The best laptops for game development in 2024 (2024)

Choosing one of the best laptops for game development is a important decision for both professional game developers and aspiring creator seeking to channel their inner Miyamoto.There’s a lot to consider: what kind of games are you going to be working on? Triple-A games with innovative mechanics, cutting-edge 3D graphics and cinematics will need a much more powerful machine with a dedicated graphics card, than a less graphically intensive indie title.

This means that a wide range of laptops can serve for game development depending on your area of focus. And we know many game developers who prefer portability and good battery life over the power to actually run AAA games. We've carefully chosen the laptops on this list based on our own expert reviews, personal testing and an evaluation of each laptop's specs, power and price. We've combined personal insight and experience with benchmark tests to make our choices.

If you’re as passionate about playing games as you are about making them, you may also find our guide to the best laptops for gaming useful, or you can find inspiration in our picks of the best PS5 games and the best Xbox Series X games guides. We also have a guide to the best laptops for programming, as well as the best laptops for animation if you’re looking to broaden your creative horizons.

The Quick List

We've summarised below our top choices as the best laptop for game development with a brief summary of why they stand out. Click 'read more' or jump down the page for more detailed opinion and our full selection.

The best laptops for game development in full

The best laptop for game development overall

A laptop that offers some of the most powerful components on the market, the ASUS ProArt Studiobook is ideal for game development. We loved the sharp, bright 3.2K 3D screen as well as the creative-friendly ergonomics, such as the dedicated ASUS Dial next to the trackpad.

The graphics card, storage and RAM configurations all make this one of the best creative laptop candidates that can handle gaming testing as well as development. Our review says, "It’s a laptop that can handle anything you could possibly ask of it, and as such it’s an easy recommendation," and even though it's expensive, its specs are more than worth it.

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The best Dell laptop for game development

If you want a powerful, dependable and well-built laptop for game development, and you'd also like it to be sleek, stylish and portable, then we would certainly recommend considering the Dell XPS 15.

Packing powerful components like an 11th-generation Intel processor and one of the best screens on a laptop, the Dell XPS 15 makes designing and coding games a joy. Even better, you can configure it to come with an Nvidia GeForce 3050 Ti graphics card. While this isn't the most powerful GPU out there, it's still more powerful than any integrated GPU, and it supports cutting-edge technology like ray tracing.This means that while the Dell XPS 15 isn't a gaming laptop, it'll let you create, edit, render and test your 3D games, while being slim and light enough to easily take with you no matter where you go.

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The best MacBook for game development

While Apple Mac computers aren't known for gaming, Apple's iPhone and iPad systems have huge libraries of mobile games, and making a hit iOS (the operating system iPhones use) game can earn you a lot of money. If you want to design iOS games, the MacBook Pro 14-inch is a brilliant option. It's incredibly powerful, allowing you to compile code in seconds, and it can run emulations of various iPhone models to allow you to see how your game plays on Apple's smartphones. It's powered by the capable new M3 Pro chip from Apple. This is seriously powerful and can run iOS games natively, so you can play your game (and check out the competition) without needing an iPhone.

We also reckon it still has just about the best display you can currently get on a laptop (along with its larger sibling further below). This is thanks to the stunning miniLED technology that offers astounding image quality. We've placed the 14-incher higher because we like its portability, but if you prefer a larger laptop for game development, simply turn to the 16-inch MacBook further down in the list.

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The best Chromebook for game development

At the opposite end of the laptop spectrum, you might not normally think of a Chromebook as being a good laptop for game development. And no, they don't have the power to handle very advanced gaming themselves, but you can code on them.If you're looking for an affordable option and don't need to test high-performance games, then a Chromebook can make sense. They offer long battery life and might even save you from getting distracted while working since they can do fewer other things.

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is a well-built, fairly capable machine that runs Chrome OS, and it's also a lot more affordable than a Windows laptop or a MacBook. It's rare to get a 14-inch touchscreen of this quality for under $500 / 500, and while the Ryzen 5 build is the top end of that price point it represents excellent quality if you're after a solid 2-in-1. As ever with ChromeOS. Its apps are limited to the Google Play Store, so do some research and ensure you're happy with the spread of options. Read our full Acer Chromebook Spin 514 review for the full lowdown.

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The best laptop for game development with a larger screen

The ASUS Zenbook Pro 16X OLED combines everything you want and need in the ultimate creator laptop so is an excellent choice for pro game developers. It offers fantastic performance for heavy-duty creative tasks, and it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the best gaming laptops we've ever tested on Creative Bloq. It looks fantastic, the ergonomics are great for creative pros, and it's a delight to use. You can get either a 3.2K or 4K touchscreen, perfect for maximising the visual impact of your games.

And if you want to play some games on top of developing them, you won't even need to stand up, because this Zenbook took any game we threw at it, whacking the graphics to Ultra/Mega/Max, and it smashed through every expectation ceiling we had.

See our full ASUS Zenbook Pro 16X OLED for more details.

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The best larger MacBook for game development

We mentioned the MacBook Pro 14 above as our top choice as a MacBook for game development thanks to its portability (and it's also slightly cheaper). But if you want a larger screen, the MacBook Pro 16-inch released alongside is an equally impressive laptop. It offers great performance and uses the still-very-powerful M1 Pro or M1 Max chip depending on the configuration you choose.

This means that, like the smaller model, this is a brilliant laptop for iOS game design especially, but it also has the chops to handle complex 3D games as well. The 16-inch model is a lot larger, which makes it harder to carry around. However, many people may find a larger screen more comfortable to work on, It uses the same miniLED tech as the 14-inch screen, so you get stunning image quality.

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The best Dell mobile workstation for game design

It doesn't look like the flashiest laptop around, but the Dell Precision 5470 is a compact little wolf in sheep's clothing, as our reviewer remarked. The unremarkable exterior hides a powerful workstation with a gorgeous, pinsharp screen and enough grunt under the bonnet to handle the heaviest game-dev, rendering or 3D processing tasks you'll see this side of a studio project. While many powerful laptops sacrifice battery life in search of ultimate performance, the Dell Precision 5470 is refreshing in that it offers enough battery life to last you most of the day before having to hunt down an outlet.

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The best 2-in-1 for game development

The ThinkBook 14S Yoga is a great choice if you fancy using a 2-in-1 laptop, which can be used as a traditional laptop but can also be used as a tablet by folding back the touchscreen behind the keyboard. While it doesn't feature a dedicated graphics card (which are very rare in 2-in-1 devices), it is packed with powerful components.

When used in tablet mode, you can test out how your game will work with touchscreen devices, while also making it more comfortable for reading reams of text, or for watching movies when you want to wind down. It also comes with a stylus, so if you want to create hand-drawn art for your game, this offers you a handy way to do just that.

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The best budget laptop for game development

If you're looking for the best gaming laptop for game development that doesn't cost the Earth, we'd recommend considering the Asus TUG Gaming F15. When we reviewed it, we found this great value gaming laptop to offer impressive performance for its price, making it an option if you need to test more demanding games.

It's been updated with 12th Gen Intel processors, and the 1440p screen boasts a 165Hz refresh rate and 100 per cent coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut. It's by no means the most powerful gaming laptop out there, but these specs are fantastic for the price. Read our full Asus TUF Gaming F15 review for more details.

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How to choose the best laptop for game development

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FAQs

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How we tested the best laptops for game development

Creative Bloq's team of hardware experts bring with them many years of experience using, testing and benchmarking laptops with a focus on running creative applications. All the laptops in this guide have been tested either by using software used by game developers or benchmarked to ensure the CPU and GPU are capable of the most intensive game-dev tasks you can think of. We run different benchmark tests on each device depending on its intended use by its maker, but the laptops we've included in this guide have all been run through the following:

• Cinebench R23/2024 - this assesses the performance of a computer's CPU and GPU using real-world 3D rendering tasks

• Geekbench 5/6 - this tests the CPU's processing power, both by using a single core for a single task at a time as well as all the CPU's core to see its ability to multitask

• Handbrake - we use this free and open-source transcoder for digital video files to render a short 4K animated film, using the same file for all our tests

• 3DMark - this assesses a computer's ability to run graphic rendering tasks, which is necessary for architects

• PCMark 10 - this test assesses a computer’s ability to run all everyday tasks from web browsing to digital content creation, testing app launch speeds, 3D rendering and even battery life

But perhaps more importantly than technical benchmarking, we evaluate machines in real-world situations, pushing them to the limit with multiple applications running to see how they perform in real project-like conditions. Power, speed, flexibility, and what a computer looks and feels like to use are all criteria in our reviewing process. We do much more than simply unpack a test unit, run some benchmarks and then pack it up again; we have lived and worked with all of the above computers, running them in real-life scenarios and completed projects relevant to the subject of this guide, otherwise we wouldn't recommend these models to you. For more details, see our article on How we test.

For more options, see our pick of the best laptops for CAD, the best laptops for architects and the best laptops for photo editing.

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