Thursday, February 20, 2025
Laptops

5 Best Laptops For League of Legends 2025 (Patch 25.S1.3)

It’s been 8 years since I started playing LoL and yet League of Legends remains the most played game as of 2025.

Since the company aims to reach as many players as possible (as reflected in their ads), the hardware requirements are fairly low.

The minimum requirements for League of Legends more or less translate to a cheap $350 laptop with either a Core i3 or Ryzen 3 CPU.

So yeah…

Almost any laptop can run LoL as long as you set the settings to low, where you’ll get a decent 80 FPS.

Now…

This post is about the best laptop for League of Legends, meaning a laptop that can run the game at the highest settings with high framerates and no frame drops or lag spikes, especially during intense group fights.

I personally use a 3050Ti laptop as shown above which can run the game at an average of 130 FPS at the highest settings throughout the match, even during intense team fights where everyone is popping their ults.

Yeah, that’s really good, and it sells for about $650, but don’t rush—there are better and cheaper options coming up next.

Best Laptop Specs For League of Legends

To get similar performance, all you need to do is to find a laptop with a 4GB vRAM GPU.

Then your only problem will be dealing with the amount afkers and rage quitters as you  reach level 25.

League of Legends Hardware Requirements

Before we go over the best laptops for league of legends, let me elaborate a bit more on the hardware:

  • CPU: LoL is very single-threaded. That means you need to focus on single clock speed (GHz) performance over # Cores.
  • RAM: 8GB RAM is enough for LoL unless you want to play at higher resolution (QHD) then you want 16GB RAM.
  • GPU: can run on any GPU but 4GB vRAM GPUs (2050RTX, 1650GTX, 3050RTX) will unlock super high framerates at super high settings. No need to worry about wattage or MUX Switch, the game doesn’t really use dedicated GPUs as much.
  • Storage Speed: Makes zero difference for framerates. 

Now Prices…

If you’ve got 500 dollars or more: you can get a laptop with a dedicated GPU and the rest of the specs will take care of themselves. Only choose from these:

MX450, MX550 , 1650GTX, 2050RTX or a 3050Ti, 4050RTX

If you’ve got 450 dollar or less: you are stuck with integrated GPUs (those that come by default). 

Make sure you double check the integrated GPU and see if you can get better with the same price: Integrated GPU performance comparison

Top 5 Best Laptops for League Of Legends (LoL)

League of Legends is the biggest PC game in the world, thanks to its advertising and low hardware requirements. Because of that, millions of people can play the game on almost any laptop with 8GB of RAM.

Most of the laptops listed here, however, are tailored for competitive gaming (150+ FPS at high settings). Sure, they’ll be more expensive, but I’ll also include a few budget-friendly options further down the list.

The following laptops are available in the United States. If the links don’t take you to the same model outside the US, copy the model name and search for it on Google, or check out the alternative options I’ll mention. If you still can’t find a suitable laptop, read the last section for more tips.


1. HP Victus

Budget Laptop For League of Legends – 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

This is the IDEAL laptop for League of Legends with the MOST affordable price to hit +200fps on very high settings. 

My advice would be to just BUY this one and call it a day. There’s really not much to benchmark or research.

Though it has an entry level dedicated GPU, framerates will be super high and enough for competitive matches at the highest graphical settings. 

League of Legends – 2050RTX Benchmarks

As I explained in my 1650GTX vs 2050RTX post, the 2050RTX has pretty much the same performance as the 1650GTX. However, it includes RTX & DLSS mode. The former will get you additional framerates (on supported games). We’ll talk about RTX mode (available on LoL) soon.

~200fps on group fights at the highest settings

RTX Mode 

If you enable RTX mode, framerates will go down (not by a lot) but some abilities will look cooler.

You could do a few tricks to get RTX graphics all over the game as shown below:

But that shouldn’t be the reason why you’re buying the 2050RTX…it’s just very very cheap yet very very powerful especially because it comes with a much more recent CPU.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

The Ryzen 5 shown here and all Ryzen 5 CPUs really have on average BETTER multi-core performance than Intel Core i5 CPUs…however that doesn’t matter for league of legends.

LoL as we discussed in the benchmarks above…is single-threaded. It only cares about the clock speed of a single core. Nonetheless the performance differences are MINIMAL. You may lose 10-15 framerates out of 200…really not much difference. 

Plus there’s the advantage that Ryzen 5 can handle multitasking BETTER than Core i5 (on theory) so it will give you overall better performance when you  run a lot of background programs while streaming (the way DoaenelYT does).

Display: 144Hz

Luckily, this laptop also has a 144Hz display. As far as LoL is concerned, you’ll easily go past 120fps (1650GTX benchmarks)…I’d expect at least 140fps because of the CPU too. So it will definitely becoemn super useful.

Now if you find a cheaper model with a 120Hz, by all means grab it, because the difference between 120Hz and 144Hz is minimal.

Alternatives and  Prices

There aren’t many ‘cheap’ alternatives to this laptop however you are welcomed to look up 1650GTX laptops if you are on a budget and can’t find a cheap 2050RTX laptop.

Link CPU GPU Display Price
MSI GF63 R5 5600H 1650GTX 120Hz 530

HP Victus 15-fa1029n
PROS CONS
  • Latest 7th gen Ryzen 5
  • Best performance for Streaming + Gaming
  • 144Hz Display
  • MUX Switch
  • Low temperatures
  • Support for RTX Mode
  • Dual-Channel RAM available
  • Runs LoL at 130-140fps at high settings
 
  • Heavy
  • Very low battery
  • Runs out of stock quickly 

2. Acer Nitro V

The Best Laptop For League of Legends – 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

Laptops with a 3050RTX , 4050RTX and any dGPU with more than 4GB vRAM are overkill for League of Legends. They are useful to play high settings with other games like CS 2, Fortnite, Overwatch, WoW, etc, but for League of Legends you only need an entry level dGPU.

It’s overkill so why Am I posting a 4050RTX here? Because it’s a good deal. You only need about 100 more dollars and you will get very very high framerates on several other games besides league of legends.

League of Legend – 4050RTX 6GB vRAM

~1% lowest (very high settings) is 243 while on average you get 313fps

As expected it is absolutely OVERKILL for League of Legends. Before you pull the trigger, let us talk about some important facts about the 4050RTX so you can get the best bang for your buck.

GPU: 4050 RTX 45W-110W+

When buying a GPU this powerful if you want to get the best bang for your buck you need to learn about GPU wattage.

The higher the wattage, the higher the performance. Now for league of legends any wattage is fine. This laptop featured here has only 45W and thats the reason why it’s cheap because it requires a much less rigorous cooling system. 

A high wattage 4050RTX would have around 100W and requires a much better cooling system which increases the price to +800. The high wattage 4050RTX  however can easily match the performance of a 3060RTX for most games. If you use DLSS  then the performance is definitely higher (at least for gaming). 

The power hierarchy goes more or less like this (modern GPUs):

 4050RTX>3060RTX>3050Ti>2050RTX>1650RTX>MX550

MUX Switch: 

If you buy a 3050RTX/4050RTX having a MUX switch makes a significant difference.  I haven’t seen a MUX switch on 3050RTX laptops yet but this model , a 4050RTX, has one which increases performance by 20% . If you don’t know what MUX Switch is , please read my post here.

Of course it makes little difference for LoL since the framerates are already super high and the game is mostly single-threaded. It doesn’t even use more than 70% of the GPU resources.

CPU: Intel Core i5-13420H

If we are talking about the 600-800 price range, this is currently as of 2025 the most ideal CPU for MOBA games like league of legends. It has the highest single-thread performance out of the group and that translates to much higher framerates. It’s the reason (after the GPU) why the framerate difference between the 4050RTX and 2050RTX is so abysmal.

 Alternatives

Currently the Acer Nitro 5 models has the best bang for your buck if you’re looking for a 4050RTX laptop. Good alternatives would be variations of this model where the 4050RTX is the same (same wattage + MUX Switch) but with a different (yet very recent) CPU which may or may not be faster.

Link GPU CPU Refresh Rate Storage Price
Acer Nitro 4050RTX R5 7640HS 165Hz 512GB 710
Acer Nitro 4050RTX i7 13620H 144Hz 512GB 799

Acer Nitro 5
PROS CONS
  • Decent 4050RTX w/ MUX Switch
  • Best Core i5 CPU in 2025
  • 144Hz Display
  • Great temperatures
  • Dual-Channel RAM available
  • Supports M.2 & 2.5” Storage Upgrades
  • Cheapest 4050RTX laptop
 
  • Heavy
  • Low battery  

3. MSI GF63

Good Laptop For League of Legends – 1650GTX

  Intel Core i5-11400H

  8GB DDR4

  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

  256GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15.6” 144Hz FHD IPS

  4.1 lbs

  2 hours

A 1650GTX laptop should only be an option if you are on a very low budget but still want to get super high framerates with LoL at the highest settings.

GPU: 1650GTX 4GB vRAM – Optimus vs No Optimus

When you shop for 1650GTX laptops for League of Legends, it’s also important to understand the concept of MUX Switch & Optimus, if you want to get the BEST performance out of a 1650GTX. 

Don’t get me wrong, ALL 1650GTX are good for competitive gaming. All these 1650GTX laptops will get you +200fps in LoL.

However, if a 1650GTX has either “optimus disabled” or a “MUX Switch enabled”, then you will get very high framerates despite the lack of a good recent CPU. That extra power also makes a HUGE difference in all other games like Call of Duty (at min settings of course).

Because this is the cheapest 1650GTX laptop, it does not have a MUX Switch though.

1650GTX – League of Legends Benchmark

~120fps on Very High Settings out of combat

~111 fps on Very High Settings during a Team Fight

CPU: Core i5 11400H

This CPU is old but not that old. It’s only 2 generations older than the latest Core i5 on Intel Core i5 laptops. Sure, the 14th generation CPUs have been out for a while now but the Core i5 14th gen CPUs are still not widely available on laptops. This CPU is sufficient…it definitely does not bottleneck the 1650GTX as you can see by the super high framerates at the highest settings.

RAM: 8GB vs 16GB (Single Channel)

Now, if you want to increase performance even further, you can install RAM in dual-channel mode. This laptop supports dual-channel mode because it has 8GB of RAM installed in one slot—you only need to install an additional 8GB RAM stick to activate it.

If you’re wondering how dual-channel memory works, it allows the CPU to process data more efficiently by feeding it data simultaneously. Think of it like two car lanes of the same size, compared to a single, narrower lane causing slower traffic.

You can read more about it in my article here.

Display: 144Hz

If you upgrade the RAM, you can easily surpass 150 FPS on this model, despite the lack of a MUX switch, because the CPU is significantly faster than the one used in our benchmark.

It’s very rare for GTX 1650 laptops to have a 144Hz or even 120Hz display unless they’re priced well above $700. If you take some time to browse, you’ll see that this is the best bang-for-your-buck GTX 1650 laptop.

Obviously, if you find either of the other two models in stock (RTX 2050 or RTX 3050) and can afford them, you should grab those instead.

MSI GF63 Thin
PROS CONS
  • Cheapest 1650GTX Laptop
  • Dual Channel RAM available
  • Great Sound Quality  
  • Very Portable
  • Lightweight
  • Supports M.2 Storage Upgrade
 
  • No MUX Switch
  • Very low battery
  • May need a cooler for more demanding games

4. ASUS ZenBook 14

Best Laptop For LoL – MX Series

  Ryzen 5 5500U

  8GB DDR4

   MX 450 2GB vRAM

  256GB PCIe NVMe 4.0 SSD

  14” 60Hz FHD IPS

  4.85lbs

  5 hours

 

This laptop has the weakest GPU on the list and prob (taking away the MX350), the weakest GPU on the market as far as ‘new’ laptops go despite the price being around 550, the same price of a 2050RTX, which is x2-x3 faster.

Why Am I featuring it here?

Because it’s portable and the GPU is fast enough to go past 100fps on high settings with the game. It’s more of a laptop for someone who plays LoL and goes to school and such.

ASUS ZenBook MX450 – League of Legends Benchmarks

As you can see below the 1% lows (lowest fps throughout the game) are around 150fps!

Pretty much the same performance as the 1650gTX and 2050RTX (both which have +50fps).

GPU:MX Series vs 1650GTX

Laptops with MX series GPUs (MX350, MX450, MX550) are all good choices for League of Legends. The game runs well on 2GB VRAM, so even for competitive matches, it should still be enough.

However, be careful—not all MX GPUs are equal. For example, the MX350 performs similarly to integrated GPUs like the RX Vega or AMD Radeon 660M. Depending on the price, they may not be the best choice for League of Legends if you’re overpaying for them.

Obviously, this only matters if you need a portable laptop. MX series laptops typically weigh between 3.5 lbs to 4 lbs, compared to the more powerful GTX 1650 and RTX 2050 laptops, which usually weigh around 5.2 lbs.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500U vs Core i5-1235U

Laptops with MX series GPUs (MX350, MX450, MX550) are all good choices for League of Legends. The game runs well on 2GB VRAM, so even for competitive matches, it should still be enough.

However, be careful—not all MX GPUs are equal. For example, the MX350 performs similarly to integrated GPUs like the RX Vega or AMD Radeon 660M. Depending on the price, they may not be the best choice for League of Legends if you’re overpaying for them.

Obviously, this only matters if you need a portable laptop. MX series laptops typically weigh between 3.5 lbs to 4 lbs, compared to the more powerful GTX 1650 and RTX 2050 laptops, which usually weigh around 5.2 lbs.

Display: 120Hz

Unfortunately, most MX series laptops do not come with a 120Hz display. It’s very rare to find one under $650—in fact, I’ve only seen one in the past four years.

You’ll typically only find 120Hz displays on MX series laptops priced around $800 or higher.

ASUS ZenBook 14
PROS CONS
  • Cheapest dedicated GPU
  • Latest MX GPU
  • Long battery life 
  • Little to no noise
  • Very Portable & somewhat thin
  • Lack lots of ports
  • Weak Sound System
  • RAM & Storage not upgradeable
  • Slightly older CPU

5. Lenovo 82RJ005BUS

Cheap Laptop For League of Legends 2024

  Intel Core i5-1235U

  8GB RAM DDR4

  Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs 

  256GB SSD NVMe PCIe

  14” FHD LCD

  3.3 lbs

  8 hours

This is the cheapest laptop on the list, priced at around $450.

Sure, there are much cheaper laptops that can run League of Legends at very high framerates on lower settings, but this one comes with extra features you can’t ignore.

The biggest advantage? Portability—it weighs only 3.3 lbs while still delivering 90+ FPS on high settings in League of Legends.

Core i5 1235U + Intel Xe Benchmarks

Unfortuantely, there are no benchmarks with League of Legends with this exact same CPU + GPU configuration. The benchmarks below are taken with several other games:

 

The closest configuration would be the Core i5-1240P + Intel Xe, which features the same integrated graphics but with a slightly better CPU.

The benchmarks for that configuration are shown below.

95-100 fps on average on Combat at the highest settings

GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs 

Laptops with a Core i5 have the fastest version of Intel Xe graphics. There are two versions—the weaker one is used in Core i3 laptops, which have a lower number of EUs (Execution Units, basically another name for shaders).

Click here for a complete guide on integrated GPUs and a comparison chart of their performance differences
 

Also, keep in mind that the Intel Iris Xe graphics in this configuration is much faster than the integrated GPUs found in most Core i5 and Ryzen 5 CPUs, offering better performance.

It’s really only outperformed by the integrated GPUs in Core i7 and Ryzen 7 CPUs, but those cost a fortune anyway.

RAM: Dual Channel + 16GB RAM

That laptop is performing very close to the MX550, and it’s not just because of the CPU—it’s because the user has maximized CPU efficiency by installing RAM in dual-channel mode.

More importantly, they have 16GB of RAM. While this may not make a huge difference on laptops with dedicated GPUs, having 16GB RAM is a game-changer for laptops with integrated GPUs like this one.

The reason? With 16GB RAM, the iGPU has more memory headroom to allocate while playing, instead of having to share just 8GB with the CPU, which can create performance bottlenecks.

This Lenovo laptop comes with 8GB of soldered RAM, meaning you can’t replace it. However, the good news is you don’t need to—as long as you add an additional 8GB stick, you can activate dual-channel mode and get 16GB RAM, boosting performance even further.

Lenovo 14
PROS CONS
  • Very portable laptop (3.3lbs)
  • Easy to upgrade RAM & Storage
  • Fast iGPU for Gaming
  • Supports Dual Channel & RAM Upgrades
  • IPS display w/ FHD resolution
  • Can run the game at high settings
  • Relatively expensive
  • Low sound speakers
  • Average Trackpad

If you can’t afford any of the laptops with a dedicated GPU, before trying to find one on your own check out our post “best gaming laptops under 700$“. Any of the models listed there should be good enough for the game because like I said it doesn’t really require anything beyond an entry level dGPU


How To Buy The Best Laptop For League Of Legends

The hardware requirements for LoL are one of the lowest as far as MOBA games is concerned (Dota 2 is more hardware demanding) and the game is playable with just over 20 fps. 

Obviously, even if you’re on a budget, you don’t want to aim for the minimum requirements simply because you’re not going to get a consistent flow of framerate which will definitely drop substantially on group fights as everyone is popping up their ULTS.

Now, most modern laptops (even those around 300-400 dollars) will have FAR more power than the minimum requirements.

So the question becomes at what point does hardware starts giving me diminishing returns so that I don’t end up overspending for a GPU and a CPU that’s just overkill for the game.

1.GPU

It all basically comes down to the GPU. You don’t want GPUs weaker than an integrated GPU like the Intel HD 620 nor do you want a GPU that’s more powerful than the dedicated 3050Ti RTX or its equivalents.

Let us go over the two types of GPUs. Basically if you’re on a budget, you’re going to have to settle for integrated GPUs so you must reading the following sub-section. If you’ve got a budget over 550 dollars then just read the Dedicated GPU section which follows you don’t have to settle for an integrated GPU with that much money.

1.1 Integrated Cards

All laptops and desktops that have a CPU come with an integrated GPU by default. The more modern the CPU, the more powerful (and recent) the integrated GPU will be.

Because CPUs have been progressively gotten faster so have iGPUs. Today, iGPUs aren’t just useful for 2D simple pac-man landmine games or 10 year old franchises, some as you’ll see soon have the power of entry level dedicated GPUs thus they can let you play some AAA games at high settings and definitely MOST AAA games at low settings. 

Low-Medium Settings

Since LoL, isn’t really a GPU demanding game, all you need to play the game at 60 fps low settings is an integrated GPU made within the past 5 years. These are usually written as: Intel HD 5XXX,6XXX. AMD Radeon Vega X, AMD Radeon Vega RX

Some examples are:

Iris 550, Iris Pro 520, HD 620 ,HD 520, HD 530, HD 530, HD 550. Radeon R5, Radeon R3, Radeon Vega 3

Now if we are talking about MODERN integrated GPUs that will MATCH the performance of dedicated GPUs thus letting you play at high settings w/ +60fps:

Intel Xe*, AMD Radeon RX Vega 7, AMD Radeon RX Vega 8
 

These last ones are only found on 11th gen Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs and AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPUs.  They’re also found on the latest 12th gen Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs like the Core i5-1240P and Core i7-1260P. 

You’d be better off getting these “latest” iGPUs off 5th gen Ryzen 5 or 11th Core i5 laptop rather than Core i7/Ryzen 7 or 12th gen CPUs because they’ll be much cheaper and you can get a much more powerful “dedicated” GPU for the price of 12th gen Intel Core or 6th gen Ryzen laptops.

1.2 Dedicated Graphics Cards

What makes dedicated GPUs so special is that they have their own vRAM. Although integrated GPUs have also their own “RAM” or vRAM, they don’t have nearly as much as dedicated GPUs do.

Obviously, I’m talking about relatively MODERN dedicated GPUs. Recent integrated GPUs will easily outperform older dedicate dGPUs because they’ll basically have as much vRAM.

The following two tables are all dedicated GPUs you’ll find online made between 2016-2022. I’ve excluded older GPUs for the forementioned reasons.

NVIDIA Cores vRAM Speed
MX150 384 2GB 1532
MX250 384 2GB 1582
MX230 256 2GB 1519
MX350 640 2GB 1354
MX450 896 2GB 1580
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
1080 2560 8GB 1733
2070 2304 8GB 1620 
2080 2944 8GB 1710
3060 3584 8GB 1780
4050 2560 6GB 2370
3070 5120 8GB 1620
4060 3072 8GB 27380
3080 6144 16GB 1710
3070Ti 5888  8GB 1485
3080Ti 7424 16GB 1590

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)

Red GPUs

You must stay clear from these. It’s not that they’re bad but you can get the same performance with laptops that have integrated GPUs like the Vega 7 or Intel Xe we went over which are usually much cheaper. If you can get these “red” GPUs cheaper than Intel Xe or Vega 7 laptops, then by all means grab them.  You will also hit 60fps on high settings with these.

Blue GPUs

Ideally you want to grab one of thes guys. They have the best “performance/money” ratio that is you’ll only be paying 50-100 more bucks than what you’d pay for integrated GPU laptops and you’ll get 80-120fps on very high settings on group fights and +120fps just walking around the map.

Orange GPUs

They just sit in the middle of blue and red GPUs, it’s going to be a tough call to decide for one of these because prices are usually only 50 bucks less than laptops with the blue GPUs.

Green GPUs

This is as much power as you’d want to buy for the game. Anything more is just plain useless. We’ve benchmarked a laptop with 3050Ti RTX only to get slightly more framerates than a 1650GTX GPU. We had to pay +100 bucks for one. Though we’re getting ~150fps and 130fps which is the ideal number for world cup competitions , it’s really up to you whether or not you want this much power.

Pink GPUs

Overkill for League of Legends, yes you will get +200 framerates on very high settings but how is that any more useful than 150fps? In fact, your machine can’t display that many framerates anyways. It’s usually capped at 120-144 fps and most laptops will only display 60 fps even though your GPU can output far more than that. We’ll discuss this later just avoid these unless you’re playing other AAA games.

Older GPUs

I did not least older GPUs because you just won’t find them unless you shop on eBay or Alibaba. But just so you know these can also get you up to 80-120fps on low-med settings. Examples that I’ve verified are something like the NVIDIA GTX 840M or the AMD R7 M260X.

NVIDIA vs AMD

You’ll find people swearing by NVIDIA graphics over AMD. I also kind of agree with that but not necessarily for this game. LoL is one of the least hardware demanding games so if you find a laptop with an AMD dedicated GPU that’s within your budget and you can’t seem to afford the NVIDIA counterpart (shown in the table with the same colors) by all means grab it.

Just be sure you’re getting a relatively modern AMD GPU that’s at least more powerful than the Intel Xe unless you find it at a much cheaper price.

CPU

When you shop for laptops, CPUs isn’t something you want to focus on so much as GPUs.

If you grab a powerful integrated or dedicated GPU, you’ll ALWAYS find it embedded with a nice and fast CPU. You’re never going to find a ridiculously powerful GPU paired with a weakling CPU.

Now…

It is true that CPU will take the load off the dedicated GPU and also increase framerates thus if you’re nitty picky about it and want as much framerates as you can get out of your budget (even if its just +5-10 more framerates) then yes you need to know a few things or two about CPUs for gaming.

What’s more important?

Clock Frequency vs Multi-Core

It’s pretty simple really. Given two laptops with the same dedicated GPU but different CPUs you just have to pick the ones with more “clock speed” performance.

Number of cores doesn’t really help no matter how much developers tout their “multi-core optimization”. 

How to pick a CPU with more clock speed performance? 

With this in mind, when you shop for laptops, thus it is wise for you to pick the CPU with more clock speed (this is just the number after GHz. Ex: Core i5 1235U has “4.4” GHz).

Now this only works if we are talking about the same brand. If you want to compare how much a CPU from AMD stands against a CPU from Intel you can’t rely on numbers because lower-clocked “on paper” AMD CPUs will outperform Intel Core CPUs with more “on-paper” clock speed.

I recommend you use notebookcheck for that and use the following table to get a sense of how they stand against each other. 

*CPUs with the same color will have about the same gaming performance but for exact “benchmark” numbers and details head over to notebookcheck.

CPU Base Turbo Cores
i3 8130U 2.2 3.4 2
i3 8145U 2.1 3.9 2
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 8265U 1.6 4.9 4
i5 8250U 1.6 3.4 4
i5 1115G4 2.4 4.2 4
i5 8300H 2.3 4 4
i7 8550U 1.8 4 4
i5 1235U 3.3 4.4 10
i7 1165G7 2.8 4.7 4
i5 1240P 3.3 4.4 12
i5-11300H 2.6 4.4 4
i5 11260H 2.6 4.4 6
i7 8750H 2.2 4.1 6
i5 13420H 1.5 4.6 8
i5 13500H 1.5 4.9 8
i5 12540H 2.6 4.4 8
i7 10750H 2.6 5 8
i7-11375H 3.3 5 4
i7 1260P 3.4 4.7 12
i7-11370H 3.3 4.8 4
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
i7-12800H
3.7
4.8
6/8
i7-12700H
3.5
4.7
6/8
i7 13620H 1.8 4.9 10/16
i7 13650HX 3.6 4.9 10/16
i9 12900H
1.8
5
6/8

CPU Base (GHz) Turbo (GHz) Cores(#)
Ryzen 9 6980HX  3.3 5 8
Ryzen 9 6900HS
3.3
4.9
8
Ryzen 7 6800HS 3.2 4.7 8
Ryzen 9 5900HX 3.3 4.6 8
Ryzen 9 4800HS 2.2 4.4 8
Ryzen 7 7745HX 3.6 5.1 8
Ryzen 7 6800H 3.2 4.7 8
Ryzen 7 5800H 3.3 4.4 8
Ryzen 7 3750H 2.3 4 4
Ryzen 7 5700U 1.8 4.3 8
Ryzen 5 5600H 3.3 4.2 6
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 7520U 2.8 4.3 4
Ryzen 5 5500U 2.1 4.4 6
Ryzen 5 3500U 2.1 3.7 4
Ryzen 3 7320U 3.4 4.1 4
Ryzen 3 5300U 2.6 3.8 8
Ryzen 3 3300U 2.1 3.5 4

Streaming + Insane Multitasking

I personally will not throw in some insane multitasking + streaming with weaker CPUs that will just generate way too much heat and reduce the lifespan of your laptop substantially. In this scenario, it may be wise to invest on a multicore CPU (6+ cores). 

Note that by insane multitasking I mean throwing some heavy duty programs like TWO games simultaneously while web browsing chrome with 30 tabs and streaming…etc. Otherise,  simple multitasking like web browsing | youtube + LoL will be fine with any CPU with any amount of cores (even 2 will be okay).

RAM

8GB vs 16GB

8GB is standard for gaming. Ever since the latest Windows 10 updates require at least 3.5GB, for anything you do even simple 2D Games you need +4GB RAM. The next after 4GB is 8GB and that’s plenty for LoL and all the multitasking you’ll be throwing around.

16GB becomes useful only if you’re streaming+ playing LoL (even then it’s kind of debateable as most will be fine with 8GB).

Integrated GPU Needs more RAM

If you’ve got a gmaing laptop with a dedicated GPU, it’ll have it’s reserved “RAM” to run graphics also called “vRAM”. Integrated GPU only have so little thus they will use “RAM” to make up for it.  

Though it is not required for you to get more RAM just for your integrated GPU, having more than 8GB RAM will substantially increase framerates. The next after 8GB is 12GB (8GB+4GB).

However, it is a good idea to get 16GB instread of 12 for the following reason:

Dual Channeled RAM

Whether you’ve got a dedicated or integrated GPU, dual-channel will ALSO increase framerates slightly. I have another post on what dual-channel RAM is, check it our if you’re interested in knowing what it means.

But it basically means having two rams of the same size, speed, and if possible brand:

x2 4GB RAM for 8GB and x2 8GB for 16GB

Storage

Size

LoL only takes up 12GB and with patches and updates it might go as high as 20GB.

So you don’t really have to worry much about size, it’s only going to be an issue if you want to install several triple AAA games which I’m sure you do. If you want to play say 5 titles (LoL, CS:GO, Overwatch and so on) then you need at least 256GB.

If you want to install as many titles to your heart’s content, then at least 512GB.

Type: SSD vs HDD

It’s actually more important you get yourself an SSD. Virtually all laptops (modern) have an SSD. If you’re buying an older machine or building a desktop, make sure you get at least a 128GB SSD. You can install an extra HDD to act as a repository for any heavy files but the game and Windows must be installed on the SSD so everything’s just blazing fast when you turn on your computer and when you launch the game (it won’t affect framerates but it’ll load the game and maps faster).

Display

Resolution FHD

You need a FHD display to play the game at FHD (1080p) max settings. Virtually every laptop (available as new in 2022) with recent hardware (above 350$) will have a FHD display. There are some oddballs that will only have a HD+ or even HD display so watch out for that.

Refresh Rates?

There’s an issue with MOST gaming laptops (even modern gaming laptops) and that is their refresh rate, they’re usually capped at 60Hz.

What does this mean? It means that even though your GPU will output way more than 60 fps (~+100fps), your eyes will only see 60fps on the screen.

The counter will say 120fps but the smoothness will not be anywhere like 120fps because the screen can only show you (or refresh) 60 frames per second.

120Hz / 144Hz: It’s not really a requirement to get a 120Hz or 144Hz because having more framerates than what your display can show you is still useful, that is, more framerates means less lag and less chances of crashing it also means less input delay. 

However, if you want the game to feel more “realistic” , that is, you want movements and motions to look much more like the real world, then yes you want a 120+Hz display. I’d say up to 144Hz is good, anything more is nice but extremely expensive.

 Comments?

If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or recommendations about how to find the best laptop for league of legends. Please let us know in the comments below!

 

Author Profile

Miguel Salas
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.

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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