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Gaming laptops are unpredictable, they’re way more expensive than desktops with the same hardware. But we are neither here to persuade you that laptops are a worthy substitute for gaming desktops, nor do we want to dissuade you from this.
They have their merits, and these merits can be indispensable in certain situations. Today we want to talk about how long you can expect a gaming laptop to last, so without any further ado let’s dig deep into this.
The life of a gaming laptop depends on several things, for instance, handling, maintenance, build quality, and specification. But still, the average lifespan of gaming laptops is roughly around 3 to 4 years (we’ll discuss improving that later in the article) with its peak performance. After that, you will start noticing a few dips in the framerates, but this is not the end of the story. There is a lot more for you to know or skip to how to improve the lifespan of a laptop.
Why is the lifespan of a gaming laptop shorter
Well, we know that there are various reasons which might affect the lifespan of laptops, and a few of them are mentioned below which majorly impact the longevity of laptops.
- Non-Upgradable: Unlike a desktop, most of the parts are fixed in laptops, you can’t upgrade them very easily, almost 90% of components can’t be upgraded which limits the performance for the future but also affects the lifespan.
- Overheating: Gaming Laptops are really heavy (not in terms of weight) machines. A lot of processes are done while you play games like GTA5, Witcher 3, and many others that are very power-hungry. Due to compact space and poor airflow internal components get heat up very quickly which eventually becomes the root cause for the less longevity of a laptop.
Playing heavy games for 5-6 hours a day for 2 years is the max you can expect from a top-notch gaming laptop, after that you will surely notice a dip in your performance. - Built quality: There are various manufacturers out there and they all provide a variety of builds and most people do not give much importance to this part because they just focus on the specs, which is equally important but you need to understand no matter how strong are your specs if your chassis is not strong enough to handle the heat for years you will eventually lose the performance.
The material your chassis is made out of determines how well your laptop can survive abuse and withstand shock in case it is accidentally dropped. - Overcharging: Batteries play an important role when we are talking about the lifespan of a gaming laptop, here are few things you need to know about your charging habits.
Unless your laptop is performing some intensive tasks like gaming or video editing, rendering, or anything else which consumes a lot of power it is a good practice to keep your charger plugged, unless you should not keep charging your laptop. That damages the battery.
While watching movies or browsers through the internet your laptop doesn’t need extra power so avoid overcharging at that time. Usually what happens is when you overcharge your batteries for a longer period of time the capacity of battery cells to store charge reduces hence battery starts dying and eventually the lifespan of your laptop affects.
How to maximize the lifespan of gaming laptops
Well for these three main reasons I believe that you can’t do much about the 1st one, the only thing you can do is do proper research for a better combination of specs at the time of purchasing because you can’t upgrade them later but you can control the heat using a normal cooling pad or the vacuum cooling pad.
Extreme heat is a major cause of premature hardware failure and CPU throttling. Throttling reduces the performance of your laptop and you may start to experience lags during gameplay. Use a room with proper air conditioning along with cooling pads as it will make sure your laptop lives longer.
- Undervolting: Undervolting is a technique in which we reduce the voltage supply provided to a component. It helps reduce the power consumption hence decreasing the heat generation and increasing the battery life of laptops. There is no loss in performance with undervolting your laptop. In fact, there are significant performance boosts in many cases.
- Keeping the vents clean: Vents are the most crucial part of your laptop, they are designed so perfectly that no heat remains inside but gradually they start getting blocked by dust particles. So if you haven’t blown the dust out of your laptop this is the right time to do that.
You can use the regular vacuum cleaner to do so, just keep in mind the pressure should not be too much for the circuit board. - Thermal pasting: Thermal paste is already there on the back of your CPU which prevents heat to get trap between CPU and heatsink but due to overheating for several months that paste evaporates and you need to apply the new paste and this is a very important and very efficient method to keep the temperature of your laptop in control.
If you want to know which paste you should buy, I recommend a good quality paste like this one. Please don’t buy any cheap ones, they do not do a good job and might not last long.
The average lifespan of gaming VS non-gaming laptops
As you know the factors that affect the lifespan now it is easier to evaluate the longevity of both gaming and non-gaming laptops. Like I mentioned earlier gaming laptops last for about 3 years but non-gaming laptops may last a lot longer if properly managed.
I would say around 10 years would be the minimum lifespan of a non-gaming laptop, the primary reason for that is they do not support heavy tasks, so they do not get overheated easily which was the main reason for the shorter lifespan of gaming laptops.
So, in the end, if you buy a gaming laptop and take proper care of it, you can expect it to last at least 5 years or more. And while it might possibly be able to last even longer for 10 years, your hardware will definitely be old by that point. No matter how high-end gaming laptop you purchase now.
Now, if performance is your concern, you can expect a GPU to perform almost identically for about the next 2 years. After that, you will need to start lowering the settings in order to maintain your desired framerate.
If you take good care of it, you can push its lifespan to 5 years or more. However, keep in mind that past the 4-year mark, some of its hardware will be outdated or may need to be replaced.
Final thoughts
To conclude, let’s go through it once again in brief. The lifespan of a laptop totally depends upon how you handle it. The more you care, the longer they’ll last but still, there is an age for everything and that’s what we talked about in the above article.
If you nourish your laptop properly, you can push its lifespan up to 5 years or more. You should not worry about the future as it is obvious that your hardware will be outdated, no matter how expensive the laptop you purchase.
I hope you got your answer to what you were looking for, if you liked this article, take a moment, and share with your friends those who were getting worried about the lifespan of their laptops. Cheers:)
