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The best laptops for Minecraft

Jacob Roach
By

Minecraft isn’t a demanding game, but you’ll need one of the best laptops for Minecraft if you want to run the game with mods or ray tracing. We’ve compiled six of the top Minecraft laptops, and there’s a machine for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you need a laptop under $600 or a mobile powerhouse that costs over $1,000, you can find a good laptop to buy on this list.

Our top pick is the Dell G3 thanks to its low price and impressive system specs. However, we have several other options depending on the specs you want and money you’re able to spend.

Further reading:

The best laptop for Minecraft: Dell G3

The Dell G3 is all you need for Minecraft plus some. It’s one of the few laptops under $800 that comes with a dedicated graphics card, offering plenty of horsepower for Minecraft and most other games. The G3 balances price, performance, and build quality, making it an easy pick as the best laptop for Minecraft. 

For specs, the base model comes with an Intel i5-10300H, an Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti graphics card, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB hard drive. This configuration blows past Minecraft‘s recommend system specs, so you can expect a frame rate above 60 fps at Full HD.

If you have some money to spare and want to play more demanding games as well, Dell offers a configuration with an Intel i7-10750H, an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid-state drive. That said, we recommend upgrading to Dell’s G5 or G7 line if you can spend a little more. The G5 features AMD Ryzen 4000 processors with Radeon graphics, while the G7 can sport up to an Nvidia RTX 2070.

The Dell G3 may not be the most powerful gaming laptop, but it’s a great option under $1,000. It’s a decent-looking machine with minimal gamer flare (though enough to let you know that it’s a gaming laptop), and it’s surprisingly thin and light considering the hardware inside.

The best laptop for Minecraft with ray tracing: Razer Blade 15

If Minecraft RTX is your speed, you’ll need some serious horsepower to beef up your voxels. The Razer Blade 15 is the best gaming laptop we’ve tested, and the latest models are packed with Nvidia RTX 30-series graphics cards, offering unmatched gaming performance and ray tracing. The Blade 15 is overkill for Minecraft by every metric imaginable, but it packs enough power to give you that beautiful ray-traced lighting.

Although expensive, the Blade 15 is still reasonable considering the specs. The base configuration comes with an Intel i7-10750H processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and a coveted RTX 3060 graphics card. The Full HD display also comes with a 144Hz refresh rate, offering ultrasmooth gameplay. At Full HD, you can expect well above 60 fps with this configuration.

At the high end, Razer offers an RTX 3080, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 4K OLED display. If you want to run Minecraft in 4K with ray tracing, this is the rig for you.

Beyond the power inside, the Blade 15 earns our recommendation with its exceptional build quality and solid keyboard. Razer made some compromises with the design, favoring a thin and light form factor at the cost of increased heat. For Minecraft, though, you’re unlikely to ever have a problem with that.

Read our review of last year’s Razer Blade 15

The best cheap laptop for Minecraft: Acer Swift 3

Acer offers the Swift 3 with several different configurations, and based on that, it could be far from a “cheap” laptop. We’re recommending one of the new Tiger Lake-powered machines, which clock in around $700. Sporting Intel’s latest 11th-gen processors, the Swift 3 can handle Minecraft without breaking a sweat.

Our recommended configuration comes with an Intel i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The processor features the new Intel Iris Xe graphics, which offer enough power for light gaming in a thin and light machine. The graphics chip is integrated with the CPU, which is usually a no-no for gaming. However, Xe has enough power to hold 60 fps in AAA games at lower resolutions and can tear through games like Minecraft. 

The keyboard is a high point, too, especially considering the price, and the battery life is decent compared to other laptops in this price bracket. The Swift 3 isn’t a gaming laptop, so don’t expect top performance across all games, but it packs enough power to run Minecraft and most other games at reasonable settings.

If you want a slant toward gaming, consider the Swift 3 outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 4000 processor. They’re a bit older, so tracking one down is harder than the Tiger Lake models. There’s also the Acer Nitro 5, which is slightly more expensive but comes with a dedicated graphics card.

Regardless of the model you choose, the Acer Swift 3 is an excellent laptop for Minecraft. 

Read our review of the Ryzen-equipped Acer Swift 3

The best small laptop for Minecraft: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a surprisingly small laptop given the hardware inside. The latest model comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor, an Nvidia RTX 3060 laptop graphics card, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch 1440p display with a 120Hz refresh rate. All of that, and the Zephyrus G14 weighs only 3.53 pounds and measures 0.7 inches thick.

That’s remarkable for such a powerful machine. The Zephyrus G14 is easily one of the best gaming laptops on the market, with enough power to run the latest AAA games. It should go without saying, then, that it’s a monster for Minecraft. With the Zephyrus G14, you can run Minecraft at 1440p well above 60 fps, and you can even dabble with ray tracing.

Although a great gaming laptop, the Zephyrus G14 struggles in other areas. It’s a little noisy, which you should expect given the hardware and size, and the keyboard is mushy and prone to missed keystrokes.

Still, it’s hard overstating the value of the Zephyrus G14. If you’re primarily interested in gaming, there isn’t another machine that packs as much power into such a small space.

Read our review of last year’s Asus ROG Zephyrus G14

The best Apple laptop for Minecraft: M1 MacBook Air

Mac users are limited to Minecraft: Java Edition, which is the original version of Minecraft that’s complete with a huge modding scene and massive multiplayer servers. Unfortunately, Bedrock Edition, the version released to the Xbox One and PS4, isn’t available on Mac. Still, Java offers the full Minecraft experience, and it can run on Apple’s new M1 chip.

The latest MacBook Air comes with Apple’s M1 unified chip. The processor, graphics, and RAM all fit on the M1, allowing Apple to move away from the Intel components used in its lineup for years. Although Minecraft was written for Intel processors, the game still runs excellently on Apple’s new silicon. Rosetta 2 automatically translates the instructions for the M1, and you’ll be able to install it for free when you boot up Minecraft for the first time.

As a laptop, the MacBook Air is a treat. In typical Apple fashion, the latest model is thin, light, and built to take a beating, and it comes with one of the best laptop keyboards on the market. The base model comes with 8GB of RAM, an eight-core CPU, a seven-core GPU, and 256GB of SSD storage. If you can spend a little extra, you can get up to 2TB of SSD storage plus 16GB of RAM.

Even with a different version of Minecraft and a translation program, the game runs flawlessly on the M1 MacBook Air. You should get above 60 fps at reasonable settings. You might run into some performance issues with a lot of mods, but that’s to be expected from a laptop as thin and light as the MacBook Air.

Read our Apple MacBook Air M1 review

The best 2-in-1 laptop for Minecraft: Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is the cheapest laptop on this list, and it still comes with enough power for Minecraft. For around $600, you get an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U processor with integrated Radeon graphics, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The 4700U is a monster APU, offering plenty of juice for Minecraft and several other games. That said, it still comes with integrated graphics, so you might struggle with the latest AAA games.

As a 2-in-1, you can flip the IdeaPad Flex 5 around and use it in tablet mode when you’re not gaming. Lenovo offers an optional digital pen, allowing you to easily navigate Windows or pop into applications like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

For working and browsing, the IdeaPad Flex 5 comes with an excellent keyboard considering the price. It’s not on the level of the Dell XPS 13 — a favorite laptop keyboard at Digital Trends — but it rarely gets in the way of typing.

It’s hard to beat the IdeaPad Flex 5 at this price. It can run Minecraft without any issues, with enough headroom to run even more demanding titles. Lenovo also offers an Intel version of the IdeaPad Flex 5, though we wouldn’t recommend it for Minecraft. The 4700U has a better integrated graphics chip, so it can run Minecraft better.

Read our Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 review

Frequently asked questions

Do you need a good laptop for Minecraft?

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get a good laptop for Minecraft. At around $700, the Acer Swift 3 offers plenty of power for Minecraft and day-to-day use, and you can run Minecraft with even less. If you want a good laptop for Minecraft, stick with a machine that includes a dedicated graphics card.

What are the recommended specs for running Minecraft?

The recommended system specs for Minecraft: Java Edition are:

  • CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz / AMD A10-7800 3.5GHz or equivalent
  • RAM: 4GB
  • OS: Windows 10 or MacOS 10.13 High Sierra
  • GPU: Nvidia GeForce 700-series or AMD Radeon RX 200-series with OpenGL 4.5 (excluding integrated graphics)
  • Free hard drive space: 4GB
  • Video memory: 256MB

How do I know that my laptop can run Minecraft?

Most Windows and Mac laptops from the past few years can run Minecraft. Make sure to check your laptop’s specs against the minimum and recommend system specs to make sure it can run Minecraft. If you don’t know your laptop’s specs or don’t know how to compare them, you can use a system checking tool like Game Debate or Can I Run It.

What should I look for when buying a laptop for Minecraft?

When buying a laptop for Minecraft, the most important thing is a dedicated graphics card. Although you can run Minecraft with integrated graphics, the recommended system specs call for a dedicated graphics card from Nvidia or AMD. You don’t need a nice graphics card, though, so you can get by with a GPU from a few years ago.

Otherwise, make sure you have plenty of storage space for any mods you want to install and at least 4GB of RAM.

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