Some gaming laptops make sacrifices to offer higher-end silicon in a cheaper package. Perhaps the RAM is single stick or not particularly high capacity. Or the screen looks a bit 'meh'. Sometimes you'll even get a much larger chassis than you were expecting for your money.
That's not the case with this Gigabyte Aorus 15P YD gaming laptop. It delivers in looks, performance, and a well-rounded specs list. And it's going for a good deal less money than usual: $1,899.99 at Newegg.
First and foremost, let's talk about the GPU. The Aorus 15P comes with Nvidia's RTX 3080 mobile chip with 8GB of graphics memory. That's not the full memory loadout that could be paired with that GPU, but it's the more sensible option when it comes to performance-per-dollar. It's also rated to a 130W TDP, which is right up there for laptop GPU power draw. That's a good thing for performance, perhaps not so much so its battery. The 15P's 99Wh battery is on the larger side to compensate at the very least.
The CPU is Intel's Core i7 11800H, which is a last-gen part but nonetheless a good one. It's an eight-core and 16 thread chip, so there's a lot to play with and plenty more for productivity, too. It's certainly helped along in that regard by the overly generous dollop of DDR4 memory onboard, at 32GB.
All of which is helpful when you're trying to hit 300Hz in-game, which is what you want to aim for with a swift IPS panel like the one in the Aorus 15P.
This laptop might show up as backordered, but new stock is expected today, May 25. So if that holds up you shouldn't have to wait a day for despatch.
If you want more of a budget machine, check out our recently updated guide to the latest cheap gaming laptop deals. I found a couple of really cheap Dell laptops going for well under $1,000, but you will have to make some of those sacrifices I mentioned at the top of this story.
Otherwise, we have a guide to the best gaming laptops we've tested recently you could check out. The Razer Blade 15 tops the charts, but you really are paying a premium for one of those machines.
