Best gaming laptop deals: Get a rig with RTX 3050 Ti graphics for as little as $1,000

Lenovo

This Legion 5 model is $150 off at Best Buy and features an AMD-Nvidia power punch with a Ryzen 7 5800H CPU and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics. It also supplies 8GB of RAM and a roomy 512GB SSD, so you might need to add more memory and storage. The 15.6-inch display has a Full HD resolution and a speedy 165Hz refresh rate.

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Acer’s Nitro 5 has long been a popular pick for gamers on tight budgets. Most Nitro 5 models are priced in the triple digits and supply midrange components and aging GTX graphics. Not so with this model, if you are willing to stretch your budget to just over $1,000. This model delivers the latest from Intel and Nvidia with an 11th-gen Core i7 CPU and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics. The 15.6-inch display features a full HD resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate.

Best Buy

This MSI model isn’t on sale but is one of the lowest cost laptops I’ve encountered with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics. It pairs the RTX 3060 GPU with decidedly midrange offerings in a previous-generation Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM. The 15.6-inch display features a full HD resolution and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate.

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IMHO, this is still the best-looking gaming laptop on the market. Impossibly thin for a high-powered gaming laptop with a sleek, slablike look, this 15.6-inch Razer Blade machine also boasts a powerful, smart component lineup. The astonishing Prime Day savings of $550 from this summer are no longer on offer, but you can still save more than $300 on the baseline Razer Blade. It features a 10th-gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics. The 15.6-inch display features a full HD resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. 

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Gigabyte

With a 4K AMOLED display powered by an 11th-gen Core i7-11800H CPU and RTX 3080 graphics, this beast from Gigabyte can handle gaming and content creation. It also serves up 16GB of RAM and a roomy 1TB SSD. In addition to the huge $500 discount, you can save another $500 via mail-in rebate, further dropping the price to $1,999.

Newegg

This 17-inch monster boasts the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and RTX 3080 graphics. The 17.3-inch display features a QHD (2,560×1,400-pixel) resolution and a speedy 165Hz refresh rate. All that power for less than $3,000 is a good deal.