Desktop GPUs remain as elusive as Bigfoot, but in the realm of gaming laptops, there's apparently plenty of hardware to go around. Hence the frequent discounts we see. Like this one—Gigabyte's G5 gaming laptop with a Core i5 11400H processor and a GeForce RTX 3050 Ti is $899 after rebate, at Newegg.
Normally priced at $1,199, the laptop is discounted to $999, saving you $200 right off the bat. A $100 mail-in-rebate sweetens the pot. Yes, mail-in-rebates can be a hassle, but at least in this case the payoff is pretty sizable (as opposed to waiting around for a $10 or $15 rebate check to arrive).
This deal also includes an Intel software bundle—you get the Crysis Remastered Trilogy and Humankind for no additional cost, valued at $95.
Let's talk about the hardware, starting with the GPU. The 3050 Ti is based on Nvidia's latest generation Ampere architecture, and sits on the lower end of the mobile stack. It's not a terribly exciting GPU in the grand scheme of things, but for 1080p gaming at under a grand, it's a decent choice.
Nvidia allows OEMs to configure its mobile GPUs within a certain range. On the 3050 Ti, that includes power settings from 35W to 80W, and boost clocks from 1,035MHz to 1,695MHz. On this laptop, Gigabyte opted for 75W and a 1,500MHz boost clock.
Looking beyond the GPU, what makes this laptop a compelling value are the supplementary parts. It's kitted with 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB as too-often-found in this price range, and a 512GB SSD with a PCIe 4.0 interface. Gigabyte is coy about the actual speed of the SSD, instead noting that the PCIe 4.0 slot it fits into supports "unbelievable read speeds of up to 7,000MB/s."
This is likely the same unbranded drive Gigabyte employs in its G7 MD, a larger version of the same laptop. If that's the case, you can expect sequential read and write speeds of around 3,400MBs and 2,500MB/s, respectively. Those are well short of what the PCIe 4.0 bus supports, but still very fast in their own right. There's also the proposition of upgrading the SSD down the line with a higher-end SSD.
For other options, be sure to check out our round-up of this week's cheap gaming laptop deals.
