10 Best Laptop For Game Development 2022 – Reviews & Guide
If you’re a game developer who wants to make the most of your equipment, you need the best laptop for game development.
The hardware inside a laptop will determine its capabilities when it comes to developing games. More powerful hardware means better performance and higher resolutions, so it’s important to select a laptop that can handle the workload, especially if you plan on using your device for gaming too.
If you’re a game developer who wants to make the most of your equipment, you need the best laptop for game development.
The hardware inside a laptop will determine its capabilities when it comes to developing games. More powerful hardware means better performance and higher resolutions, so it’s important to select a laptop that can handle the workload, especially if you plan on using your device for gaming too.
1. Acer Predator Helios 300
| Series | PH315-53-72XD |
| Brand | Acer |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Gaming |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
The graphics are nothing to sneeze at either. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 is massive for its power level. The processor will process the graphics with lightning-fast speed levels, enabling you to work on 3D models, draw up blueprints, and use programs with ease. The laptop additionally has 16GB DDR4 memory included. This makes running programs very easy and efficient, so they do not lag or freeze during use.
2. MacBook Pro
| Model Name | MacBook Pro |
| Brand | Apple |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Business |
| Screen Size | 16 Inches |
| Operating System | Mac OS |
Thinking of picking up a MacBook? You’re in luck because the mid-2011 MacBook Pro boasts over 40 years of Apple innovation. This machine has specifications to keep you operating at peak performance while developing games. It comes with plenty of storage for your data, too, with up to 750GB of hard disk space. With this much room, you can make sure your assets are safe should you work on massive projects. Perhaps one of the greatest features is its GPU, which is twice as fast as its predecessor.
3. Asus Zenbook Pro Duo
| Series | ZenBook Pro Duo |
| Brand | Computer Upgrade King |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro |
| Human Interface Input | Touchscreen |
This laptop is great if you will be developing games that need lots of rendering work with multiple resources running simultaneously. This model hits the ground running with a powerful Core i9 processor. A CPU with this kind of capability will let you run multiple systems and development engines smoothly.
Game Development software needs a strong CPU to run the systems properly and this laptop delivers. I was able to run Unity, Maya, and Unreal Engine 4 all at the same time without any troubles at all. This computer also has an impressive video card so you can see how 3D models look when rendered in real-time. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have textures or they still look like a bitmap image.
4. HP Spectre X360
| Series | HP Spectre |
| Brand | HP |
| Specific Uses For Product | Business, Education, Performance, Projects, Media, Home |
| Screen Size | 13.3 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
The HP Spectre X360 is specifically built towards the gaming industry. The hood is hand-polished with copper to give it a sleek look and feel. The natural aluminum shell is brushed inside to give it that rugged durability that developers need in their laptops. With this in mind, let’s talk about what makes the HP Spectre X360 stand out for game developers when compared to other gaming laptops on the market.
5. Gigabyte Aero 15
| Series | AERO 15 KB |
| Brand | GIGABYTE |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Gaming |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
The Gigabyte Aero 15 has a reasonable price tag of $1899, which is surprising for a gaming laptop with similar specs to Alienware’s 15 R3. Another great feature that the Aero 15 comes preloaded with is Hyper Master Technology. This allows you to either overclock or underclock your CPU, GPU, and memory to squeeze every drop of power out of your laptop without worrying about damaging it.
6. Lenovo Legion Y540
| Series | Lenovo Legion |
| Brand | Lenovo |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
The new Lenovo Legion series may be the sign of things to come. A thin and light design with aggressive shapes is a departure from the standard bulky box that we have been used to when it comes to gaming laptops. Perhaps even more important is that, unlike their competitors, the CPU is not just under-powered for a gaming laptop but underpowered altogether. In other words, they have opted for a CPU that makes sense in a laptop instead of a CPU that they have to overclock just to play games or develop software.
7. MSI GS75 Stealth
| Series | GS75 Stealth 10SF-609 |
| Brand | MSI |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal, Gaming, Business |
| Screen Size | 17.3 Inches |
| Operating System | Win 10 Pro |
When choosing the best laptop for game development, I didn’t just consider the laptop’s physical performance. I considered what was inside it. This model comes with an Intel Core i7 processor and 32 GB of RAM. Once you load your game files on this laptop, you can expect to remain smooth throughout the game development process. The Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics card offers plenty of power for complex game creation. Plus, there is three USB ports total including two USB 3.1 ports and one USB-C port. Keep in mind that this unit does not come with a built-in CD or DVD drive because most software developers download software from the internet now instead of buying disks from a store.
8. Razer Blade Pro 17
| Series | Blade Pro |
| Brand | Razer |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Gaming |
| Screen Size | 17.3 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
Now sizing this many pixels on a screen is a challenge in itself. I’m assuming the Razer Blade Pro 17 does in fact run 4K and not one of those extra-high resolutions like 8K or 10K. It would be worth it to do the math and see if this 10th generation Intel Core i7 can handle 8 kW of graphics processing. The biggest problem with getting your hands on a laptop that has a 10k resolution is that it has to do the rendering of the screen on the GPU, which would not be efficient with how these processors are made. If they did somehow manage to install a supercomputer-type processor, then the battery life would likely be awful.
9. Microsoft Surface Book
| Series | Surface Book 2 |
| Brand | Microsoft |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal, gaming, business |
| Screen Size | 13.5 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro |
The Surface Book laptop is made for creators. It comes with a stylus pen and encourages the user to challenge himself to his artistic potential. Since I am a designer, I find this terminology intriguing. However, maybe you are not a designer? That’s okay because these top laptop reviews are still useful to you! If you want to be able to create projects beyond writing papers or making spreadsheets, consider the Surface Book.
10. Razer Blade 15
| Series | Blade 15 |
| Brand | Razer |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Gaming |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
If you have been looking for a laptop to use as a developer, but have been turned away from those big-name laptops because of their monstrous size, you will want to know about the Razer Blade 15. That is a model that’s going to be hard not to consider if you are a gamer or a designer looking for a portable device. This is the Blade 15, and it just made my job here much easier. For those of you who might not exactly know what this laptop is about, let’s speed run through this review and cover the basics you need to know before buying this laptop.