want the game to look “better”. I’d say as long as your rig has 144Hz refresh rates you’ll be okay. Don’t worry about 240Hz or 365Hz….you are wasting cash here. 

Comments?

Well that’s it, I have no more to say about laptops For Fornite. However, if you have any comments, questions or you want to add something to this post. Just leave a comment below, I will answer ASAP.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What about ninja’s fortnite graphic settings ? 

There’s no question that Ninja plays Fortnite on Epic settings with every setting maxed out with NO PERFORMANC MODE.

That’s why he built a custom tower. 

On a last interview he reported having:

• A Core i9 CPU (surely now upgraded to the 12th gen).
• Several 3080RTX GPUs. This means he uses more than one GPU on his desktop.
• 64GB RAM.
• 240Hz monitor 

Something like this:

 

~200 fps at 1440p epic settings (/w Ray Tracing Off).

Q: What is the highest FPS possible in Fortnite? 

There’s no limit. The game has been tested on a supercomputer sort of a “sever” by NASA  and it ran at about  +13000 fps per second.

These super computers usually have a stack of dedicated GPUs and the game can make good use of stack of a GPUs.

Although they may have a stack of CPUs too, the game will only use one CORE. This means NASA has access to custom-made CPUs made by Intel or AMD that have clock speeds way beyond 5GHz (highest attainable clock speed for the average joe)

As for us mortals, the best we can get is a ~10 000$ rig that has a stack of 2-3 3090Ti GPUs(they start giving diminishing returns after 2 or 3)

And either the Core i9-12900HK or AMD Ryzen 9 6980HX. 

Now…even if you have a set up like..

You will still drop below 100fps in comp lobbies.

Even ninja’s 20 000$ rig will cap at 100 fps in these scenarios. No game today will handle 30 people end game.

It makes sense if you look at all the stuff going on there: what’s being rendered , the amount of connections on a single server,etc.

If we are talking about 1v1  fights or walking around the map, the most bad ass desktop should run the game at a maximum of 300 fps on epic settings.

Q: What about other best laptops for fortnite under $500?

“I mean I can play this game on my 2009 iPad I’m sure there are some”

I’ve decided not to focus on laptops under 500$ because these have low-tier integrated graphics(Intel Xe on a leash, Intel UHD, RX Vega 5, Rx Vega 3).

It would be nice if they had at least an Intel Xe or AMD RX Vega 7 iGPU , both cards approaching the performance of entry level dGPUs like the MX250.
But these high-tier iGPUs are only available on laptops over 500$ (~515-550$).

Because I know some of you are parents on a super low budget….I decided to feature Acer Aspire 5, which is well under 500$ though. Although it has a low-tier iGPU, it can run the game decently at 50 fps on low.

If your budget is a bit higher than 350 bucks, check out the best gaming laptops under 500$, you may be able to squeeze the same framerates on mediumsettings.

Basically, you just need to get the best CPU for whatever budget you have. (You can use the table on the last section). Doing this will automatically set you up with the best integrated gpu you can get. 

You will have to upgrade RAM on some of those laptops though: 8GB the bare minimum , +8GB (12GB) prefered (the iGPU will take 2GB).

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

There are no laptops below 300$ that can run the game or even launch the game, if we are talking about new laptops.

This is because newish <300$ laptops will have outdated and weak processors such as the  Celeron/Pentium , AMD A9/A6/A4, MediaTek / ARM CPUs which are basically the same stuff they put on tablets. No amount of extra RAM or the addition of an SSD will make them run Fortnite. In fact, they will even struggle to handle the full version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 11.

What you could do instead…

Is looking at refurbished laptops that have a modern CPU (anything with the words “Intel Core” or “Ryzen” on label is modern).

Here’s a search query with all laptops laptops under 300 with OK processors.  Make sure you get at least an 7th gen CPU! For Ryzen CPUs any generation is fine.

Before you buy a refurbished laptop, remember that adding ~50 bucks more will get you a brand new laptop w/ either the latest Core i3 or Ryzen 3. 

Or

You could try a refurbished 11 inch MacBook Air which has a 7th gen Core i5 CPU (or something similar) , handles low end hardware resources more efficiently and has OSX (which is faster than Windows 10).

That would a thousand times better than any Windows laptop with the same hardware.

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

Brand new? NO.

Refurbished? YES.

The chances of finding a refurbished windows laptop  under 200$ with the bare bone minimum hardware requirements to play Fortnite are almost zero.

What you could do instead is look for refurbishied 11 inch MacBook Airs that are selling under 200$.

Prices can be different but they will all perform exactly the same because they’re all the same version with the same hardware.  (Double check they’re at least a 2015 model though).

Q: Can you run Fortnite on a MacBook Air? or MacBook Pro?

Long story short:

Exact numbers will depend on how recent your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is (it’s really down to what CPU they have). 

Here’s the summary: