The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

With autumn upon us and the nights drawing in, it's time to lock the door, turn the phone off, and get down to some serious gaming.

But oh no, your Pentium desktop from the '90s can't play anything more recent than the original Doom! Actually that's still quite a good way to pass the time, but once you've finished it again, take a look at Computing's roundup of the latest and best gaming ultrabooks from some of the biggest brands out there.

First off, we're defining an ultrabook as a laptop which boots from a solid state drive (SSD), which gives you the convenience of fast booting (and OS patching). Most of the devices we've reviewed here also provide a larger traditional hard drive to actually host your Steam collection (or at least the one per cent of it you still play).

We've also included a couple of devices from left-field to perhaps present you with something you might not have otherwise considered, so read on!

Lenovo Legion Y720 - £1,299.99

Full review here

The Legion 720 is an attractive machine - if you like lots of black and red - sporting a metal cover and backlit programmable keyboard (with RGB lighting as an option), but does its performance match its looks?

A glance at its possible specs suggests that it should. Available configurations include the Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card and 6GB of GDDR5 memory - which are the components on the unit we tested. Our unit also boasted a 4K display (minimal screen reflectance and good viewing angles) and a 256GB SSD, with a further 1GB of HDD - which hits the current sweet spot between (almost) instant powering up and down, and affordability.

We ran the latest 3DMark benchmarking test from Futuremark, and the Y720 scored a respectable 3485, which puts it on an even footing with the average modern gaming laptop. So, a decent if unexceptional score.

But benchmarks are well and good, how did it fare with some real-life games? We tested a handful of fairly demanding titles, starting with Forza Horizons 3, at 3840 x 2160 resolution with all settings on maximum - enough to bring all but the most top-end systems to their knees. At these setting the game is not far from photorealistic, and the average framerate of 40 was perfectly acceptable to our eyes. Scaling it back to 2560 x 1600 resolution made little difference to the viewing experience (although again, you'll notice the subtle difference if you're outputting to a larger screen), and pushed the average framerate up to around 48.

Rating: 4/5

Next: Lenovo Legion Y520

The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

Lenovo Legion Y520 - £899

The Y720's little brother falls into the budget category, but you wouldn't know it from its design and materials. Yes, it's the same case as its more expensive sibling but for the money you get a slightly worse screen (HD only) and lower specced guts.

But that's not to say they're in any way low spec. It sports a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, an Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD, and a 2TB 5,400-rpm HDD. And all of that for under £900 at the time of writing.

So far, so speccy, what about its actual performance? It scored 1799 on Futuremark's TimeSpy, with 1670 for graphics performance, and 3206 for CPU. That reveals a lower level of graphics capability than we'd like, but a surprisingly strong showing from the Intel brain at its heart.

Taking Forza Horizons 3 for a spin at 1920 x 1080 resolution and all setting at maximum resulted in a just about acceptable 30 frames per second most of the time, dipping down to around 23 in the dense jungle areas. However, fiddling around with a few settings (lower shadow and water quality for instance) is a simple enough frame rate boosting technique, with little noticeable on-screen effect.

Besides that the keyboard and touchpad are great, the sound's loud and clear, and the battery life middling. But for a budget option, you can't go far wrong.

Rating: 4/5

Next: ASUS ROG Zephyrus

The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

ASUS ROG Zephyrus - £2,799.99

Full review here

There are certain trade-offs you expect when purchasing a gaming laptop. If you want power, you're going to have to settle for something that looks and weighs like a stack of bricks, and makes a noise like a Harrier Jump Jet. Want something sleek, thin and quiet? Buy a whippet.

Until now. The Asus ROG Zephyrus manages to combine a sleek, attractive and lightweight shell with the sort of performance usually reserved for machines that make you reinforce your desk before you risk putting them anywhere near it. And, incredibly, its fans do little more than whisper.

It does this in part thanks to Nvidia's Max-Q technology - basically a set of engineering feats the chip manufacturer has pulled off in tandem with a few laptop manufacturers, which means we no longer have to buy laptops we can barely lift, and turn volumes up to 11 just to hear them over the roar of their own fans. It's all about efficiency, both electrical and thermal, and boy have they cracked it with the Asus ROG Zephyrus.

But then for the £2,799.99 which the model we tested will set you back, you'd hope for something a bit special. Our model included an Intel i7-7700 processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and Nvidia GTX 1080 graphics card - so it's already in the ‘special' category from specs alone.

In terms of benchmarks the machine managed an overall score of 5615 on Time Spy. That puts it very much towards the top end even for dedicated gaming laptops, which is what you'd expect for a high-specced machine running an Nvidia GTX 1080. That score broke down into 5954 for graphics, and 4248 for its CPU, though you're unlikely to care too much about the latter unless you're planning on using it for long duration-Dwarf Fortress games.

We also tested Forza Horizons 3, running at 1920 x 1080 (the maximum resolution the 15-inch screen is designed for), with all settings at maximum. The game was very smooth, and looked beautiful on the screen. Frame rates averaged out around 84, going up to the high 90s in some sections, and briefly down to about 70 in some of the high density jungle roads.

Be in no doubt, it packs more than enough power for all the games of today and no doubt the next few years too.

Rating: 5/5

Next: Alienware 17 R4

The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

Alienware 17 R4 - £2,049

Full Review here

Alienware has built a reputation for producing high-end, lavishly specced but powerful kit. If you're looking at an Alienware machine, the chances are you're not on a tight budget.

And this machine is certainly no exception. If you're hunting for budget gaming, you should probably look away now, because the Alienware 17 R4 is going to set you back over £2,000 for the configuration reviewed here.

So what do you get for the money?

The answer is, quite a lot. The unit we tested here boasted an Intel core i7 7820 HK CPU and an NVidia GTX 1080 graphics card. Both top of the range options providing brains and grunt. A 128GB SSD hosted the operating system (Windows 10 64-bit), with a further 1TB HDD providing the cheap real estate.

Which is all very nice, but that's not really what we meant when we suggested you get a lot for your money. Really there is a lot of ultrabook here. It's 17-inch for a start, which means it's never going to slot neatly into your satchel, but this dwarfs other laptops we've seen with that screen size.

It's also heavy, at 4.42kg, and loud to the point of incredulity. Fan noise is an affliction which largely goes with the territory when it comes to gaming laptops, but this device takes it to a new extreme, partly because of the design choice to shift the heat sinks to the rear. Make no mistake, when under any form of strain, this beast roars.

So, with those issues laid bare, we'd better hope it can pull some pretty sterling performance to compensate. There, we were certainly not disappointed.

Running the Time Spy benchmarking test from Futuremark, the R4 managed a superlative overall score of 6505.

That impressive 6505 broke down into 7073 for its graphics capability, and 4473 for its CPU. In lay terms, that means its CPU is ahead of most of its peers, and its ability to push graphics around a screen is basically unsurpassed by anything short of a Bond villain's wet dream.

To put it simply, you will struggle to find a quicker, more powerful ultrabook or laptop anywhere, and certainly nothing below its price can get close to it.

Our Forza Horizons 3 test ran at 2560 x 1440 resolution with all settings at maximum, and we had a beautifully smooth, at times almost photo-realistic experience. The frame rate was mostly in the mid 80s, dipping briefly to the high 60s in dense jungle roads, but certainly it was well above the range where our eyes could detect even the slightest choppiness.

All in all we were left feeling that the Alienware 17 R4 is a bargain. You really do get a lot for money, in every sense.

Rating: 5/5

Next: ASUS VivoBook

The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

ASUS VivoBook S15 - £899

Full review here

And now for one of our 'left-field' options, as promised.

The VivoBook isn't really marketed as a dedicated gaming machine, but it can manage less demanding titles perfectly well, and could be worth considering for anyone looking for more of an all-rounder.

The 3DMax benchmarks for the VivoBook S15 were disappointing to say the least, getting only 595 for its Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics card. That was crawling along at a depressing 3.7fps most of the time, and scraped a fairly apt score of 666 on Time Spy for a hellish crawl through that test.

The CPU - an Intel i7-7500U clocked at 2.7Ghz, managed 2058, which means the machine is great for anything that doesn't require graphics. So perhaps stacking up 100 Excel tabs, or perhaps playing Dwarf Fortress, if you're that way inclined.

The standard Forza Horizon 3 test was next. The game employs what it calls "dynamic rendering" to fix its own basic graphic options and change others on the fly during the game. Forza rated the VivoBook "low" and pitched a default resolution of just 1280x720 (with v-sync enabled at least), and most other frills turned down.

But we decided to ignore all those, and ramp everything up to max regardless.

Forza bombed back to the desktop after we attempted to up the resolution to the machine's native 1920x1080, and then wouldn't start again without a full reinstall. Messy.

In the end, we let the game have its way, and picked up some sparkling framerates averaging around 17fps on the game's sludgy, barely playable introductory race. Things picked up to a lightning 23fps upon entering a forest, presumably as it required drawing less field distance. It was almost possible to control the vehicle accurately. Almost.

We had a little more luck with DMC: Devil May Cry, which - presumably as it's an HD redux of a game created for the Xbox 360 - ran absolutely flawlessly, hitting 60fps and looking stunning the whole time.

It's worth noting, incidentally, that the version of the machine we reviewed only contained 8GB of RAM, which doesn't feel enough at the best of times, and certainly not for a games machine that's already fighting for breath.

Despite it all, though, apart from being horrendously slow and barely-equipped to play brand new titles, the VivoBook doesn't actually do much else wrong. The 15.6-inch screen is crisp and vibrant, with lovely colours and good blacks. The keyboard, though a little spongy for our tastes, is solid and responsive, and the track pad - while plastic and not glass - is extremely smooth and behaves itself.

Rating: 3/5

Next: NVidia Shield

The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

NVidia Shield - £189.99

Or there's this, a really budget-conscious alternative. The NVidia Shield isn't an ultrabook, let's just get that out in the open now. You won't be using it for emails and web browsing (although technically you can, if you're really desperate), nor does it double as a productivity device.

But if you're looking for gaming, and perhaps a bit of Netflix / Amazon Prime on the side, or just a really convenient way of connecting a computer to your television, then the Shield could be worth a look.

We found it incredibly straightforward to set up, and then very enjoyable to use. The Shield's software has had a significant update since launch (on that note don't expect to use it immediately, there's a decent wait as it self-patches after installation), which has served to tidy up its user experience, following early issues.

Simply pressing the green NVidia button on the well-designed controller switches both it, and your television on, and from there you can either issue voice commands, or use the buttons to navigate between apps.

There are lots of free apps from the Android store, including things like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube for your non-gaming needs, and then a whole suite of paid-for games, including those from new subsciption service GeForce Now. For your $7.99 a month, this service gives you access to a whole load of titles, including things like Witcher 3, No Man's Sky and Just Cause 3, which will be streamed to your device over the web at 1080p.

It works perfectly well, but don't expect ping times to favour the twitchiest of quick-reaction games.

But for a budget way to game on a big screen, it's hard to beat.

Rating: 4/5

Next: Roundup

The best gaming ultrabooks of 2017

Computing rounds up the latest and best gaming ultrabooks and asks which gives you the best bang for your buck?

Roundup

So those are the options, both traditional and non. The Alienware 17 R4 was the most powerful overall, as the Time Spy test revealed.

But what these figures don't reveal is how each machine feels to use, and how much of a pleasure it is to spend time with. Obviously we're in wildly subjective territory here, but the ASUS ROG Zephyrus, once we'd got over its slightly odd keyboard layout, just quite simply made us happy. That's due in no small part to its impressive quietness.

The Lenovo Legion Y720 was similar. Something about it just feels very well designed, and its audio quality was perhaps the best overall.

So, finally, we come to our recommendations.