Re: Best Gaming Laptop For Sims 4 & 3?
@mzlia0 For $1,000, or even significantly less, you can get a laptop that should run both Sims 3 and Sims 4 on ultra graphics settings, with some room to spare. While other components matter too, the most important one in determining how well a computer runs both Sims games (and most other games) is the graphics card. The best card available in your price range is an Nvidia 2060, although it's usually more expensive; a 1660 ti is only slightly slower, and significantly cheaper; models with a 1650 are usually around $200 cheaper than a 1660 ti. But a 1650 may not be fast enough for ultra settings by the time Sims 4 is out of development, especially if you like to use high poly (high resolution) custom content.
So all these recommendations except for one have a 1660 ti, since the card is around 40-50% faster in gaming and within your preferred budget. If you'd like to see some (cheaper) options with a 1650 as well, let me know. These also all have a 512 GB solid state drive, which is more than enough space for both games and all associated content; and 8 GB memory, which is enough for each game, but maybe not enough to multitask efficiently while playing, especially with Sims 4. However, you can add another 8 GB RAM to any of these models easily enough, and it might only cost you $40 or so.
This Asus is $900 and has a processor that's more than good enough but not overwhelmingly powerful. The laptop is highly rated, with good performance in gaming and great temperature control and noise levels, and it's also reasonably lightweight for a gaming laptop. Its battery isn't great, but you wouldn't want to play on battery anyway, since any laptop will perform better when plugged in.
This Lenovo, on sale for $900, is an alternative. Its processor is much faster than the one in the Asus, not that it would make a difference to Sims games, but it might if you wanted to play something like Cities Skylines or Planet Zoo. Its performance is similar, it's very quiet and has a decent battery, and it's not quite as light as the Asus.
This Asus ($900) has a weaker processor than the first one, but it should still be more than fine for Sims games. It's lighter, it has a better battery life and a slightly better screen, and is somewhat louder, although still relatively quiet; otherwise, it's quite similar.
For $1,000, you could get an Asus ROG Strix with an equivalent processor to the one above. The benefits are significantly better performance, although you don't really need max performance out of a 1660 ti, and much better speakers. It's not as quiet but still not loud. It's available at Walmart and Newegg; the Walmart version comes with a gaming mouse.
This Asus, also $1,000, has an Nvidia 2060 and a processor that's significantly more powerful than the other Asus laptops, although not quite as strong in gaming as the one in the Lenovo. (It's better in some 3D rendering tasks, if that matters to you.) It's the same base model as the first Asus, just with the stronger processor, so the overall build quality and performance are going to be essentially the same.
There are plenty of other options with a 1660 ti, not to mention ones with a 1650 or the less common AMD RX 5500M, but these are the most highly rated in this price range. If you're looking for something slightly different, let me know. And please feel free to ask more questions.
