Amazon currently has a deal on the Gigabyte A5 X1 gaming laptop with an RTX 3070 for $1299. It’s $450 off its usual list price of $1,649, which puts this plain-looking albeit powerful gaming laptop in a competitive spot against some of its flashier rivals.
This 15-inch laptop is powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and an RTX 3070 8GB, with 16GB DDR4 RAM and a 512GB SSD for memory and storage. It’s a great spec for a laptop that looks like a boring work computer. Perhaps you’re a PC gamer who prefers to hide their power level from the rest of the world: no flashy design, just some RGB on the keys. Subtle.
The performance isn’t half bad, and the fast 240Hz 1080p display is a nice perk. At 1080p, you’ll prolly hit triple-digit frame rates in competitive games like Valorant or Fortnite. This display will make sure you experience as little screen tearing as possible.
The RTX 3070 8GB is a decent enough mobile GPU; to make the most of it, you’ll probably need to take advantage of RTX features like DLSS to eke out a bit more performance in more demanding games.
Gigabyte A5 X1 Gaming Laptop| Nvidia RTX 3070 8GB|AMD Ryzen 9 5900X|15-inch|FHD| 240Hz |16GB RAM|512GB SSD| $1,749 $1299 at Amazon (save $450)
For $1299, you can score yourself a great midrange laptop with enough horsepower to play all your favorite games on the highest settings on a wildly fast 240 Hz display.
Not to sound like a broken record, but man, 512GB SSDs don’t cut it anymore—that’s the main drawback here in my opinion. Thankfully, upgrading to a larger capacity drive isn’t that hard with these laptop chassis. I can’t imagine maintaining a healthy gaming library when a game like Call of Duty will eat up more than half of your storage.
It’s not the flashiest gaming laptop out there, but you’ll find its performance makes up for the X1’s lack of style. I’ve used the RTX 2070 version of this laptop during my testing days at Tom’s Guide, and would suggest you consider picking up a webcam since the one on here isn’t the best.