Rising costs of RAM, SSDs, and graphics cards are shifting the gaming PC market, making gaming laptops a more practical entry point for budget-conscious gamers amid hardware shortages and inflation.
For years, the received wisdom around PC gaming has been simple: build a desktop, save money, and enjoy the upgrade path later. That argument is looking weaker by the month. Rock Paper Shotgun says rising prices for RAM, SSDs and graphics cards have pushed even modest gaming desktops into uncomfortable territory, while handheld PCs have also become much dearer, with some models now costing well above £1,000. In that market, a basic gaming laptop is beginning to look less like a compromise and more like the least painful entry point.
That shift matters because the cost of a genuinely capable 1080p gaming machine has crept into the low four figures once a buyer factors in a monitor, keyboard, mouse and Windows licence. HP’s guidance on gaming PC pricing notes that the bill is driven primarily by the GPU, CPU, memory and storage, and that shortages and supply pressures can quickly move the market. PC Gamer has reported that the current surge in RAM and SSD prices is being fuelled in part by demand from AI infrastructure, which is tightening supply across the wider memory market. Tom’s Hardware has likewise reported warnings from system builders that memory and storage volatility is already feeding through to retail pricing.
Against that backdrop, Rock Paper Shotgun’s test of the Medion Erazer Scout 15 is revealing. The laptop uses Nvidia’s RTX 5050 and sells for about £850, or a little less through less reputable retailers, which puts it below the cost of assembling an equivalent desktop once the full shopping list is added up. That does not make it cheap in any absolute sense, but it does make it competitive in a way budget desktops are no longer managing. The comparison is especially awkward for standalone desktop buyers, because even an RTX 5050 build can land around £1,100 once the necessary extras are included.
The Scout 15 is not a perfect bargain. Its Intel Core i5-13420H is already several generations old, battery life is poor, and fan noise becomes intrusive under load. Rock Paper Shotgun also found that the speakers are not strong enough to mask the cooling system, which means most buyers will want a headset. Yet the machine does avoid some of the worst budget compromises. It has 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and a 144Hz IPS screen, which is a more credible specification than the cut-down, low-storage machines that used to dominate the entry level. The panel is not especially bright or colour-rich, but it is adequate for fast-moving games and far better than the bargain-basement displays that once defined this class.
Performance is where the argument becomes clearer. According to Rock Paper Shotgun’s tests, the laptop-grade RTX 5050 sits in roughly the same performance bracket as Valve’s Steam Machine, although the desktop version of the same GPU remains stronger in more favourable conditions. The laptop also supports Nvidia’s newer DLSS features, including DLSS 4.5 upscaling and Multi-Frame Generation, and it handles ray tracing more convincingly than the Steam Machine in the same game settings. In Cyberpunk 2077, Rock Paper Shotgun recorded a higher frame rate on the Scout 15 than on Valve’s machine when both were pushed with ray tracing and upscaling enabled. That does not make the laptop powerful, but it does make it good enough for the kind of mainstream gaming buyers who once would have been steered towards a low-cost desktop.
The broader point is that the hardware market has changed enough to alter the usual advice. HP’s cost breakdown shows why building a PC has become more expensive, while PC Gamer and Tom’s Hardware have described the current memory squeeze as a structural problem rather than a brief wobble. In that context, Rock Paper Shotgun’s conclusion is hard to dismiss: gaming laptops may still be noisy, less repairable and less elegant than desktops, but for newcomers trying to spend as little as possible on a playable machine, they are increasingly the most practical option.
Disclaimer: This content is intended for informational purposes only. Readers are advised to exercise their own judgement, conduct due diligence, or consult a qualified expert before acting on any information provided.
