A guide to high performance laptops

There are laptops and then there are laptops. Machines made for high-end graphics and video editing, compositing, post-processing and data and AI and more. High performance laptops are a category unto themselves, a breed of notebook armed with a powerful processor (CPU), lots of memory (RAM), and a capable graphics chip designed to handle meaty workloads.

High performance laptops are very much a category in the style of if you know you know (IYKYK), where if you need one, you probably already know. But how do you know that, and how do you work out which high performance laptop to buy?

What is a high performance laptop?

It’s all in the name, because this category is quite clear. If you’re looking for a high performance laptop, you are probably looking for a gaming laptop or a workstation, totally different styles of portable with plenty of power. High performance laptops are just that: notebook computers built to handle like their desktop counterparts, offering lots of speed, processing power, memory, and graphics.

The term high performance laptop has been floating around a while — we’ve seen references at CNet dating back to 2012 — but the idea is pretty straightforward: a portable laptop with the high level of performance expected from a desktop.

That might sound easy to do, but the reality is far more complex. Smaller chips made for laptops typically come from a different architecture, and may not be able to get as hot as desktop chips, while the laptop graphics chips made to go also aren’t made to quite the size and capability as their desktop cousins.

In short, making a smaller version of a high performance desktop designed to take with you isn’t as easy as equipping a laptop with similar specs. Manufacturers may need to opt for something similar that isn’t quite as powerful, or find compromises in the approach.

Fortunately, there are solutions, and almost every manufacturer makes them. You can find high performance laptops from the likes of Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Apple also makes laptops that sit in the category, with MacBook Pro models built for an intense level of processing if you need them.

Working out which laptop you want is the difficult part. For that, you need to work out which type of high performance portable computer you need, and that comes down to the main use: work or play.

High performance workstations to go

We’ll start with work, and a specific breed of computer with that class in the name: workstations. There are portable workstations armed with the tech needed for video processing, CAD, architecture, data processing, and heavy AI uses.

High performance laptops made for more complex workflows are essentially a breed of laptop called a “workstation”, and typically arrive with fast chips and workstation-grade graphics, a different type of discrete graphics chip that comes from similar architecture to the gaming options, but is a little more hardy, offers more memory bandwidth, and will use a totally different driver.

Many workstation laptops borrow from the design of their consumer counterparts, but are equipped with business-grade and enterprise-level specs, such as fingerprint security, military-spec durability, and cameras that can be easily switched off.

Finding a portable workstation

While there aren’t always a lot of portable workstation reviews (largely because the market for them is fairly small), finding one that matches your needs often comes down to a few criteria, covering screen size and graphics capability.

Screen size and battery life

The biggest difference in workstations is that of screen size, which can directly affect battery life. The bigger the screen, the larger the battery is likely to be; a larger screen size not only gives you more screen real estate, but probably also a longer battery life. However, a bigger display also is likely to add more weight, giving you more to think about.

Buyers of workstation laptops typically look for sizes that are big enough without being too big. Often, they’ll find their way to the 15 or 16 inch mark, the latter of which is typically seen as the premium size for workstation laptops. As such, most workstations sized to 16 inches will probably be high performance laptops simply because the 16 inch mark is a premium size at present, allowing manufacturers to pack in a little more than their 15 inch counterparts.

Graphics (GPU)

The other major point of difference for a workstation laptop is the graphics chip, and this can make a serious difference depending on what you need to use it for.

Dedicated graphics processors found inside laptops are also known as “discrete graphics”, and often come with slightly different names compared to their consumer counterparts. For instance, while an Nvidia GeForce arrives in consumer and gaming laptops with graphics, the workstation equivalent is a “Quadro” or “RTX Pro”. It’s a similar situation with AMD graphics, which go from being “Radeon” in a consumer or gaming laptop, and become “Radeon Pro” and “Radeon AI Pro” for workstations, previously the “FireGL”.

It’s not just a difference of name, but also the architecture and capability.

Workstation laptop choices tend to revolve around the graphical capabilities needed for the job and the worker, making GPU a choice that makes a serious difference.

Can a Mac be a portable workstation?

Macs have always been premium computers, and the current generation of MacBook Pro laptops are still very much premium, but also high performance laptops, indeed.

Apple workstations rely on Apple’s own graphics technologies, which these days uses Apple Silicon in the “M” series of chips, which differ wildly. These chips combine both main processor and graphics to form one high-speed system, though it’s one that you only get using macOS (or alternatively Windows running on macOS through emulation).

However, there have been lots of Apple Silicon chips, and these variations can make a big difference when comparing the performance needed for a portable workstation.

You only need to glance at a Pickr benchmark of Apple laptops through the years to see what a difference in chip can do to performance. A standard model (M1, M2, M3, etc) delivers a growing amount of performance year-on-year, both for CPU and GPU. But when you upgrade to a “Pro” or “Max” chip, the increases in graphical capability become more obvious, even comparing older generations to newer ones.

In general, a recent MacBook Pro with one of the “Pro” or “Max” chips (such as 2024’s MacBook Pro 16 with M4 Pro) will deliver better performance than another Apple laptop with a standard chip attached, but your performance needs will vary based on what you need the laptop to do.

High performance gaming laptops

On the other side of the coin, there are gaming laptops, a breed of consumer-focused laptop typically built to handle the high-end needs of modern PC games. Recent releases on Windows can be quite demanding, and typically see PC buyers considering a laptop with high-end graphics, which is one of the major and consistent requirements for gaming on the go.

While you can find portable gaming systems designed to handle many games, such as Valve’s Steam Deck, they won’t handle everything. In fact, a gaming laptop with plenty of power will almost definitely do a better job graphically and work with more gaming titles simply because it has the raw graphical power to do so.

How to pick a gaming laptop

As such, a laptop specifically focused on gaming is the other breed of high performance laptop, and tends to be judged by criteria in much the same way: screen and graphics chip.

Gaming laptop screen choices

Gaming laptops arriving in a range of screen sizes, typically covering 13 to 18 inches, which is essentially a range of ultra-portable to a portable desktop alternative. A 13 inch gaming notebook is quite portable, managing a common sweet spot for mobile computing, while laptops sized at 17 and 18 inches are essentially desktop replacements designed to fit in a backpack.

Much like their workstation siblings, the screen sizes on gaming laptops can directly affect how much of a battery you have to work with. Unlike other laptops, however, gaming portables tend to arrive with something else extra for the screens: fast refresh rates.

A common feature for this breed of laptop, high-speed refresh rates are a critical feature gamers expect. While most laptop screens run at a standard 60Hz (or 60 frames per second), gaming laptops typically raise that to a minimum of 120Hz, something that improves the slickness of on-screen animations. High-performance gaming laptops raise that to another level, offering speeds as high as 165Hz, 300Hz, and 480Hz, improving the way visuals in games load for laptops on the go.

Gaming and graphics

Finding the right gaming laptop is a balance of screen and power, and part of that decision comes from graphical capability. The better the graphics, the better your in-game visuals are likely to be, but there’s a compromise that has to be considered: long-term use.

With desktop computing, a graphics card can be upgraded by simply buying a new one. If you need more graphical power in your games later in life, you can replace your graphics card. Easy.

Laptops aren’t built the same way. You can’t replace a graphics chip on a laptop if it gets too old, because it’s soldered on. A gaming chip is part of the laptop, and stays that way. So if you need more graphics in a high-performance gaming laptop later in life, you’ll need to buy a new one. That’s how it works.

Because of this, picking the right gaming laptop means planning for the future and buying something with legs, with longevity in mind. Buying a mid-range gaming laptop will inevitably be setting yourself up for a maximum level of graphics and power after a year or two, while going full out and picking the best of the best may give you more time with the best graphics in games.

Gaming handhelds

A different breed of gaming laptop per se, a gaming handheld is the ultimate in portable gaming, offering a compact 7 to 9 inch screen with portable controls on the side.

Handheld gaming computers are like their laptop counterparts in that their technology is fixed in time. The graphics that arrives on a gaming handheld cannot be upgraded, so you’ll be stuck with a level of graphical power until you upgrade to something new.

For this reason, handheld gaming systems aren’t technically high performance laptops, but they can still be used like gaming laptops because many still rely on capable hardware. These days, some rely on combined hardware not unlike what’s in a video game console, providing high-end graphics and processing power on the same chipset.

Laptops of all kinds

Buying a high performance computer typically sees you looking at specific grades of machine, but it doesn’t have to mean those made for gaming- or workstation-grade systems. Rather, it can be any laptop that comes armed with power.

Thanks to advanced in technology, smaller laptops and those made for every use (consumer-grade systems) can also be great for anyone looking for capable systems, even if they lack that high performance classification. Consider checking out laptops from Pickr’s recommended list below to see what we mean, or check out our guide to picking the best laptops each year.