The Best Gaming Laptops For Starfield: Shattered Space

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The Best Gaming Laptops For Starfield: Shattered Space

As a seasoned gamer and tech enthusiast who has spent countless hours exploring virtual worlds and tinkering with hardware, I find myself captivated by the array of gaming laptops that cater to our ever-growing needs. The G14, Lenovo Legion 5i, Alienware M18, and ASUS ROG Scar 17 X3D are all impressive contenders for gamers seeking a powerful machine to tackle the intricacies of Starfield.

The Starfield: Shattered Space expansion pack from Bethesda is highly anticipated this year, but it doesn’t quite stand alone as a complete game; you need to own the main game to play it.

The expansion pack offers a wealth of fresh material, focusing primarily on House Va’ruun and the planet Va’runn’kai, deviating from the cosmic perspective of the primary storyline.

The DLC expands upon the fight sequences introduced in the title, introducing fresh weaponry, enhanced melee combat, and a multitude of new foes and environmental hurdles. This results in a more captivating Starfield adventure, where players need not finish or even participate in most of the main quest to start the DLC.

Starfield: Shattered Space – What Gaming Laptop Should You Get To Play The Game?

The Best Gaming Laptops For Starfield: Shattered Space

System requirements for Starfield: Shattered Space as published on Steam

The game Starfield has minimal hardware needs, aside from its significant storage demand (SSD), which is quite substantial. In fact, its high storage requirement almost excludes the use of a traditional hard drive to prevent loading screen problems.

For individuals using gaming laptops, the challenge lies in locating the perfect equilibrium between cost and efficiency since these laptop versions tend to have less processing power compared to their desktop counterparts.

This tendency pushes users to slightly exceed the recommended specifications, as a means of compensating for the thermal and power constraints that frequently impact performance in laptops compared to their more stationary counterparts.

What continually arises as a topic of discussion is the choice of a gaming laptop that can run Starfield and its additional content smoothly, prioritizing both performance and cost effectiveness.

The Game Rant team has compiled a carefully selected list of top-notch gaming laptops across various performance levels, paying close attention to ensuring these devices surpass the specifications demanded by Starfield for optimal playability at the specified resolutions.

Game Rant’s Best Gaming Laptop Picks For Starfield: Shattered Space

The GIGABYTE Aorus 16X is drawing renewed interest compared to its competitors due to a series of price reductions that make it more budget-friendly. It also boasts a striking design, a high-quality, color-accurate QHD display with a fast 165Hz refresh rate, ample RAM, and an above-average SSD for performance.

Gigabyte’s product features a powerful 16-core Intel Core i7 processor and a turbocharged RTX 4060 mobile graphics card that can draw up to 140W, providing exceptional performance. It also offers room for storage expansion and boasts top-notch internal networking capabilities.

This laptop boasts a superior battery life, rated at 99WHr, and its design is visually appealing, often matching or surpassing that of other gaming-focused competitors. However, it does tend to get warmer than some competing models, which might lead to slight thermal throttling under intense gaming conditions. Despite this, it can smoothly run games like Starfield at a high frame rate in its native resolution, usually with most or all settings maximized.

For budget-conscious gamers, the MSI Thin 15 Gaming Laptop mentioned earlier is a versatile choice that delivers top performance without overextending your finances. It comes equipped with an octa-core Intel Core i5 processor and a powerful RTX 4050 graphics card.

The system surpasses Starfield’s minimum standards effortlessly, and though the CPU performs admirably, the RTX 4050 graphics card may not measure up to the desktop RTX 2080 suggested by Bethesda. This could imply that some adjustments are necessary to achieve a high frame rate.

The Thin 15 model presents a performance-oriented 144Hz screen, which comfortably handles Starfield’s frame rate while fulfilling all other specifications at an affordable price point below $1000 and with a weight of less than 5 lbs. This makes it an excellent lightweight choice that aligns perfectly with its cost.

As a gamer, if you’re looking to step up your game with a premium yet compact setup, the ASUS G14 laptop, powered by the RTX 4070, is just what you need. Until now, gaming on laptops this size was hardly an option, but this powerhouse packs all the essentials into a form factor that’s perfect for your gaming on-the-go lifestyle.

The G14 model equips a top-tier, 3K 120Hz OLED screen, pairs it with a potent octa-core Ryzen 9 CPU, and a power-managed RTX 4070 graphics card. It also provides an ample amount of LPDDR5X RAM (32GB) and a spacious SSD (1TB), catering to the gaming and customization requirements of Starfield for gamers.

This device is designed to maintain a weight under 1.5 kilograms without compromising performance, although it achieves this by restricting Thermal Graphics Power on the GPU and not offering user-upgradable memory. Instead, it uses a soldered solution for memory, which makes it less repairable due to these design choices.

In summary, the G14 offers great value with its combination of price, performance, and a design that’s difficult to beat, especially considering it’s now discounted at Best Buy.

If you’re a gamer seeking a GPU comparable to the RTX 4070 and don’t require the same mobility as users choosing the G14 model, the Lenovo Legion 5i Laptop offers a suitable gaming experience at a slightly lower cost.

This laptop upgrades significantly with a potent Intel Core i9 processor boasting 24 cores and a 32-thread setup, complemented by a dedicated GPU. It also lavishes on memory, providing ample 32GB of swift DDR5 RAM, although it reduces its storage capacity to a compact 512GB SSD.

Although a gaming laptop like Starfield is sufficient on its own, considering other games and software can lead to its storage capacity being quickly exhausted. Consequently, it’s likely that users will often need to consider an SSD upgrade in the future, making it a highly recommended purchase despite its already competitive price.

For gamers seeking enhanced performance, the Alienware M18 could be an ideal choice. It delivers a CPU equivalent to the Legion 5i mentioned earlier but boasts a larger screen, superior thermal management, and a significantly powerful RTX 4080 GPU – all within the same system. These features set it apart noticeably.

As an enthusiastic gamer, I can’t help but share my excitement about the M18! It boasts a smooth 165Hz refresh rate, a spacious 1TB SSD, and a robust 32GB of RAM that makes it a versatile choice for tackling games like Starfield and even future expansions beyond Shattered Space with a breeze.

While it may carry a higher price tag compared to some of its competitors, Alienware’s top-notch features justify this expense, providing superior build quality and longevity that many find worthwhile.

Although the laptops mentioned here have impressive capabilities and can run games like Starfield and its expansion smoothly without problems, the ASUS ROG Scar 17 X3D demonstrates what occurs when performance exceeds necessity – stepping into the realm of excessive power.

This laptop is equipped with an exceptionally potent AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D processor, 32GB of swift DDR5 memory, and a substantial 2TB SSD storage, offering ample space for data, plus it has room for future expansion.

The standout feature of the Scar 17 X3D lies in its potent RTX 4090 GPU, capable of up to 175W of power, which drives its impressive 2K 240Hz screen for a top-tier laptop experience, though it’s pricier than other RTX 4090 laptops when compared to similar models that the Game Rant team considers.

FAQ

Q: Is Starfield CPU or GPU Intensive?

Starfield operates on the upgraded Creation Engine 2, the same technology likely to drive the forthcoming Elder Scrolls game. This newer version places a greater demand on CPUs, so systems with less powerful processors may experience a noticeable slowdown or performance bottleneck.

Q: Does Starfield require A Persistent Online Connection?

The game Starfield can be played without needing a constant internet connection as it functions flawlessly in offline mode. However, players who access the game through Xbox or PC Game Pass may require an online connection to play it using their subscriptions.

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2024-10-04 01:04