It’s not often you see a really cheap laptop with an actually decent gaming spec, but this gaming laptop deal on Best Buy is a genuine bargain. For just $599.99, this MSI Thin 15 machine not only gives you an Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU, but you also get an eight-core Intel CPU and 16GB RAM, with this offer saving you $300 on the already-reasonable price of $899.99.
You wouldn’t usually expect to get the best gaming laptop specs on a machine at this price, but the gear in this cut-price MSI machine is surprisingly capable for $599.99. When it comes to gaming, the main draw is that Nvidia GPU, with this budget rig coming equipped with a GeForce RTX 4050, which is based on Nvidia’s latest Ada Lovelace architecture and supports all the latest features, including Nvidia DLSS 3, complete with frame generation to boost frame rates.
That’s the entry-level chip in Nvidia’s current RTX 4000 product stack, but it’s still a huge step from a machine with a CPU integrated into the CPU, with 2,560 Nvidia CUDA cores at its disposal and 18 RT cores for ray tracing. It only has 6GB of VRAM, but that’s just about enough to run games at medium-to-high settings on the 1,920 x 1,080 screen. You won’t be able to run Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing on this laptop, but you’ll be able to run most games at decent settings.
Meanwhile, the Intel Core i5-13420H CPU has a mix of four P-Cores for performance and four power-efficient E-Cores, with a top boost clock speed of 4.6GHz, which again is just enough for most games. We’re also delighted to see 16GB of RAM supplied with this machine, as budget laptops often only come with a weedy 8GB of memory, which gets used up quickly – 16GB is fine for gaming, and enables you to have a few applications open at the same time without grinding to a halt too.
The only key downer of the spec is that you only get a 512GB SSD, which will get eaten up quickly by today’s large game installs, but you’ll still have room to install at least a few of today’s titles on the machine at the same time.
The screen is also a decent inclusion at this price, with a Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 panel, which even has a 144Hz refresh rate. You won’t be able to run the latest graphically-demanding games at high settings at 144fps with this GPU, but DLSS 3 and frame generation will definitely give you a boost, and you should be able to hit 144Hz in undemanding esports titles if you get the settings right.
Basically, this is a surprisingly capable gaming laptop for a price of just $599.99 – that’s a genuine bargain for the components on offer, even if the spec has some limitations. It’s even light and portable, with a weight of just 4.1lb (1.86kg). To take advantage of this deal, you just need to click this link here.
If you’re looking for a slimline machine with a bit more power, then check out our guide to the best thin and light gaming laptops, where we take you through all our current recommendations.
