Save money for more games with an RTX 3050 gaming laptop priced at just $700

The Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop front on, open, on a blue background.
(Image credit: Acer)
Acer Nitro 5 | Nvidia RTX 3050 | Intel Core i5 11400H | 15.6in | 1080p | 144Hz | 16GB RAM | 512GB NVMe SSD | $999.99 $699.99 at Newegg (save $300)

Acer Nitro 5 | Nvidia RTX 3050 | Intel Core i5 11400H | 15.6in | 1080p | 144Hz | 16GB RAM | 512GB NVMe SSD | $999.99 $699.99 at Newegg (save $300)
Coming in at just a bit of a steal, this entry-level gaming laptop will give you steady frames in most modern games, provided you don't mind turning the graphics settings down a bit. It's still a great config, and can even bash out some competitive online gaming with a nice speedy 144Hz panel behind it.

Picking a budget gaming laptop can be hard when there are so many to choose from. If your price range tops out at $700 the temptation is to go for a previous-generation graphics card, but there's no need to be so extreme.

I know you want to be thrifty, but why go for an RTX 20-series laptop or (god forbid) a GTX 10-series laptop when there are deals like this floating around? This deal's only around for today, so act fast if you want to get your hands on this Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop for $700.

Alright, so it's not top of the line, and you'll need to tweak the graphics settings a bit in some of the more intensive games of today, but it just goes to show what you can get for your money if you're smart: a 6-core, 12-thread Intel CPU that's only last generation, and a gaming GPU that'll see you through on middle 1080p settings most of the time.

The SSD might be a little disappointing size-wise, but there's hardly an issue otherwise. 16GB of RAM is more than enough when it comes to gaming, and it should see you through general multitasking for work or school. 

The cherry on top is that 144Hz refresh rate monitor, which means you can make the most of high frame rates, or just enjoy a slick screen experience even if you can't hit 144 fps with the RTX 3050 GPU.

Welp, now you know it's possible to pick up a still startlingly relevant gaming laptop for way below the $1,000 mark, and one that's packing a current-gen Nvidia GeForce 30-series GPU, too.

Katie Wickens
Hardware Writer

Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been rambling about games, tech and science—rather sarcastically—for four years since. She can be found admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. Right now she's waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.