Most gamers would love to game on the go, but the battery life on gaming laptops leaves much to be desired. So, what makes gaming laptops unique with their beautiful games and minimal playtimes?
The combination of high-level components required to make games look great and run great add a heavy power drain over the standard laptop for basic web surfing and word processing.
This can scale differently depending on your purpose, so it’s essential to keep a few things in mind when purchasing unplugged battery life. Follow along to dive into the different aspects that make gaming computers so power-hungry.
Gaming laptops aren’t bad for standard computing, but once you start stressing the system, its power capabilities will begin to play. Most laptops allow for six hours of everyday computing off the power.
Dedicated GPU
The standard laptop comes with an integrated graphics card capable of doing basic tasks and simple gaming. It is essentially a tiny chip, while gaming laptops include dedicated graphics cards which dwarf their integrated brethren.
These graphics cards allow for smooth gameplay with high frame rates and even virtual reality or 4K gaming. However, the cost for this is the more powerful cards will have an increased battery drain and create enormous amounts of heat.
High-Speed Fans
The GPU’s heat requirements lead to the need for high-speed fans, often in multiples, to deal with the heat. Bigger and stronger fans are better at dealing with heat, but you want a laptop to be small and mobile, so this is often an area lower-end gaming laptops struggle with. The need for these fans adds an extra power drain that regular laptops don’t require.
High Powered Processors
The standard laptop doesn’t need high-performance processors, with many using simple Intel Core I5 6300U’s and older versions of the Intel chipset. These older processors are created for power efficiency over performance, making them great for use in a standard laptop.
While gaming laptops use processors like the Intel Core I7 4700HQ, which is still efficient but has a high-performance maximum clock rate that allows it to reach much higher speeds and require much more power.
These higher functioning processors also commonly come with more cores than their average counterparts to deal with multitasking. With most higher-end CPUs using at least six cores, the average battery life of gaming laptops is bound to decrease.
Other Reasons
While those are the three main culprits regarding battery life, there are a few other things you might want to keep in mind. Many gaming laptops come with backlit RGB keyboards, making them look cool and help you press the right keys, but they will also affect battery life.
Another aspect of gaming laptops immersion is extra powerful speakers, which allow you to hear a more excellent range of sound. These are amazing for your gaming experience, but you might want to throw in a pair of headphones to ease up on the battery usage. Finally, turning down your resolution or reducing your number of extra peripherals can also have a decent effect on battery life.