Hey, looking for the answer if gaming laptops are good for programming?Welcome to Roomkit. We will discuss this here to get you the right conclusion. See, gaming laptops come with very powerful CPU and GPU, high amount of RAM and a great ventilation system for high level cooling. Not only this, an awesome display with colorful keyboard also make it look great. Long story short, gaming laptops are highly advanced super powerful machines to do high end tasks.
Now comes the real question “are gaming laptops good for programming?” The answer is, “it depends”.
It depends on what kind of a programmer you are. And what kind of projects do you have to do programming for.
Are you —
- a college student who has simple programming projects and use the laptop only for other simple daily tasks.
- college student working on simple coding projects but loves gaming?
- a professional programmer who does intense programming and has no inclination towards for gaming?
- or a professional programmer who codes and loves to play video games as well ?
Depending upon any of these four categories one falls into, you can decide whether it would be a good decision to buy a gaming laptop or not.
If you want a short answer, “I would say since gaming laptops are very powerful and advanced machines, programming becomes a piece of cake for them. But one should not consider a gaming laptop just for the sake of programming. Because gaming laptops are expensive in general, are bulky and heavy in weight. But in case you love to play videos games also being a programmer, gaming laptop would be a good choice for you. Specially if you have intense programming projects related to videos and graphics. Exception being a programmer who needs Mac for his coding project.”
Now let us understand this in detail through following comparison –
Table of Contents
An ideal coding/programming laptop & a gaming laptop – A comparison for simplification
First of all, I want to add an exception of this comparison. As few programmer have projects which are made for Apple iOS, you will need a Macbook for yourself to run the needed tools in that case. The reason being these tools are available only on Mackbooks.
Now coming back to programming projects other than iOS. We will simplify this discussion by comparing what kind of a laptop should be ideal for coding and what a gaming laptops offers. By this comparison things will be very clear by the end of this article. Since there are not specific laptops for coding, we will give a general touch to them.
Processor (CPU)
The processor or CPU is the brain of the laptop. It does all the processing of the commands that you give to it. The faster and efficient performance is always preferred in a laptop. For coding a laptop with minimum Intel i5 processor is a must or Ryzen 5 of AMD counterpart. In my opinion these processors would be sufficient for you if you are there only for programming.
While gaming laptops come with processors starting from 10th gen core i9 or Ryzen 7 (in case of AMD). Obviously, these are advanced processors that work wonderfully well. But these come at higher price taking more money from your pocket. So, if you have interest in gaming along with programming, you can go for any of these. Otherwise you will be able to play a number of games on i5 and Ryzen 5 processors also. But not heavy games that need to be played with higher settings.
Graphics (GPU)
Coming to the graphics, I would say programming laptops don’t need great graphics in general. For few projects where you are coding that need a lot of graphical processing and power. Like if you are working on a gaming project and doing programming for this or if you are creating a video editing software with lots of graphical designs. There you will need a really good GPU. Because a dedicated GPU has its own processor and RAM (called VRAM) that helps to reduce the load on CPU and overall giving much higher performance.
Gaming laptops come with a dedicated graphics card as gamers want highly immersive and attention keeping gaming experience. To create beautiful visuals for gaming, dedicated graphics card is added to the gaming laptops.
So basically, it depends on what kind of programming project you are working on. If you do not work on any of the projects like we discussed above, a laptop with integrated graphics card will be sufficient for you.
RAM and Storage
The RAM decides how heavy application you can run on a laptop. Also, how many applications you will be able to run on your laptop simultaneously. It also helps to open multiple tabs while internet surfing on browser. So, more RAM is better we can say this in one sentence. But more amount of RAM will cost you more money, plus it will also need more power (electricity) to keep that much RAM active. So unless you need that much amount of RAM, you should not go for this. Just keep a minimum amount.
For programming, 8GB RAM would be sufficient to work upon different kind of things. While gaming laptops come with at least 16GB RAM and go up to 64GB. This is due to the heavy gaming applications that need to be run smoothly.
My suggestions would be you should go for a laptop having minimum 8GB RAM if you are a coder. But the laptop should also have the option of upgradability of the RAM up to 32GB. This would make much more sense. Otherwise gaming laptop come with higher RAM, if you have any inclination towards gaming.
Display
Now we have display, the next parameter for comparison between coding laptop and gaming laptop. See, when you are coding you might need to split screen in two parts. In that case a big size screen would be a good choice for you. Also big screen will show you more number of lines of code. in my opinion a minimum of 14 inch screen should be there in a coding laptop. Otherwise gaming laptops start with 15.6 inch big display, something that matches with a programming laptop. Lastly, do not forget to have screen resolution below 1920*1080 pixels. This will help you see things more clearly be it games or lines of codes.
Battery Backup
Since gaming laptops come with powerful hardware and components to deliver next level performance, they consume a lot of power. The batteries of gaming laptops burnout within few hours in general. Although high battery backup gaming laptops also come in the market but at higher cost.
So, if you are thinking to buy a gaming laptop for coding, make sure that you have continuous power supply near you. On the other hand, if gaming is not your field of interest, buy a general laptop having good battery backup. As there will be lighter hardware components than that of a gaming laptop.
Weight
Gaming laptops are bulky and heavy in weight. In general, gaming laptops’ weight start from 1.5 Kg and can go up to 3 Kg. The heavy hardware components, big screen size and a complete ventilation system make the gaming laptop very bulky and heavy in weight. Basically, it will be bit hard for you if you are frequent traveler carrying a laptop for work and other stuff.
While a laptop that is used for programming is not that heavy at all and is an easy to carry machine. So, it depends on you if you frequently keep your laptop with you wherever you go, carrying gaming laptop might become a burden in real terms. Unless you are a game lover too. Because gaming laptop is definitely a good choice in that case.
Price
Now, we have the last parameter for comparison that is the price of the laptop. Gaming laptops being very powerful, highly advanced machine with a number of advanced features come at high cost. While a laptop that can be used for programming and other daily works will come at a cost of half or one third of the cost of a gaming laptop.
Conclusion
We have seen enough of laptop properties of gaming and coding both. We saw almost all the parameters that can come in our way for a real comparison between a gaming laptop and a general programming laptop. So, I would like to conclude that if you are programmer who codes for projects requiring graphics and visual related things or if you are programmer who loves to play video games in his free time, gaming laptop is for you and you should go for that only. Otherwise I would not make much sense to spend that much money in my personal opinion.
At the end I think after reading this thorough article, you areaware and educated enoughto answer the question “are gaming laptops good for programming?”