The Fastest Laptops for 2024 (2024)

Seeking the fastestlaptopyour money can buy? That's a challenge, because it depends on how you define "fast"—different kinds of speed apply when talking about laptop performance. That's where PCMag comes in. Our analysts have decades of experience testing laptops and know how to pinpoint the quickest machines for any scenario. We review more than 100 laptops a year and put each through a rigorous test suite that quantifies speed for productivity, content creation, and graphics workloads. (We also assess design, usability, connectivity, bundled software, and more.) Our current pick for the fastest laptop we've tested is MSI's Titan 18 HX, king of the beasts with unmatched raw processing and graphics speed. We've selected additional speedy laptops for more specific use cases and varying budgets. Check them out, plus how to shop for laptops based on sheer speed. It's easy to overspend, and our advice will keep you from doing that.

Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

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Buying Guide: The Fastest Laptops for 2024

What Does 'Speed' Really Mean in a Laptop?

The idea of speed in a laptop can be sliced in many ways. In practical terms, you can look at it as a blend of two factors: (1)CPU processing powerand (2) graphical prowess for tasks such as gaming, 3D rendering, or graphics-accelerated content creation. The two are very different things, and we benchmark all the systems we review with both kinds of speed in mind.

Some of the fastest laptops are strong in one area and not the other. For example, it's possible to have a notebook with a top-end processor packing lots of cores and threads but paired with a minimalgraphicssolution (perhaps just the CPU's integrated graphics, historically no match for a discrete graphics chip). Such a laptop can deliver outstanding performance for programs and workloads that take advantage of lots of CPU resources but little power for gaming or applications that rely on graphics acceleration.

((Credit: Joseph Maldonado))

Likewise, having a dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU)—the beefier the better—is the key to speed in games. Most of the time, CPU speed will contribute to the gaming equation only insofar as it isn't a limiter or bottleneck for the graphics chip.

Now, the prescription for either need—speed for processing or speed for graphics—is to pack in as potent a CPU or GPU as possible. But when you do that, it illustrates the interplay of three key elements of laptop design: cost, power consumption, and thermals.

Higher-powered silicon tends to (1) cost more, (2) require more electricity when fully engaged, and (3) run hotter when taxed to the max. That's why buffed-up gaming laptops or high-powered mobile workstations tend to be thick, heavy, and expensive. Their high-end chips cost more and require more space and weighty thermal hardware to keep cool.

The best of all possible worlds—maximum graphics and CPU power, maximum battery life, and thin, light design—is a goal ever out of reach. Instead, laptop design is always a tradeoff of these factors, where it's not possible to turn all three knobs to 10 simultaneously.

Which CPU Type Is Best for a Laptop?

From a raw CPU perspective, the fastest laptops tend to fall into four classes. The first comprises business machines with high-end processors but integrated graphics. You'll find them under top vendors' business brands such as Latitude for Dell, ThinkPad for Lenovo, and EliteBook for HP.

Second are high-end gaming laptops that pair apowerful mobile GPU, chosen to blaze through the latest games at a level appropriate for the system's screen, with a CPU that is at least sufficient not to hamper the graphics chip. (That malady, when it affects PC gaming, is often dubbed being "CPU-limited.")

Third are mobile workstations, productivity-minded laptops designed for professional content creation and data analysis and often optimized for the specialized and demanding applications they use. (Workstation marketing lingo frequently refers to independent software vendor or ISV certification; these laptops cost a premium partly because of it.) You can identify these machines by brand, such as HP's ZBook and Dell's Precision, or by Nvidia's RTX A series (formerly Quadro) GPUs.

Finally, some notebooks (see the Asus ProArt, MSI Creator, and Gigabyte Aero lines) target creative pros such as video editors and game designers. These machines overlap with mobile workstations but often lack those systems' ISV certifications for specialized apps. (For instance, they may feature Nvidia's civilian GeForce rather than professional RTX GPUs.) Stunning high-resolution screens are common here.

(Credit: Charles Jefferies)

Most Intel CPU names end in a capital letter or two, which tells you about their identities. Any Core chip ending with an H or HX is a maximum-power mobile processor with many threads that your software can tap via a feature known as Hyper-Threading. Not all CPUs support Hyper-Threading, but this will be a big plus if the programs you run are fully multithreaded (that is, able to take advantage of all available computing threads when performing demanding tasks).

You'll see H-series chips only in weighty models meant for heavy calculation work or data analysis in business laptops. However, you'll find the H-series in almost all gaming laptops and many mobile workstations. A few high-end workstations use Intel's Xeon processors, which are at heart server chips specially designed for the demands of accelerating specialized advanced calculation and content-creation programs and running flat-out for extended periods. But a Core i7 or Core i9 H-series is more common and the sign of a legitimately high-end configuration.

CPUs ending in U (or G3, G5, or G7) signify an ultramobile processor. These lower-power chips are designed for slimmer, lighter laptops with limited thermal headroom. These can be perfectly fine CPUs, depending on what you do with your laptop. You'll have no trouble handling everyday business or office tasks on a Core i5 or Core i7 of this type, and often even multimedia content creation tasks will see no painful delays. It's easy to remember: The H-class is where the real muscle is in laptop land.

((Credit: Joseph Maldonado))

With its 12th and 13th Generation Core CPUs, Intel introduced a P series of laptop chips that fall between the U and H families. These are for mainstream performance systems and employ a hybrid architecture, with high-performance and efficiency-minded cores (P-cores and E-cores) coexisting in the same chip.

Most Intel laptops currently run 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" chips, which use this same structure to blisteringly fast effect. Team Blue most recently launched Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" chips with onboard AI processing and 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors at the start of the year. Today, you'll see many machines with these processors, too. The latter, in particular, will be seen in some "fastest laptop" picks. For much more about the nuances of laptop CPUs, see our deep-dive article on how to choose the best laptop processor.

What about Intel's rivals? AMD's Ryzen and Ryzen Pro mobile processors have historically tilted more toward office apps and moderate gaming (with integrated graphics that often top Intel's) than the all-out gaming and workstation prowess of the best separate CPU and GPU combinations.

However, AMD's Ryzen 7000 and 8000 mobile processors can slug it out with Intel's best and are used in many creative and professional laptops. AMD chips like the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX and the Ryzen 9 8945HS go toe-to-toe with Intel offerings.

Qualcomm may soon be a factor in speedy Windows machines. We've tested a few of the first Arm-based Snapdragon X chips to see how they perform versus Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen 8000 series alternatives in the real world. They won't rival the very fastest Intel and AMD H-series offerings, but they show promise. (Check back for more on how these perform.) The next generation of Intel's AI Core Ultra processors, "Lunar Lake," is coming later this year, too, with some bold claims around AI chip efficiency.

Finally, we come to Apple's MacBooks and their house-brand processors, with the M2-based MacBook Air and now the newest M3 line in the MacBook Pro models. The 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro with M3 Max, for instance, is the king of the macOS mobile castle.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

In a way, Apple's switch from Intel to its own processors takes the decision out of your hands if you go with a Mac because you're choosing within a much smaller set of CPUs from a single maker. Apple's chips do show some variations: the M1 Pro and M1 Max are boosted versions of the M1 base chip, and that proved true again with the M2 Pro and M2 Max and with the M3 Pro and M3 Max. The real decision is whether to stick with a Windows system and the processor options above if you're already in that ecosystem, or to jump over to macOS.

Understanding Laptop Graphics Performance: Power for Play and Content Creation

If you're after speed for PC gaming, you need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip or GPU. Most leading-edge gaming laptops these days use various flavors of Nvidia's GeForce mobile silicon, with the RTX 30 series (model numbers in the 3000s) pushed aside by the RTX 40 series (model numbers in the 4000s) in the latest machines.

If your laptop has a 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) display, then a GeForce RTX 3050 or 4050 or higher chip will generally suffice to play modern games at high image-quality settings. The GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 4070 are usually fitting matches for a resolution of 2,560 by 1,440 pixels and below, while an RTX 3080 Ti, 4080, or 4090 will be overkill for 1080p resolution but a good bet starting point for gaming on a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) panel. Nvidia's latest GeForce RTX 40-series chips can help make 4K gaming and fancy ray-traced lighting smoother than ever, thanks to DLSS rendering technology supported by a growing number of recent games.

((Credit: Joseph Maldonado))

If you use your gaming laptop with anexternal monitoror monitors with a higher resolution than the notebook's built-in screen, you might consider a GPU that's several steps ahead of the laptop's screen. Otherwise, you'll want to match the GPU's performance with the upper limits of the laptop's panel.

One wrinkle to all this is the emergence of high-refresh-rate laptop displays. A typical 60Hz laptop display (which redraws the screen 60 times per second) can't show much benefit from framerates above 60 frames per second (fps). If your high-powered GPU can play a game at a consistent 100fps, you won't see much added smoothness. However, the latest gaming laptops offer high-refresh panels capable of rewriting at 120Hz, 144Hz, 165Hz, 240Hz, or even 300Hz. These screens can use those extra frames for smoother gameplay and justify a high-powered GPU. (For more on the topic, see our explainer: Does Your Gaming Laptop Need a High-Refresh-Rate Screen?)

((Credit: Joseph Maldonado))

On a related note, laptops with screens that support Nvidia's G-Sync technology are worth looking out for. In these, the screen rewrites at the same rate that the GPU churns out frames, adjusting the refresh rate dynamically. This reduces screen artifacts and "tearing" (in which parts of the screen misalign for a beat as they are rendered). With a high-refresh screen, a top-notch GPU will be better leveraged; with G-Sync, a marginal one will be enhanced.

Another factor, if you're shopping for a maxed-out laptop, isvirtual realitycompatibility. It's best to opt for the proper GPU now if you might want to explore VR later, as you can't upgrade the GPU after the fact. (See our guide to the best laptops for VR.) The recent RTX line should also suffice for VR, from the RTX 3050 and RTX 4050 on up.

Does Storage or Memory Make a Computer Faster?

Assessing storage speed is more straightforward than weighing CPUs or GPUs. The storage solutions in today's laptops fall into three classes: hard drives, SATA solid-state drives (SSDs), and PCI Express SSDs. That sequence is a fair summary of their relative speed (slowest, faster, fastest) and relative cost (least to most expensive, in terms of cost per gigabyte).

These days, the fastest laptops all use PCI Express SSDs, and indeed, this class of drive is taking over the field. These are either implemented as M.2 drives (see our guide to thebest M.2 solid-state drives) or soldered down to the motherboard, and top out in most configurations at 1TB or 2TB of capacity. PCI Express describes the bus pathway that your data takes when using these drives, and is associated nowadays with the term NVMe, a protocol for making the most of PCI Express speeds. Both are good buzzwords to look out for. The alternative to a PCI Express SSD is Serial ATA or SATA, which is perfectly serviceable but is yesterday's interface and fading out of relevance in new laptops now.

((Credit: Joseph Maldonado))

If you want to maximize real and perceived speed in a laptop, the boot drive should be an SSD; it will almost certainly be a PCI Express/NVMe one. However, SATA is still relevant for hard drives; if the laptop has a hard drive, it should be implemented as a secondary drive for bulk storage. You're more likely to see such dual-drive arrangements in larger laptops.

As for assessing the RAM in the system, it's an exercise to ensure you get enough for your typical tasks without overpaying or underestimating. 8GB is the barest minimum for which we'd settle in any Windows laptop, with 16GB a far better baseline for a machine you'll hit with applications more demanding than word processing or email. Getting even more can make sense if you use RAM-hungry content-creation apps like Adobe Photoshop or Premiere Pro. If you're outfitting a gaming laptop, 16GB ought to do, with 32GB recommended if you'll also use it for heavy content work.

Ready to Buy the Fast Laptop That's Right for You?

The laptops in our detailed breakout chart are ideal places to start looking if absolute speed is your key concern. We reviewed Cinebench and HandBrake benchmark scores to measure raw CPU speed and multithreaded power; these tests tax a CPU to its limits on all cores and threads. We also checked out 3DMark scores to measure graphics processing capability and PCMark 10 results for office productivity and overall system performance. (See the reviews linked for details and much more performance talk.)

Use these as launching points for your laptop search. Remember, many models can be bought in lesser or brawnier configurations than the ones we happen to test. Hence, the limit tends to be how much money you have and how much hardware a laptop maker can stuff in the chassis size of your choice, within thermal and practical limits.

Our roundups of the best gaming laptops and mobile workstations offer more speedy, powerful choices. Other top performers include our roundups of thebest ultraportablesand thetop 2-in-1 convertible laptops.