Let’s face it; gaming laptops are expensive. They will always command a premium because they manage to cram performance hardware into a small chassis, and for the most part, you can’t build your own, which means you can only buy what the manufacturers are offering. Having said that, there are a few things to consider that might help bring the cost down.

• Don’t Buy a Gaming Laptop – Just because a laptop isn’t branded as a gaming laptop doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have the necessary specs. A lot of the top-spec products from mainstream manufactures are only marketed as home entertainment laptops, but in reality, they’ll run most games fine. They might not have flashing lights, but they’ll be cheaper.

• Work Out What You Need – If you only play certain games, you might not need a hugely high spec laptop. Find out what the requirements are for your current games, and go a little over that to ensure that you can run games for the next couple of years. There’s little point going way over the top if you rarely play cutting-edge FPS games.

• Ignore GPU RAM – When specifying a laptop you often get the choice between a couple versions of the same graphics card. The difference will be in the amount of graphics RAM, and you should always remember that the top spec one will almost certainly be a waste of money. Even at very high resolutions, there are hardly any benefits in having more than 1GB of video RAM. Only ever consider more if you’re running multiple screens.

• Fit Your Own RAM – Again, when specifying component in your new gaming laptop, you’ll probably be asked how much RAM you want. The more the better, but here’s the catch; fitting your own is much cheaper and very easy. You might get charged a couple of hundred if you want 8GB fitted, but you can buy the sticks of RAM for a fraction of that cost, and fitting it usually takes less than 5 minutes, even if you’ve never been inside a computer before.

• Buy Used – Refurbished laptops are really good value for money. If they’re form a trusted reseller, then there’s no reason that they won’t be just as reliable as a brand new piece of kit, but they’ll be much cheaper. SCH Trade has got a good range of laptops to suit most budgets.

• Wait For The Next Model – It’s no secret that computers go out of date very quickly. The truth is that games don’t actually advance quite as quickly. Instead of buying a manufacturer’s flagship gaming laptop, just wait until another one comes out and it drops in price.

Follow this advice, and you should be able to get hold of a good laptop that plays the games you want it to without having to pay over the odds. You’ll never be able to get a gaming laptop dirt cheap, but you can certainly save some money which could be better spent on new games or DLC.