Heating to upgrading: 5 gaming laptop FAQs answered for you

Whether you’re buying your first gaming laptop or learning to make the most of your portable gaming station, you may have several questions around the machine. How can you improve the performance? Can you prevent the heating? Should you be adding accessories to your laptop? Here are the answers to some of the most common gaming laptop-related questions.

Is it normal for my gaming laptop to get hot?

Yes, it is normal for gaming laptops to get hot. Gaming is one of the most resource-intensive or heavy use-cases you could put laptops, or even desktops through and with all the extra processing power comes a lot of heat. However, there is a line you need to draw for what’s too hot. Your processor can hit 80-degrees Celsius and GPU can cross 60-degrees Celsius. Take your laptop to an authorised service centre for help if your laptop gets hot enough to be a distraction.

How do I improve framerate on my laptop?

Your framerate is the number of frames your laptop can produce in a second while gaming. A higher framerate will also mean a smoother gaming experience, while a lower framerate could result in your game feeling choppy. A game should ideally run at a consistent 60 frames per second (fps) or higher.

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Here are a few things you can do improve your laptop’s framerate. Running your laptop cooler, closing resource-heavy programs in the background and even toning down the resolution and graphics settings of your game, can all contribute to higher framerate. If that isn’t enough, you can always look at upgrading your RAM or storage, if your laptop allows the same.

Do I need to upgrade my RAM?

Most games need at least 16GB of RAM to run smoothly. If your laptop allows for upgrades, you can add more RAM for a boost in performance. Having said that, RAM is not the only bottleneck for performance. A good gaming experience is also determined by components that you cannot upgrade on most laptops, like the processor and the GPU or graphics card. If these components are also dated on your gaming laptop, upgrading your RAM may not make the difference you expect.

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Will SSD storage make my laptop faster?

Newer gaming laptops will have SSD storage either completely or partially. SSDs, or Solid-State Drives are known to be significantly faster in read/write speeds compared to older HDD storage. If you have an older gaming laptop that doesn’t have enough SSD storage or runs entirely on HDD storage, you can check if it supports upgradeability.

Is it safe to keep my laptop plugged in while gaming?

Yes. It is not just safe but recommended that you keep your gaming laptop plugged in when gaming. Most brands will also have a dedicated gaming mode or turbo mode oriented for better performance that will only kick in when your laptop is plugged in. In simpler words, most gaming laptops will perform at their full capacity when they are plugged in, offering faster load times, more framerates and a better overall experience.