It’s certainly not the most powerful laptop on the market, but if you’re looking for a gaming laptop on a budget, this HP Victus 15.6 (opens in new tab) is likely to be one of the most affordable options out there. Best Buy is offering the HP Victus 15 (Model:15-fa0031dx) for $549, knocking a whopping $250 dollars off of its previous price and making it a steal considering it was already one of the best gaming laptops under $1500 (opens in new tab) when we tested it at $799.
Taking a look at the hardware inside the HP Victus 15, we get an 8-core 12th Generation Intel i5-12450H processor with 4 P-cores and 4 E-cores, with 12 threads and a max turbo frequency of 4.40 GHz. This processor is more than adequate to run any modern game and certainly won’t be a bottleneck for the GPU.
Speaking of graphics, the Victus 15 is powered by an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 mobile GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM. This is a modest GPU and won’t let you play modern AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077 with all sliders maxed. But, with a boost clock of 1560MHz, this chip should handle most games at medium settings with no issues.
For the screen, we have a 15.6-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (FHD) and a refresh rate of 144Hz. The high refresh rate makes this a great low-priced choice for esports gamers as well.
Other features of this gaming laptop include Bang & Olufsen audio for its twin speaker setup, a backlit keyboard for low-light gaming, and a decent selection of ports. There is an HDMI 2.1 output and 3x USB 3.0 ports comprising 2x USB 3.0 Type A, and 1x USB 3.0 Type C.
Overall this is an impressive budget gaming laptop, especially at or near this impressively low price.