Friday, December 13, 2024
Laptops

5 Best Laptops For League of Legends in 2024

League of Legends is the top most played game as of 2024.

Since the company aims to reach everybody (as you can see by the ads) the hardware requirements are pretty low as you can see below:

The minimum requirements more or less translate to a cheap 350 dollar laptop with either a Core i3 or Ryzen 3 CPU.

So yeah…

Almost ANY laptop can run LoL as long as you set settings to low (with a decent 80fps).

Now…

This post is about the best laptop of league of legends which is going to be a laptop that can run the game at the highest settings with high framerates and no framedrops or lag spikes especially during group combats.

The laptop above has a 3050Ti GPU and can run the game at 130fps on average at the highest settings THROUGHOUT the match even when being   entangled in a crazy teamfight where everyone’s popping out their ULTS.

That laptop is around 600 dollars.

However…

You don’t have to spend 600 dollars to play the game at the highest settings with zero chances of crashing. Truth is, as long as you find a laptop with a 4GB vRAM GPU, you should get the same performance.

I myself…

Play with the 3050Ti RTX now. But I used a 940MX (this is 5 year old GPU) and although there was a huge difference in framerates, both were stable throughout a match at high settings. 

Best Laptop Specs For League of Legends

That’s really all you need to do, find a laptop with a 4GB vRAM GPU or a 2GB vRAM, then you don’t have to worry about performance issues.

The only problem I had to deal after was the amount afkers and rage quitters as I reached level 25.

League of Legends Hardware Requirements

Before we go over the best laptops for league of legends, let us be a little more specific:

These are the minimum hardware requirements taken out of LoL’s official website:

Minimum: 2GHz processor, Intel HD 5XXX graphics card and 2GB RAM.

This will get you 50fps at low settings. Not bad at all but a bit risky for group encounters.

Pretty much any laptop within the past 10 years will get you that performance.  Modern budget laptops (within the past 3 years), as long as you upgrade RAM to 8GB, have x3 times more power than that.

Recommended Requirements

If you’ve got 500 dollars or more: you can get a laptop with a dedicated GPU and that will be all you need. Not all dedicated GPUs are fast though, pick one of the following:

MX350, MX450, MX550 , 1650GTX, 2050RTX or a 3050Ti

You don’t need to invest more on the higher 3060RTX, 4050 RTX, etc, unless you’re playing other games.

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

Pick the most recent Core i3/Ryzen 3 or Core i5/Ryzen 5 CPU you can find under 450 dollars.

The latest the CPU, the faster the iGPU  (some approach dedicated GPU performance). Ex  Radeon Vega 5, Vega 7 Intel Xe, Radeon 660M, etc. If you can upgrade RAM to 16GB, performance will be pretty close to 2GB vRAM dedicated GPUs for reasons I’ll explain later.

Top 5 Best Laptops for League Of Legends (LoL)

League of Legends is the biggest PC game in the world because of the ads and the low hardware requirements. Because of that millions of people are able to play the game on pretty much all laptops with 8GB RAM. 

Most of the laptops here however will be tailored for competitive gaming (150+ fps & high graphic settings). Sure they’ll be expensive but I’ll include a few budget options down the list.

The following laptops are available in the United States.  If the links do not take you to the same model (for those outside the US), copy the models name and paste it on the google search OR check out the alternatives I’ll mention. If you still can’t find a laptop, read the last section where I give you more tips.


1. HP Victus Gaming Laptop

The Best Laptop For League of Legends – 3050Ti

  Intel Core i5-13420H

  8GB DDR4 RAM

   GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe SSD

  15 ” 144Hz Full HD IPS

  5.10lbs

  3 hours

This is the most powerful laptop on the list and it’s a little overkill for League of Legends and guess what? It’s not the most expensive laptop on the list.

As of early 2024, it is on a good deal! The only 3050Ti laptop with a 13th generation Core i5 CPU (the latest) for less than 600 dollars.

Let’s check the performance first:

League of Legend – 3050Ti RTX BenchMarks

~135fps (Up 145fps) on crazy team fights at very high Settings

Unfortunately, there are no benchmarks with this exact model as of 2024, however, the benchmarks taken above should give you an idea of what performance to expect (it shoudl be higher since the Victus has better hardware).

GPU: 3050Ti RTX

The laptop I used to run the benchmarks was the Lenovo Gaming Ideapad 3 which you can see in the alternatives table down below, it’s got the same dedicated GPU (3050Ti) running at 75W but with a different CPU.

You should however expect the same performance from every 3050Ti laptop. I wouldn’t worry about the rest of the hardware, they make little difference (about 10-15fps). 

Notice however how EASY it is for this GPU to run the game at the HIGHEST settings, it’s only using 20W max and this means very very low temperatures which translates to a long lifespan despite playing the game everyday for several hours non-stop.

This is why I said it’s a little overkill for LoL. However it definitely comes useful for all other games too. 

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

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

Now you can see why it’s pretty redundant to go after higher GPUs just for LoL.

MUX Switch & Wattage: 3050Ti 

When shopping for 3050Ti laptops, you don’t need to worry about what wattage they’re running (TGP), they all run at 75W and can be overclocked to 85W. For LoL, even if you find one running at low wattage, it doesn’t make much difference, if any.

As for MUX Switch, there’s no MUX Switch on most 3050Ti laptops with 12th or 11th gen Core i5 CPUs (as well 5th and 6th gen Ryzen CPUs). They’re mostly found on 13th gen Intel Core  or 7th gen Ryzen laptops

Thus the HP Victus  has a MUX Switch which you have to activate through the BIOS. If you don’t know what MUX Switch is , please read my post here.

In summary, it should boost performance by 15-20% compared to other 3050Ti laptops with no MUX Switch.

CPU: Intel Core i5-13420H

The cool thing about the HP Victus is not just the 3050TI GPU with a MUX Switch, despite the price, it has the best CPU out of the Core i5 and Ryzen 5 series found on 3050Ti Laptops.

The above benchmarks have been taken out of notebookchecks.

I used single clock benchmarks because LoL runs mostly on a single-core (thus more cores or better multi-core performance don’t really matter when it comes to performance). Notice how even the 7th generation Ryzen 5 CPU is beaten by the 13th Core i5 (it’s a slightly different CPU but the results should be the same).

Display:  144Hz

Most 3050Ti laptops will come with 120Hz or 144Hz displays the only problem is that they usually cost at least 750 dollars. The HP Victus gets you a 144Hz display under 600 dollars and you’ll obviously find it useful for LoL because you’ll definitely hit past 140fps at the highest settings.

 Alternatives

You are not meant to consider all these alternatives, it’s just so you see the average price of the 3050Ti laptops. If the HP Victus runs out of stock (very likely by the time you read this) you can buy the ones highlighted they are the best next deals:

Link GPU CPU Refresh Rate Storage Price
Acer Nitro 5 3050Ti i5 10300H 144Hz 256GB 744
Acer Nitro 5 3050Ti i5 12500H 144Hz 512GB 689
Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3050Ti AMD Ryzen 5 6600H 120Hz 256GB 729
HP Victus 3050Ti i5-12500H 60Hz 512GB 698

HP Victus Gaming Laptop
PROS CONS
  • Cheapest 3050Ti Laptop
  • Keyboard styled for gaming
  • 144Hz Display
  • MUX Switch
  • Low temperatures
  • Best Core i5 CPU as of 2024
  • Easy to upgrade
  • Dual-Channel RAM available
  • Supports M.2 & 2.5” Storage Upgrades
 

  • Heavy
  • Very few ports
  • Very low battery 
  • Loud if running at full wattage. 

2. HP Victus TPN-Q279

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 laptop is only about 40 bucks cheaper than the first laptop, there’s going to be a lot of performance loss but it’s still plenty fast to play Competitive games at very high settings (as you saw  the first laptop being a little overkill).

League of Legends – 2050RTX & 1650GTX Benchmarks

Unfortunately, there are no benchmarks with the 2050RTX, however the 2050RTX is VERY VERY close in performance to the 1650GTX, so you can get a good idea of what framerates you’ll get at high settings by checking 1650GTX benchmarks.

~120fps exploring at the highest settings and 100fps on group fights at the highest settings

GPU:  2050RTX

The main ONLY real difference in graphics between this 2050RTX and 1650GTX will be the fact that this GPU is an RTX GPU and thus you can activate RTX graphics mode on in LoL.

RTX Mode 

For example this ability will look different with a 2050RTX as opposed to a 1650GTX despite running at the same framerate.

You can see how the RTX mode affects all other aspects of the game as shown below:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

This CPU is not faster than the Core i5 13th gen CPU of the first laptop, nonetheless is still faster than any other Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU from previous generations. What’s really cool about Ryzen 5 CPUs like this one is that they’re VERY GOOD choices for streaming.

Ryzen CPUs are known to have BETTER multi-core performance than their Core i5 counterparts. That means most cores in a Ryzen 5 CPU will be running closer to the advertised clock speed.

If you’re planning on streaming and you ALSO run lots of background programs, it may be a better choice to grab a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 of the latest generation (7th gen).

Display: 144Hz

Luckily, this laptop also has a 144Hz display, despite being a cheaper replica of the first model. 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 you’ll definitely be able to appreciate every framerate.

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

The model I’m featuring here is selling for 530 dollars or so. You can see down below it’s  the cheapest choice as of 2024.

Link CPU GPU Display Price
Lenovo Ideapad Gaming R5 5600H 1650GTX 120Hz 600
Lenovo 340 i5 9300H 1650GTX 60Hz 713
HP Victus R5 7535HS 2050RTX 144Hz 575

HP Victus TPN-Q279
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 

3. HP Victus 15-fa0031dx

Good Laptop For League of Legends – 1650GTX

  Intel Core i5-12450H

  8GB DDR4

  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15.6” 144Hz FHD IPS

  4.10lbs

  3 hours

It is very likely both the 3050Ti and 2050RTX versions of the HP Victus run out of stock by the time you read this and if you cannot afford any of the alternatives that have either of those GPUs. Your best next choice is looking for a 1650GTX.

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

When you shop for 1650GTX laptops for League of Legends, you have to understand the concept of MUX Switch & Optimus, if you want to get the BEST performance out of a 1650GTX. You can read more about what these mean on my article here.

Don’t get me wrong, ALL 1650GTX are good for competitive gaming. However, some 1650GTX laptops, which have “Optimus disabled” or “have a MUX Switch installed” will perform about 20% faster (this translates to lots of more framerates).

While that may not be so useful for LoL (since you’re hitting easily 120fps at high settings), it does make a huge difference in more graphically demanding games like Call of Duty.

HP Victus 1650GTX

Unfortunately, the HP Victus, does not have a MUX Switch and it does not disable Optimus. Thus the performance you’ll get out of it will be the usual performance of most 1650GTX laptops as shown below:

1650GTX – League of Legends Benchmark

 

~120fps on Very High Settings out of combat

~111 fps on Very High Settings during a Team Fight

Again not bad!

CPU: Core i5 12540H

Now obviously, the performance is going to be a bit higher (I’d say by about 10-15 fps) because the above benchmark was taken with not only a much older CPU but a Ryzen CPU which is more focused on multi-core performance.

RAM: 8GB vs 16GB (Single Channel)

Now if you want to increase performance even more you can install RAM in Dual-Channel. This laptop supports dual-channel mode because it has 8GB RAM installed in one slot, you only have to install an additional 8GB RAM stick to have dual-channel mode activated.

If you want to know how dual-channel works, it basically makes the CPU process data much more efficiently by feeding it data simultaneously, think of two car lanes of the same size as opposed to one lane being shorter than the other. You can read more about it in my article here.

Display: 144Hz

If you do the RAM upgrade, you can easily go past 150fps on this model despite the lack of MUX Switch because the CPU is much much faster than the used for our benchmark. It is very rare for 1650GTX laptops to have a 144Hz or even a 120Hz display unless they’re well above 700 dollars. If you browse around for a while, you’ll find that this is the best bang for your buck 1650GTX laptop. Obviously, if you find the other two ON STOCK (either 2050RTX or 3050RTX) and can afford them, you should grab those instead.

HP Victus 15-fa0031dx
PROS CONS
  • Cheapest 1650GTX Laptop
  • Upgradeable to 64GB RAM
  • Great Sound Quality & Resolution
  • Easy to upgrade RAM & Storage
  • Dual-Channel RAM available
  • Supports M.2 & 2.5” Storage Upgrades
 

  • No MUX Switch
  • Very low battery
  • Heavy 
  • Somewhat high temperatures

4. HP 15 Laptop

Portable Laptop For League of Legends

  Intel Core i5-1235U

  16GB DDR4

   MX 550 2GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15.6” 60Hz FHD IPS

  3.86lbs

  5 hours

This is going to be interesting to you. This laptop is weaker than all the other laptops we went over because it has a weaker dedicated GPU with only 2GB vRAM. However, it’s more expensive.

Why?

Because it’s portable and the GPU is fast enough to go past 100fps on high settings with the game as shown below:

ASUS ZenBook MX550 – League of Legends Benchmarks

 

As you can see in the video a MX550 gets you on average 100fps even while in combat.

GPU:MX Series vs 1650GTX

Basically, laptops with GPUs from the MX Series (350, 450, 550) are all good choices for League of Legends. Because the game really runs well on 2GB vRAM so even if you’re using it for competitive matches, it shoudl still be enough.

You have to be careful however. Not all MX GPUs are equal, those like the MX350 have performances that approach the performance of integrated GPUs like the RX Vega, AMD Radeon 660M, etc. So depending on the price they may not be such a good choice for League of Legends if you’re paying too much for them.

Obviously, this only makes sense if you need a portable laptop, MX Series laptops weigh anywhere frmo 3.5lb to 4lb as opposed to the more powerful 1650GTX & 2050RTX laptops which are usually around 5.2lbs .

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

Laptops with any of the MX Series GPUs always (with a very few rare and more expensive exceptions) come with a low voltage “U” processors. These CPUs although much weaker than the “H” (which stand for high performance) are used here to make the laptop more portable since they do not hit such high clock speeds all the time, they do not need a good cooling system.

If you want to get the best bang for your buck, you should only focus on the MX GPU. Most of these CPUs do not make much difference when it comes to increasing performance on League of Legends, they will be VERY minimal, if ANY. I would focus on the cheapest one with the best MX GPU.

Display: 120Hz

Unfortunately, most MX series laptops do not come with a 120Hz display. It is very rare to find a 120Hz display (I have seen one in 4 years) on a MX laptop under 650 dollars. You’ll usually find them on laptops around 800 and above. 

Alternatives

If this model is out of stock, please check out these alternatives:

Link GPU Name Storage RAM Price
Dell Vostro
(120Hz)
MX550 i7-1255U 512GB 32GB 789
HP 15 MX550 i5-1235U 512GB 8GB 625
ASUS ZenBook 14 MX450 Ryzen 5500U 256GB 8GB 539
ASUS ZenBook MX350 Ryzen 4500U 256GB 8GB 550

HP 15 Laptop
PROS CONS
  • Cheapest dedicated GPU
  • Latest MX GPU
  • 12th gen Core i5 CPU
  • Long battery life 
  • Little to no noise
  • Very Portable & somewhat thin
  • Lack lots of ports
  • Weak Sound System
  • RAM & Storage not upgradeable

5. Lenovo Ideapad 3i

Cheap Laptop For League of Legends Under 500

  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 (around 450 dollars).

There are MUCH cheaper laptops that can run League of Legends with very high framerates at lower settings than this one sure but this one has a lot of extra good stuff you cannot ignore. The main one that comes to mind is PORTABILITY, only weights around 3.3lbs while still pulling off 90+fps on high settings with 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 is pretty much 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 highiest settings

GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs 

Laptops with a Core i5 have the fastest version of the Intel Xe graphics, there are two verisons. The weaker version is used on Core i3 laptops which have a lower number of “EUs” basically another name for shaders. Also do note that the Intel Iris Xe graphics here is much faster thus has better performance than all the other options found on Core i5 and Ryzen 5 CPUs. 

It’s really only superseeded by the integrated GPU found on Core i7 and Ryzen 7 CPUs but those cost an eyeball anyways.

RAM: Dual Channel + 16GB RAM

Now that laptop is having a performance that’s very close to the MX550 and that’s not mostly due to the CPU but because  he has MAXIMIZED CPU efficiency by installing RAM in dual-channel mode.

But more importantly he has 16GB RAM, while this may not make a difference on laptops with dedicated GPUs, having 16GB RAM makes a HUGE difference on laptops with integrated GPUs like this one. The reason is that there’s lots of RAM headroom for the iGPU to use and have allocated while playing the game. As opposed to sharing 8GB RAM with the CPU.

This Lenovo Laptop has 8GB RAM installed and soldered so you cannot replace it but the good news is that you don’t have to as long as you add an additional 8GB RAM you can activate dual-channel mode and have 16GB RAM too to boost up performance even highier.

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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