I'm trying to decide between a gaming laptop with 12 to 16gb gddr6 with expandable ram AND a Z13 or X13 or any other slim portable one which then might be using a eGPU in the future. I would have bought the Z13 of if it had 32gb of ram (yes they sell a version with 32gb but it costs £3K basically). There is a 32gb of the X13 but then I need to make it work via USB4 for the eGPU. I'm trying to quantify for how many years 16gb of ram are enough for gaming at at least high settings. On top of that,also trying to figure out how much the CPU wattage also matters in combination with the GPU's one. I'm inclined towards the Legion recent deals but also thinking that for average Joe gaming and stuff the portable Z13/X13 (with and without the Rog Mobile/eGPUs) are more than adequate for at least 5 years from now..I would have bought immediately the X13 32gb with Ryzen 6 series (since from 6000 onwards it supports "Thunderbolt" like via USB4) if sold together with the Rog mobile rtx 3080 but nowhere to be found...
So..what experts think about my doubts? I'll buy a laptop in 1 month and need to come to my final decision and your help will be useful..
So..what experts think about my doubts? I'll buy a laptop in 1 month and need to come to my final decision and your help will be useful..
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What level of graphics do you require when 'on the move'? If it's not that high (what I'd define 'casual gaming'), then you've quite a choice of laptops.
What level of graphics do you need when stationary?
What's your budget?
Ballpark, I'd say you'll be good for 2-3 years AAA gaming (with little compromise) even with 16GB main RAM. Productivity wise (high res art/video editing, rendering) 32GB is more important. Linus Tech Tips did a video on gaming and ram requirements - look it up. (edited)
Where you are going to struggle is with little glitches and stutters as Windows runs out of RAM with which to cache data, or where it's forced to swap inactive data from RAM to the pagefile, which can make switching apps anywhere from laggy to painfully slow. This, unfortunately, is one of the things that tech review channels (including the likes of LTT, as I see you've been pointed towards) don't seem to realise, as they test configurations using lab-clean conditions, and focusing on FPS, despite memory capacity having practically no impact on FPS, so take videos advising that 16GB or 8GB are enough with a pinch of salt, especially if you're using them to inform the purchase of a system that can't be upgraded.