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The best budget gaming laptops for 2025

Here's a list of the best budget gaming laptops you can buy right now, as chosen by Engadget editors.

We'd recommend bumping up to the $1,000 model with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 165Hz 1080p screen with NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology, ensuring high fps and smooth gaming performance. Side note: Acer's Nitro 16 may also be worth considering if it dips below $1,000, since it features newer CPUs and GPUs and improved Wi-Fi capabilities for better online gaming. Under the hood, it still packs enough graphics power to handle modern titles, featuring an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, NVIDIA’s RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB of RAM and SSD storage of up to 4TB.

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