How to Upgrade a Gaming Laptop| Complete Guidance

Upgrading your laptop is an excellent way to boost its speed and performance. This can be accomplished by replacing the graphics card, adding more RAM, upgrading the CPU or hard drive, or installing an external graphics card. Here, we will examine how to upgrade a gaming laptop and what they can do for your performance.

Gaming laptops have become some of the most versatile devices on the market. They offer excellent performance and are incredibly portable, making them a perfect option for gamers on the go.

However, as time passes, the graphics of newly released games improve. This leads gamers to question whether they can play such games on their laptop, to which the answer is “Not Always.”

Now, gamers can purchase a new laptop with improved specifications or upgrade their existing gaming laptop. The first option can be challenging to implement, as new laptops are quite pricey, especially for those with limited funds.

Therefore, if you are looking for the answer to the second option, we will discuss the extent to which you can upgrade your laptop.

Table of Contents

How to Upgrade a Gaming Laptop?

You can only upgrade specific components of the laptop, which also depends on the motherboard model. On some motherboards, it is possible to upgrade features such as RAM and SSD, whereas, on others, it is not.

Therefore, before deciding to upgrade your laptop, you must confirm the model of your motherboard and obtain the necessary information to determine if it can be upgraded.

This information is easily accessible by inspecting the underside of your laptop or the motherboard directly.

Read Also: How to Make a Gaming Laptop

Upgrade Your Graphics Card

To upgrade your laptop, you should begin with the graphics card. This component is responsible for receiving commands from your computer and transmitting them to your monitor so you can view what is occurring on your screen.

The better this component is (and in most cases, the more expensive it will be), the more enjoyable your gaming and other high-end tasks, such as photo and video editing.

Here are a handful of our favorites:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q 8GB GDDR6 – This card offers excellent performance at a reasonable price, making it accessible to anyone in the market for a new GPU but unsure how much to spend. Even after installing all of the necessary components on our laptop, there was still a decent amount of free space.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB GDDR6 – If money were no object and only perfection would suffice, you need to look no further than this exquisite hardware. The specifications speak for themselves: 11GB of RAM ensures that everything runs without hiccups. While it isn’t much else we can say about it without being overly dramatic (which, to be honest, doesn’t feel right), trust us when we say this has some serious muscle.

Upgrading RAM

Most laptop motherboards allow you to upgrade the RAM by providing you with additional slots or by allowing you to insert extra RAM into the same slot.

RAM is an electronic memory that retains data even when the power is off; it is the most accessible type because it is typically integrated into the motherboard.

RAM consists of large arrays of densely packed memory cells that store data rapidly and are instantly accessible. RAM-stored data and programmes are typically directly accessible to the central processing unit (CPU) and frequently volatile, meaning they are lost when the computer is shut down.

Therefore, with more memory, you should be able to access your background applications significantly faster.

Upgrade the CPU

The CPU is the computer’s brain and plays a significant role in its performance. Upgrade your laptop’s CPU to increase its speed! The sticker on the bottom of your laptop will indicate its type of processor.

You can also consult this list of CPUs for gaming computers to determine which is optimal for your requirements.

Upgrading Solid State Drives (SSD)

Today, nearly every laptop includes a solid-state drive, also known as an SSD. They have revolutionised how we use computers by making multitasking, app loading, and operating system functions faster than ever.

They have even allowed us to store more information on our computers, including large files and games, without sacrificing system performance.

These drives are significantly faster than conventional hard drives and offer superior performance, reduced power consumption, and increased reliability, resulting in accelerated boot and application load times.

In addition, they have their own set of benefits, including increased read and write speeds, improved reliability, and reduced energy consumption.

In conclusion, if you want to maximise your computer’s performance and increase the speed at which your operating system and applications load, an SSD is a way to go. Besides these two components, the majority of laptops cannot be upgraded.

There are, however, expensive laptops, such as Alienware, that permit CPU, and GPU upgrades. Therefore, it is always preferable to sell your old laptop and buy a new one with more features to meet your needs.

Upgrades can make your system much faster and more powerful.

It can be challenging to upgrade a gaming laptop. However, it pays off in the long run. Upgrades are costly, but they significantly increase the speed and power of your system. Among the improvements I’ve had to make are the following:

adding another 8 GB of RAM
installing an SSD drive
upgrading my optical drive to Blu-ray

A Few Guidelines for Your Gaming Laptop

Update your Windows driver frequently for optimal performance.
Upgrade your graphics card driver frequently for enhanced visuals and gameplay.
You can use third-party tools to manage frames per second (FPS), which will be used to optimise your graphics for a more enjoyable gameplay experience.
Every six months, clean your motherboard and other internal components to improve performance and thermals.
Scan your laptop every few days for viruses and other malicious software that could impair its performance.

FAQs

Can a laptop’s graphics card be upgraded?

You cannot replace the graphics card on your laptop. Even if your laptop’s CPU lacks an integrated graphics processing unit (iGPU), it was not designed with this capability in mind. RAM and storage upgrades are standard in the laptop market, but that’s about as far as you can go with upgrades.

Can I upgrade i5 processor to Core i7 Processor

Yes, you can upgrade your laptop’s Core i5 processor to a Core i7 processor. However, the process is more complex than replacing the old processor with the new one. The upgrade may necessitate the purchase of a new motherboard that is compatible with the i7 processor.

Is a 4GB video card sufficient for gaming?

2GB of video memory is the absolute minimum for 1080p gaming, while 4GB is the minimum for 1080p high-detail play in 2022.

Does SSD make a laptop faster?

If your laptop has a hard drive (HDD), consider replacing it with an SSD (SSD). An SSD can accelerate everyday tasks by a factor of six. 1 SSDs use flash memory to eliminate the moving parts of HDDs, enabling the computer to locate files more quickly.

Conclusion

The good news is that these enhancements are all feasible. You can achieve increased performance by upgrading your components and installing more memory if you desire increased performance. Upgrading your CPU will give you more power, but if you’re working on a large project, you should purchase a new laptop instead.

Modern gamers enjoy playing games on laptops because they are portable and can be carried wherever they go, unlike desktop computers.

But as time passes and new games are released, this causes one to question whether they can play these games on their laptop and, if not, whether they should upgrade their gaming laptop.

Therefore, we have covered some key components that you can still upgrade, as well as some tips that will help you get the most out of your existing laptop.

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